So let me ask you this, OBB, because I value your input. You're one of the most cogent posters here, and that's saying something because this board rocks the palace!

Let's say a person has none of your "reasons." He/she, however, has read the reports that say that statistically, an aggregate 80% of Covid-infected people across all age groups, with or without comorbities, have no symptoms or mild symptoms with no long term effects.* (Millions more infected people have no or mild symptoms and don't get tested, so one can infer the chances of no symptoms or mild symptoms are ostensibly even better than 80%. Further, the fact that not everyone gets infected, far from it, increases favorable odds even more, but we'll let that one slide for now.)

So let's say that person feels that it's not worth getting an unapproved** vaccine for at most a 15% upgrade in his/her chances of an uneventful outcome (the vaccines confer about 95% assurance of no symptoms or mild symptoms). This combined with more and more reports coming in about adverse affects, and death, from the vaccine, but they may not be credible, so we'll let that one slide, too.

Further, let's say s/he is believing Fauci and others when they say that vaccinated people can still carry and shed the virus, and get reinfected. He/she is also relatively young, has no comorbidities and still observes the CDC guidelines. Does the case for vaccination further weaken? (I want to underscore the fact that the science says both the vaccinated and unvaccinated can carry the virus and pass it on, therefore its seems the claim that the unvaccinated puts the population at risk any more than the vaccinated is questionable.)

So is there a defense for the person who has made this cost/benefit analysis and decides to opt out of the vaccine but does so and possibly hinders herd immunity? Asking for a friend, and now that I think of it, are the unvaccinated even hindering herd immunity more than the vaccinated? The unvaccinated may get infected and become immune and contribute to the pool of herd immunity. Also the vaccinated, through no fault of their own, could interfere with herd immunity by getting infected, no?

*More than 80% of people with coronavirus had no symptoms: UK study
**Approved for emergency use only. From https://www.raps.org/news-and-articl...rovals-and-wh: “Typically we think of FDA authorization as meaning that there is data and information that in the agency’s view shows the product is safe and effective for its intended use. For example, to approve a drug, FDA must determine that there is ‘substantial evidence’---consisting of adequate and well-controlled investigations---that the drug will have the effect it is intended to have. An EUA, on the other hand, can be authorized if ‘it is reasonable to believe that . . . the product may be effective.’ The EUA standard is simply a lower standard, and everyone should understand that.”

Do you have any family members working in hospice, respiratory therapy, ICU? Talk to them and get some input and there are Asianthree and Golfing Eagles who posts quite often who is a professional also. But what does real experience have to do with your narrative, right?

What point are you trying to make here, Aces? That health care professionals can support the claims about the severity of the epidemic and the need for vaccination? Or refute them?

Don't you realize you spreading the virus impacts the health of the community? Your individual rights are more important? The entire world is suffering. Its for the good of the whole.

Hi Coffeebean. See my post to OBB today. Still no defense? I respect your opinion either way, but seeing a bigger picture might soften your stance. Possibly. And if not, that's fine too.

No, that isn't a defense. Anyone can read anything on the internet to support what they WANT to do. I can find plenty of "research papers" (needs the quotation marks to emphasize how laughable that is, in context) to prove that vaccines are foolproof, that no one ever died as a direct result of a vaccine, and that the data proves that there will be 100% immunity if everyone is vaccinated.

The fact that you read this somewhere, it not a good or valid reason or defense in favor of vaccination. But you can find it on the internet.

When people say they researched something, on an internet forum, they USUALLY mean "I did a bing/google search and clicked the top 3 responses from the search" or "I skimmed the wikipedia entry" or "I read it on pubmed.

That's not research. I think people have forgotten what actual research is.

But no, reading somewhere that A=True is not a "defense" for not being vaccinated. However, I still acknowledge that they might be confused with what's true and what isn't true, and that would cause them some hesitation. I refer you back to point #1 for that.

You need to read the post to which I responded which in essence states I’m making up the information I shared. Did you know hospitals were reimbursed at a higher rate if the death was diagnosed from Covid. There’s more, perform an internet search for these reimbursements and ventilator usage which now may be associated with higher death rates.

Turn off the TV and get to reliable fact checker sites, do some research.

You say it much better than I

We should be tired of the old "a lot of people are saying" mantra, which never ever has a factual basis, and more importantly turns out to be simply hollow talk.

The tl;dr version of that, Walrus, is that no, determining whether or not you should do what's necessary to prevent being Typhoid Mary, Covid-style, should not be dependent on your preference of statistics resources. We know the vaccine IS effective. Both science AND evidence are in agreement on this.

How long is it effective? Well - so far, it's lasted "this" long. Which is to say, over 7 months. We'll find out how much longer it lasts, as time goes by. If people are still not getting sick next year, we'll know it's lasting at least a year and 7 months. The CDC has already stated that they don't know definitively, and that a booster might at some point be necessary.

What we DO know - without a doubt - that the fewer people who are immune (or made immune via vaccine), the more likely the existing virus is to mutate and become a threat the current immunity can't fight off. That, to me, is the deciding factor. Nothing else matters, to me. I don't think we need a repeat of the last year, any time in our lifetime, or the lifetime of our children, or their children, if we can possibly prevent it.

And we DO know that the more people who are immune (or made immune via vaccine), the less likely the virus is to mutate because it needs a live host in order to do that and it can't have a live host if everyone's bodies (in layman's terms) tell the virus "not today, Satan."

The vaccines are not FDA approved. They are approved for emergency use only. What if, let's say just what if, in the future it's determined the anti-vaxxers made the right choice by abstaining because the vaccine turned out to be unsafe after all? Just a hypothetical, I know, but it could happen. Hydroxychloroquine was approved for emergency use. And let's not forget emergency use of the Swine flu vaccine* so quickly.

*The Long Shadow of the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine 'Fiasco'
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Smart News

| Smithsonian Magazine

This is very true. And most people don't realize that Google, Bing, and other search engines keep track of what you clicked on previously. If you "regularly click on liberal or conservative outlets, then the search engine is going to move those sources to the top of your search results. This results in people becoming convinced they are right because they see so much that reinforces their opinions.

Funny, you can continue to promote “your” unsubstantiated philosophies and disparage other posters. But you cannot take away the rights of American citizens whose health decisions do not affect you without changing this country from a Republic based democracy to some sort of dictatorship.:shocked:

...

"It is true, however, that the government will pay more to hospitals for COVID-19 cases in two senses: By paying an additional 20% on top of traditional Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients during the public health emergency, and by reimbursing hospitals for treating the uninsured patients with the disease (at that enhanced Medicare rate).

Both of those provisions stem from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act."

Hospital Payments and the COVID-19 Death Count - FactCheck.org

Gee, thanks for the advice, but you could have done that.

See, now I don't have to say "people tell me" but say Aces4 told me, fact I already knew it is aside. And I watch very little TV news

Haven’t talked with anyone in those positions, eh? I thought so. In twenty years from now when we’re all dead, there will be much exposed from this saga. Can Covid19 be deadly, absolutely, but not nearly as deadly as has been reported. Families have argued with hospitals saying their loved one didn’t die from the Covid virus but there is no changing what they report.