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Post by SharksFan99 on Aug 18, 2021 17:30:18 GMT 10
News has come out of the US that the Biden administration is looking to rollout booster shots in the coming weeks:
That is all well and good, but I can't help but wonder if is it realistic to expect all those millions of people to seek out a booster shot every 6-12 months? Complacency will set in at some point.
This is partly why i’m hesitant to receive my first dose. Out of the 70%-80% of fully-vaccinated people, you can’t expect every single one of them to consistently keep getting a booster shot each and every year. It’s pie in the sky thinking. The percentage of people who receive a Flu vaccination never remains the same. May 2021 was actually one of the lowest months on record here in Australia in terms of uptake; only 45% of people aged between 18-64 had been vaccinated.
Even if 80% of the fully vaccinated (assuming that 80% of the adult population receives both doses) people went to the effort of receiving a booster shot each year, that’s only 60% of the total adult population. That means that the virus could easily be spread amongst those 40% of people who don’t and that’s a sufficient percentage of the population for the Covid-19 strains to mutate into something that becomes resistant to the vaccines that are currently available.
We could eventually see workplaces making it mandatory for their employees to receive a booster shot annually, but the thing is, not all of the fully vaccinated adult population are employed in the workforce. A significant proportion would either be unemployed or retired. Unless the government makes it mandatory for all people aged 18+ to receive at least one dose (regardless of their employment status), we would be relying on every single one of those unemployed/retired people to make the effort themselves to get a booster shot and unfortunately, not all of them will. Also, there will bound to be people in the workforce who refuse to receive a booster shot every 6-12 months, even if they are mandated to as part of their employment. There will be people who object to it.
I just worry that the vaccination rollout will all be in vein. It will help by reducing the number of hospital cases and *hopefully the number of deaths by covid, but we won’t necessarily be better off. Instead, we will live in a world where lockdowns will still happen (due to anti-vaxxers and people who refuse to regularly receive a booster shot), *potentially more dangerous strains will be circulating in the community, and a huge amount of the population will have lost some of their freedoms. The vaccines aren’t the ‘ticket’ out of this pandemic that most people believe they will be.
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Post by Talira Greycrest on Aug 18, 2021 18:03:24 GMT 10
Almost a quarter of our total population is now fully vaccinated. Unfortunately, due to the utter stupidity of the people who've been throwing illegal parties, Melbourne's lockdown has been extended for another two weeks. The night-time curfew is back and it's back to 'Stage 4' restrictions. Playgrounds, basketball courts, skate parks and exercise equipment are closed. Exercise has also been limited to be with just one other person, plus dependents if they cannot be left at home. Construction limits and essential worker permits have been reintroduced. The people who chose to defy lockdown by gathering for an engagement party last week (six of whom have since tested positive) are expected to be issued with a massive $350,000 worth of fines. Meanwhile, cases in Sydney have skyrocketed. Three deaths and 633 cases in the past 24 hours.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2021 5:10:47 GMT 10
Vaccines could end this if everyone would take the vaccine. Booster shots wouldn't even be necessary in the US if there wasn't extreme evangelical Christian resistance to taking it. This should have been over by now. Since they won't, there's pretty much no hope until some kind of treatment is invented that makes this virus less deadly or new variants emerge that are more contagious but cause less severe illness.
What really sucks is that we're in a position where the rights of anti-vaxxers and religious extremists to spread this plague supersede the rights of people who have taken this seriously from the beginning to return to a normal life.
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Post by Talira Greycrest on Aug 19, 2021 18:19:46 GMT 10
In regards to that illegal engagement party, just heard on the news that the bride and groom along with the bride's parents have all been fined. If people weren't having illegal parties, maybe the lockdown would have ended.
One death and 681 new cases in Sydney over the past 24 hours. 57 new cases in Victoria, most of whom were in isolation for their entire infectious period. Yes, it would be so much better if everyone agreed to be vaccinated, but there's so many people refusing to get it because they're worried about side-effects. You'll get side-effects with any vaccine. Currently, 22.8% of Australia's total population is now fully vaccinated and Victoria will make the Pfizer vaccine available to people aged 16-39 at the end of the month. We'll also be opening more drive-through vaccination hubs.
