Just how are those who are taking the vaccine doing that for other people?
Everybody who contributes to herd immunity is helping everybody else. The pandemic won't end until a tipping point is reached in which the prevalence of the virus in the community is sufficiently low that even unvaccinated people are unlikely to encounter or contract it.
What you are saying is that it is a moral duty for everyone to get the vaccine regardless of their personal circumstances.
No. What I am saying is that you have a moral duty to get vaccinated unless you have a medical contraindication, and when I say that, I don't mean a self-diagnosis. If all that is stopping you is fear and uncertainty, and you succumb to that and make decisions based on that, there is nothing there to be proud of.
If the shoe was on the other foot and people were asked to do something that that they did not want to do, something that provided no benefit to themselves, in order to help others, you would find out how quickly they would rebel and refuse.
Did you get a rubella vaccine (you may know rubella as German measles)? If so, do you know who you did it for? Not yourself, nor anybody else alive at the time. Do you have children? No need to answer, but if you do, that's who you took it for. Rubella ceased being a threat to you once you were born.
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Rubella is a contagious viral infection best known by its distinctive red rash. It's also called German measles or three-day measles. While this infection may cause mild symptoms or even no symptoms in most people, it can cause serious problems for unborn babies whose mothers become infected during pregnancy."
It is nobody's duty to take the vaccine unless they know they will be in close contact with other people
Can you achieve total isolation from humanity? I think I recall you talking about going to the market, which is more human contact than I've had in over a year until three weeks ago, when I had to go out to receive my first injection of vaccine.
We don't shop because we have access to a service that will shop for us and deliver our purchases to our home, but they do not come inside the house. Their money is already outside waiting for them, where they leave the groceries, and we shout gracias and adios through a closed glass door with everybody masked, going out to wipe down the perishables and bring them in about 30 minutes after they've left. That's the best we could do, but it was enough. Neither of us got sick.
I am hoping to not have to live like that. You seem to suggest that you already do, did so before the pandemic, and will continue to do so after it passes. If so, your circumstances might be unique.
I expect to begin having human contact two weeks after the second shot, but only with small numbers of other vaccinated people at one of our homes, as well as ordering restaurant delivery for the first time in a year. If within a month or two, vaccinated people reentering society more fully than we are doing well, we will likely begin visiting public spaces. If the visit is for longer than it takes to buy vegetables or fill prescriptions, then it will have to be a place that provides protection from other customers that are not vaccinated either by excluding them from entering or sequestering them in remote unvaccinated sections, and preferably outdoor seating.
The vaccine is designed to stop the virus from making you sick.
The virus doesn't prevent infection or mild illness, and it may not prevent spreading virus in those who take it. I had a nice Facebook chat yesterday who chastised me for taking a vaccine that might not prevent infection or transmission after somebody else posted that the vaccine doesn't prevent disease or transmission. I answered, "
I took the vaccine for neither of those reasons, because I know you're mostly correct (the vaccine reduces but doesn't eliminate those until herd immunity is reached), so those couldn't be the reasons, could they? Can you imagine any other reasons to get vaccinated?" Then came this:
- "so you took the vaccine knowing full well you can still catch it?
I bet your 1 of them dopey f****s that put there hand in fires to feel for a leak
why are people taking it if it doesn't work? Doctors and science haven't aclue what there on about tho don't they not
There really aresome stupid people walking this earth
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I didn't feel like telling him what the value of the vaccine was. I knew it would be pointless, and frankly, I'm losing interest in helping such people even if I can.
But you are nothing like this guy, and so I am happy to share with you. The value of the vaccine is in its preventing severe disease and death, not minor illness, which it also does, but not as well. The numbers like "90% effective" apply to the chances of acquiring the virus once fully immunized, which frankly, aren't good enough to expect to avoid contracting this virus unless it disappears quickly, which the news lets you know won't be happening. I expect to get COVID, but probably from contact with an unvaccinated person, since the prevalence of the virus will be nine times higher in such people than in the vaccinated. But that's OK. I can handle a brief, nonthreatening respiratory illness.
The numbers that really count - rate of prevention of severe and lethal disease - are effectively 100%. That's what we should be looking at.
I just saw a story on the news last night (can't find it on the Internet) about an American family of four. She was already fully vaccinated when their children brought COVID home, and everybody became infected. After some prodding by his wife, the man had actually scheduled his first jab, but felt ill and decided to get a COVID test instead, which was positive, so no shot. He was too late.
He nearly died. The kids, who also tested positive, did well, as did the vaccinated wife. They all became ill, but just a mild flu-like illness. He ended up in the ICU. Just an anecdote at this point, but if we see more of this kind of thing, it will reveal the value of the vaccine. It did not prevent her from getting sick while living with three infected people, but it may have saved her life or an ICU visit.
The risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection in fully vaccinated people cannot be completely eliminated as long as there is continued community transmission of the virus. Vaccinated people could potentially still get COVID-19 and spread it to others.
Yes, but the vaccinated person, who cannot prevent acquiring the disease herself, will likely survive. The unvaccinated person she gave it to may not fare quite as well, but that's on him, since he chose to not be vaccinated. He was probably afraid, like the guy in the anecdote above.
It’s not my duty, patriotic or otherwise, to go to war for my country. My country’s working class have been going to war to protect the interests of the ruling classes since 1066, and still the same handful of families own almost all the wealth (much of it squirrelled away overseas to avoid paying tax).
Maybe I should have used the phrase civic duty rather than patriotic.
And I agree that you only have a patriotic duty to defend your neighbors from enemies like the Nazis, but not to promoter or defend the interests of corporations like Chiquita, Dole, Haliburton, and Blackwater. But if we consider a just, defensive war only, do you not feel a duty to those around you to do what you can to help?
