Thanks mate...it feels like I'm talking to a massive brick wall sometimes but glad some info is getting accepted on here.
I respect your opinion, tho' personally have a different view. However my main issue has always been the second bolded bit...this choice is being legally taken away in Austria and possibly my country Germany. And in UK the unvaccinated are horrendously demonised, which puts social pressures on many of them to get the jab despite their own
weighing up speaking against it.
And as we know, the unvaccinated now effectively include the double-jabbed. Even Boris has changed Javid's tune from 90% of intensive are unvaccinated (
which was wrong anyway), to
90% of hospitalised are not boostered. And Israel have basically
confirmed so.
We already had effective proven treatments: monoclonal antibodies, tho' Regeneron have said similar to the vaccine firms: that their treatment appears less effective against Omicron, and are
working on a modified treatment.
Personally, looking at the data -
only 0.05% of infected ending up in ICU - I think we should declare the virus endemic, focus on protecting the at-risk (for them masks, quarantine during peak waves, recommending vaccines etc) and invest in mass-providing proven treatments for the hospitalised to protect the NHS.
The rest of society should get back to normal...urgently...lest we forget what normal was.
All good mate, i think its been widely publicized the antibody and efficacy of the booster and its antibody wane. Personally i think to much focus goes on antibodies and not enough on T Cell response in protection, which the booster also stimulates.
I tend to agree with you mate, im not an advocate of vaccine mandates, thats not to say im not pro vaccine - i very much am, but in my line of work in health care an area i have in the past got very deeply immersed, is in healthcare ethics ( informed consent being one), human rights and the human rights/legislation in terms of all the afore mentioned. The principal of informed consent, as a fundamental human right is paramount in my opinion, there are many laws internationally and domestically that enshrines and builds safe guards around these rights.. Thats not to say im not pro vaccine - i am, but everyone has a fundamental human right to make what others feel is is an unwise or risky decision, once they have the capacity, within the scope of the law. I believe if we change that it sets a dangerous precedent and scope in the future, to challenge informed consent and human rights. I wouldn't be supportive of Austria's approach, nor what Germany are debating for the reasons i mentioned. Nor vaccine mandates for health care workers. Many would disagree with me there, i know.
Im not sure those figures are indicative mate, as we talked about before sheer volumes outweigh a naked stat like you present. 90% of people in The Uk have had some vaccine, 10% not. So the number of hospitalizations and ICU admission is disproportionately high amongst the 10% of the population on all the metrics as opposed to 90% of the population. We spoke before about a representative sample of 100k of the population vaxed and unvaxed as a better metric for each of the incidences. You also have to factor children as well, who havent had a vaccine yet, thats a huge population of the unvaccinated, while i know pregnant women are also very hesitant to - who under different circumstances would be open to be vaccinated, so i believe that 10% of say active hesitants is far lower - which represents a larger degree of willful instance comparatively to overall %. - if that makes sense.
To be more illustrative, the below is from the CDC - i picked them because of the 60%/40% odd ratio between vaccinated and unvaccinated in the States, which is as close to 50% split we may get in the Western world, the following was found pro rata:
Source:
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status
We need to be very open minded on treatment as you say mate, i remember in the early stages Dex and other steriods were a gift and there are new developments all the time, the great hope in the new year are the antivirals and if effective will make vaccination less polarised - though they are expensive.
This is the thing with so much around Covid debate - it becomes to poloraized, there doesn't have to be camps, i listen to everything, am open minded on everything whether it be opinion, trends or treatments, you weigh it all up for yourself but ultimately people in any role in all of this in humanity are making the best decisions they can, with the best information for what they believe are the right reasons.