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Post by longaotian on Aug 20, 2021 9:18:20 GMT 10
So let me get this straight, you're worried that not enough of the population are getting vaccinated, about the virus mutating into more dangerous strains, and lockdowns being likely in the future, yet you're vaccine hesitant yourself?? Theres only one answer for this: get vaccinated! Literally all of the concerns you have will be much, much less likely to be true if as many people get vaccinated as possible.
New Zealand has just been put into a national lockdown due to New South Wales' utterly useless handling of their outbreak which meant infected people came across from Sydney and spread the virus. Maybe if there was much wider vaccine coverage here, such drastic measures wouldn't be needed. But the fact is we aren't at that point yet so a lockdown is required, which only emphasises the need for people to go out and get their vaccines. I've already had my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and am due for my second dose next week. Honestly, I can't wait just to be fully vaccinated and be able to start moving on from this constant state of uncertainty we've been in for the past 18 months.
Go and get your vaccine as soon as you can.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Aug 20, 2021 9:50:48 GMT 10
So let me get this straight, you're worried that not enough of the population are getting vaccinated, about the virus mutating into more dangerous strains, and lockdowns being likely in the future, yet you're vaccine hesitant yourself?? Theres only one answer for this: get vaccinated! Literally all of the concerns you have will be much, much less likely to be true if as many people get vaccinated as possible. New Zealand has just been put into a national lockdown due to New South Wales' utterly useless handling of their outbreak which meant infected people came across from Sydney and spread the virus. Maybe if there was much wider vaccine coverage here, such drastic measures wouldn't be needed. But the fact is we aren't at that point yet so a lockdown is required, which only emphasises the need for people to go out and get their vaccines. I've already had my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and am due for my second dose next week. Honestly, I can't wait just to be fully vaccinated and be able to start moving on from this constant state of uncertainty we've been in for the past 18 months. Go and get your vaccine as soon as you can. It's not so much the vaccines themselves that I am concerned about. It's the fact that if we want to contain the spread of Covid-19 into the future, people will also need to receive booster shots every 6-12 months and you can't expect every fully vaccinated person around the world to do that. People will object to it, it's just fact. So many people out there would be receiving these vaccines with the thought that they will be 100% protected for the rest of their lives and they're being misled. I do agree though that NSW has handled this latest outbreak absolutely terribly. Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, the ACT and now New Zealand, have all had to enter lockdowns as a result of the incompetency of our government. Case in point, i'm still not eligible to receive Pfizer. Our government only announced yesterday that it would be made available to all people aged between 16-39 from the start of next month. It's just so frustrating all-round. Vaccines could end this if everyone would take the vaccine. Booster shots wouldn't even be necessary in the US if there wasn't extreme evangelical Christian resistance to taking it. This should have been over by now. Since they won't, there's pretty much no hope until some kind of treatment is invented that makes this virus less deadly or new variants emerge that are more contagious but cause less severe illness. What really sucks is that we're in a position where the rights of anti-vaxxers and religious extremists to spread this plague supersede the rights of people who have taken this seriously from the beginning to return to a normal life. I can see what you're saying, but recent statistics coming out of Israel have shown that the vaccines lose their effectiveness after six months and there are cases of fully vaccinated people still requiring medical treatment. Even in the scenario that every single American were fully vaccinated, for instance, the protection offered by vaccines would lessen after six months: www.news-medical.net/news/20210806/PfizerBioNTech-COVID-19-vaccine-offers-decreased-protection-six-months-after-second-dose-suggests-Israeli-study.aspxThat's why i'm not convinced that life will ever return to some sort of pre-pandemic normality. Like you mentioned, even if new vaccines were developed which offered greater protection against different strains, there will still be a significant proportion of the population who will refuse to receive their first dose regardless. It's a lose-lose scenario.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2021 11:05:09 GMT 10
There is good news out of Israel on booster shots though.
Eventually evolution will do it's thing. There's also a chance there will eventually be some kind of effective treatment for Covid or a vaccine that completely stops it's spread. The issue with current vaccines and why we're pretty much back to March 2020 is because vaccinated people can catch and spread the disease even if they don't show symptoms or show only mild symptoms.
We just may be waiting until at least the 2030s or 2040s for normality. This is going to be a nightmare decade for us all. Hope everyone enjoyed the 2010s.
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