COVID-19 thread

[Linguoboy]

This might make sense if it weren't for the fact that when needle vaccines first came out people were rushing to get those than suffer the horrible diseases they were made for. There wasn't really a "fear of the unknown" towards the vaccines.

I don't think that's true. Many people didn't want to take vaccines at all.

Yeah, one glance at the history of the Anti-Vaccination League in the UK will put paid to any notion that antivax sentiment is some recent development.

I guess what's odd to me is that the same sentiment doesn't extend to other similarly invasive procedures. The number of people who are adamantly anti-transfusion or who won't accept IV fluids is far far smaller. (These procedures are even more invasive, actually, since the needle stays in your arm and instead of getting injected with a few millilitres of a substance you're receiving decilitres of it.)

[Travis B.]

I guess what's odd to me is that the same sentiment doesn't extend to other similarly invasive procedures. The number of people who are adamantly anti-transfusion or who won't accept IV fluids is far far smaller. (These procedures are even more invasive, actually, since the needle stays in your arm and instead of getting injected with a few millilitres of a substance you're receiving decilitres of it.)

We see people refusing to get a couple needles stuck momentarily into their arms to give them a very strong likelihood of never experiencing severe symptoms, if they get infected at all, from a disease that has killed hundreds of thousands in the US alone, yet people never seem to think of all the procedures that will need to be done to keep them alive if they refuse vaccination and do get severe symptoms from said disease, and when that does happen, they do not refuse those.

[KathTheDragon]

I'd question attempting to treat anti-vaxxing as a rational position based on, say, the invasiveness of having a needle stuck in your arm. As you point out, this is not a rational basis.

[Raphael]

I'd question attempting to treat anti-vaxxing as a rational position based on, say, the invasiveness of having a needle stuck in your arm. As you point out, this is not a rational basis.

I'm not saying it's in any way a rational position. I'm saying it makes a certain amount of sense on an instinctive level.

[Travis B.]

I'd question attempting to treat anti-vaxxing as a rational position based on, say, the invasiveness of having a needle stuck in your arm. As you point out, this is not a rational basis.

I'm not saying it's in any way a rational position. I'm saying it makes a certain amount of sense on an instinctive level.

But how is getting two shots, four weeks apart, instinctively more invasive than being put on a ventilator?

[quinterbeck]

But how is getting two shots, four weeks apart, instinctively more invasive than being put on a ventilator?

It's not just the invasiveness. The instinctive fear is also prompted by the fact that it's applied population wide (because it's preventative) rather than to individuals who require an intervention for a specific reason (responsive). If someone is unconvinced that the mechanism of mass vaccination is plausible (for most, because they don't understand it) the whole program looks pretty suspicious.

I think overall it comes down to lack of trust, and trust is hard to build. Sensible reasoning can go some way towards it, but it's clearly far from the whole solution.

[Travis B.]

It comes down to people being more afraid of some largely hypothetical at most risk associated with vaccination than a very real and severe risk associated with getting infected while not vaccinated. Somehow I cannot sympathize with people who think like that.

[MacAnDàil]

Trust was built over decades, but now some people put more stock in what some randomer says on Youtube or Facebook than in scientists or doctors.

[hwhatting]

Trust was built over decades, but now some people put more stock in what some randomer says on Youtube or Facebook than in scientists or doctors.

These people were always there - I know persons who have been believing in New Agey things, homeopathy, etc., for a long time. It used to be quirky stuff at which you would shrug or roll your eyes, depending on your temperament, but now it has become a significant public health issue.
At least here in Germany, it's less politicised and the people peddling conspiracy theories vaccines, refusing to wear masks, etc. (the so-called Querdenker movement), are a minority, at most 20-30%; they overlap to a big degree with the voters of the right-wing AfD plus the new-agey parts of the loony left and what used to be the eco-alternative movement.

[WeepingElf]

And sometimes they say the truth without intending to do so: on a park bench, I recently saw the graffito Impfen macht frei, which was of course modelled on the Nazi concentration camp motto Arbeit macht frei - but vaccination indeed brings back at least some of the freedom the virus took from us

[Ares Land]

I guess what's odd to me is that the same sentiment doesn't extend to other similarly invasive procedures. The number of people who are adamantly anti-transfusion or who won't accept IV fluids is far far smaller. (These procedures are even more invasive, actually, since the needle stays in your arm and instead of getting injected with a few millilitres of a substance you're receiving decilitres of it.)

Oh, if you need an IV or a transfusion, nobody's leaving you much of a choice and you're likely not to be very apt to protest!


I think Raphael is right in pointing out the instinctive fear bit. Lots of people are afraid of needles. Then, of course, it gets political. (And some people are very apt at amplifying those fears...)

[Travis B.]

I guess what's odd to me is that the same sentiment doesn't extend to other similarly invasive procedures. The number of people who are adamantly anti-transfusion or who won't accept IV fluids is far far smaller. (These procedures are even more invasive, actually, since the needle stays in your arm and instead of getting injected with a few millilitres of a substance you're receiving decilitres of it.)

Oh, if you need an IV or a transfusion, nobody's leaving you much of a choice and you're likely not to be very apt to protest!


I think Raphael is right in pointing out the instinctive fear bit. Lots of people are afraid of needles. Then, of course, it gets political. (And some people are very apt at amplifying those fears...)

The obvious solution then is not to give people a choice in the first place.

[Ares Land]

For the most part, this seems to work here.
People are very unhappy right now, of course. But outside from a handful of crank nobody will remember in a year. (Or rather, in April: that's when the next elections are.)

[Raphael]

I just got home from my first jab. It's amazing how little you notice needles these days.

[Linguoboy]

I just got home from my first jab. It's amazing how little you notice needles these days.

I was surprised what a tiny needle it was. When I got my first jab, I thought she was still prepping the area.

[Vardelm]

I just got home from my first jab. It's amazing how little you notice needles these days.

I was surprised what a tiny needle it was. When I got my first jab, I thought she was still prepping the area.

The problem isn't the size of the needle and never has been. It's about the power of the chip implant.

[Travis B.]

I feel positively magnetic these days.

[Raphael]

I was surprised what a tiny needle it was. When I got my first jab, I thought she was still prepping the area.

Yes, exactly! Same here.

[WeepingElf]

I did feel the needle - but it was just a little pin prick, just barely noticeable. On both jabs, I had some cold-like vaccination reaction on the next day (not on the day of the vaccination itself), then everything was OK.

[Raphael]

Well, according to my Mom, she felt pretty shitty for a few days in the aftermath of both jabs. Then again, she has an ideological aversion to painkillers, and I haven't, so perhaps I'll be able to handle it better than she did. So far, things are going fine, except that I felt a bit dizzy for a moment a few minutes after the jab - enough that they made me lie down for a moment just to be on the safe side.