LFHNflightstudent wrote:
Guess what, inlfuenza deaths massively spike during flu season…
I wonder if we will get corona seasons from now on. Then we need an arsenal of vaccines to cope with all the mutations, and each vaccine lasts for 3 months. A rather dystopic future.
This morning’s news here is that 40% of care home staff are refusing to have the vaccine. That will blow any hope to contain this out of the water. These people are among the lowest IQ members of society and probably highly vulnerable to facebook/twatter/etc disinformation, but if they don’t get vaccinated then this becomes hopeless. Apparently there is no way for an employer to make vaccination a condition of employment. It was possible to make it a condition for admission to a school but that was last tested many years ago AFAIK. So I reckon some legislation may be necessary.
As long as the ones in the high risk category takes the vaccine, I don’t see the problem. Without the vaccine, Covid could only be fought collectively. With the vaccine it has shifted to an individual thing. Now it is up to everyone to protect their own health/life. It’s the same principle as protecting each egg, or protecting the entire basket.
I also am not sure I see the problem. This disease is still realtively low risk for the young without comorbidities. The residents will hopefully be vacinnated. The vast majority of older people will hopefully be sensible and be vaccinated. At the rate we are going more young people will acquire immunity than be vaccinated by the time it is their turn.
skydriller wrote:
I think you will find it was more like 3 months and their lockdown was literally the police/army preventing people leaving building with one person per family being allowed out once a week to get supplies – Utility workers did not go home.Try that in any western democracy.
Exactly. That is why the West is still in this mess and the Chinese are out of it. Even 3 months is a lot better than what will now turn into years of crippling economic impairment.
However, the other examples like Taiwan, Australia and NZ amongst them did not resort to army and screwing doors shut, yet they also got the result with strict measures. I’d say those are democracies like we are, albeit with obviously more disciplined population and more determined governments.
To be fair, we almost got there in Spring too, but then opened up way too early and too recklessly. The worst mistake was not immediately going back to spring time shutdown levels when they saw that things are going pear-shaped.
It will be interesting to eventually see how the exact spread went. By now it looks like the pandemic started much earlier as generally assumed and it will be very important to find where it actually started. China is still a possibility but no longer the only one. In Europe, I guess we will find that the focal point was northern Italy from where it spread to Austria and Southern Germany. Skiing tourism did the rest. Then the 2nd wave was triggered by summer travel to places which were unsafe but had no restrictions, as well as ethnical travel into unsafe countries, from where the plague was spread again.
Peter wrote:
. Apparently there is no way for an employer to make vaccination a condition of employment. It was possible to make it a condition for admission to a school but that was last tested many years ago AFAIK. So I reckon some legislation may be necessary.
Basically it will have to become a situation where those who refuse the vaccine will have to be seregated and quite possibly will loose their employment via other means than direct firing over non compliance. There can always be economical reasons to fire staff and replace them with less pigheaded folks.
I guess a lot of “NEVER” screamers now will cave in once they are refused travel on a global base, once that the pre-condition of entering a restaurant, cinema or theater will be to show their proof of vaccination e.t.c.
I doubt very much that you will see legislation to this effect, the politicians are as suspectible if not the source of fake news these days. One side effect of all this is, that it is really very difficult to determine who to vote for in the next elections, as most conservative parties are those guilty of promoting the disease while, at least in Switzerland, the Left parties were more ready to impose strict measures. Seeing the mess that comes out of it, one thing that is brutally clear is that current understanding of democracy actively prevents disease control. This is something which has to be considered in the future.
There is good humour to be had with the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories.
My favourite recent one was the suggestion that Bill Gates has had a good first day controlling Margaret Keenan, aged 90, from Coventry. She has bought a Surface Pro and an Office 365 subscription.
LeSving wrote:
With the vaccine it has shifted to an individual thing. Now it is up to everyone to protect their own health/life.
No, it’s not. Vaccination is part of collective fight against the desease. You can repeat your opinion as many times as you want but that won’t turn it to a fact.
This is how Yugoslavia fought smallpox outbreak in 1972 and that’s the role model how it should be done. Read about the measures, level of massive vaccination for total 174 cases, including 35 deaths.
I think some people have a natural mistrust. You can tell them as many times as you like, it is safe, but there is reluctance over what some perceive as an “inadequately” tested product. As I have said before I trust the vaccine process and would not hesitate, but I guess those who flew the Boeing Max trusted the processes of both EASA and the FAA. As we know many sadly died.
Some of these people will be more likely to receive the vaccine once they see there are very few long term side effects.
For some, trust is built I guess.
There are different routes to “trust”.
This vaccine has been given to a few tens of k of people and with no significant problems. To anyone with a scientific/engineering education, that is a strong evidence of it being safe. Even more so to anyone with a technology/manufacturing background 
Then throw in the history of vaccines which shows any side effects manifesting themselves pretty quickly.
The Boeing issue is not comparable. It remains possible – actually highly probable, looking at how many were sold – that had the plane been sold only to 1st World airlines, none would have been crashed, and perhaps the issue would have been dealt with by some AD, after reports of dodgy behaviour by e.g. Ryanair. Airbus had similar issues over the years but got away with it which is why they have not been publicly gloating about Boeing’s cockup. It is similarly a common thing in manufacturing that you can sell a given defective product to a customer base which for various reasons – unknown to you – has a specific uniformity in the application and the defect never surfaces, and then you sell it into a different application and everybody complains. The vaccine safety study would have avoided these pitfalls if it was done properly, which I am very sure it was.
I would not have been the first in line to have any vaccine, but that is why the safety studies are done.
My favourite recent one was the suggestion that Bill Gates has had a good first day controlling Margaret Keenan, aged 90, from Coventry. She has bought a Surface Pro and an Office 365 subscription.
I think you mean like this 
