We have people who are opposed to vaccinations on ideological grounds, on partisan political grounds, on religious grounds, and who think that it undermines their ‘wellness’ attitude to health and believe that various dietary and mental therapies are the key to avoiding the disease and that vaccines interfere with that protection.
But there are those who do not fit into any of those categories and say that they are not opposed to vaccines as such but don’t get vaccinated because they think that vaccines are unnecessary if one lives a healthy lifestyle and do not have the comorbidities that make one a risk for serious illness and death, such as age or being immunosuppressed or having lung ailments. Younger and otherwise healthy people are likely to fall into this category of the unvaccinated.
But that is not a good bet. The virus can still attack you as can be seen by this case in France.
Grichka and Igor Bogdanoff became France’s most famous twins, hosting a TV science and science-fiction show in the 1980s on a spaceship set.
They died of coronavirus within days of each other in hospital, Grichka on 28 December and his brother on Monday.
Aged 72, the brothers had not been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Their friends said they were convinced their healthy lifestyle would protect them and they were admitted to hospital in mid-December.
Although their families did not specify the cause of their deaths, their lawyer Edouard de Lamaze confirmed they had both contracted the virus.
Family friend Pierre-Jean Chalençon said they had left it too late to seek hospital treatment, deciding it was similar to flu. “People have said they were anti-vaxxers but they absolutely weren’t,” he told BFMTV. “Several friends told them to get themselves vaccinated but they felt because of their lifestyle and their [lack of] comorbidity, they weren’t at risk of Covid.”
…Asked why they had chosen not to have the Covid vaccines if they were not themselves anti-vaxxers, Luc Ferry said on Monday: “Like Igor, Grichka wasn’t antivax, he was just antivax for himself.
“They were both athletic, with not an inch of fat, and they thought the vaccine was more dangerous than the virus.”
While this is just a single sad example of people who have far more trust in their bodies’ ability to ward off viruses than is warranted, it should still serve as a warning that the idea that the virus is like the flu and can be dealt with as such is a dangerous myth, although healthy lifestyles may result in milder symptoms and quicker recoveries.
At some point, as the virus mutates, it is likely to become endemic and less lethal and join the ranks of the various flu viruses that circulate all the time, as happened with the Spanish flu a century ago. But we are not there yet.
How can anyone still believe this after the numerous accounts of even relatively young and very fit people (athletes, fitness instructors) dying from the virus is beyond me. The lower probability of dying is still not zero probability.
On the other hand, billions of people got the vaccine and no one verifiably died from it. People really suck at assessing these things.
Look at a picture of those twins and then tell me if you think they have any idea what a healthy lifestyle is. They barely look human with the amount and type of plastic surgery they’ve had (which they claim they did not have). They also published fake science papers and managed to get PhDs from those.
So I think your post should rather say that a couple more grifter quacks died from COVID rather than having any link the a healthy lifestyle.
When people make this “I’m not anti-vaxx, I’m just healthy so I don’t need the vaccine” assessment, they’re also implicitly claiming there’s some sort of risk associated with taking the vaccine. But there isn’t any: any side effects from the vaccine are so rare as to be indistinguishable from background noise in the data. There is literally no downside to getting it, so I truly don’t understand their risk assessment. The only two options are A) the vaccine protects them and is a benefit or B) they have strong immune systems and the vaccine does nothing for them—positive or neutral outcomes. There is NO option C) where it negatively affects them.
These people can say they aren’t anti-vaxx, but they’re liars. As long as they associate any negatives in their risk assessments, they’re dirty liars, anti-science, and dangerous to society.
What the fuck? It has been well known for two years that advanced age is one of the biggest compounding factors in the prognosis of a covid patient. They were 72.
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#1 Charly
I think a single-digit number of people have died from the vaccine, globally, since their introduction; you might remember the news at the time being awash with ‘cytokine storm’ for a few weeks. Obviously a vanishingly rare proportion of all vaccinated people, but not zero.
“Less lethal” does not mean “not lethal.” Influenza has been becoming “less lethal” for over a century, and it still kills on the order of 100,000 people a year in the USA. People tend to not take it seriously, because people are in the habit of calling cases of the common cold “the flu.” Real cases of influenza are no joke.
There’s a reason they go to the trouble of developing a new flu vaccine every year.
@atomjz
Im vaccinated as are my spouse/kids/family -- I even take the flu vaccine BUT I was also the recipient of J&J (under the advice of what you can get is the best vaccine) and was also the friend of someone who was a friend of one of the fatalities due to the blood clotting of J & J. So while very very minimal and no comparison to the actual risk of contracting covid your statement of there is no option c) is incorrect. One of the jokes we used to make (my entire walking group somehow ended up with J &J) is that ordinarily we would never win a lottery with a million to one odds -- but we might win the J & J blood clot one.
Almost all parents I know who had kids in the 5-12 range were worried about possible side effects that could be reported after the vaccine was widely distributed given the small samples use for trials in children.
And almost no one I know has a high level of trust in American institutions or companies -- other than if its their dollars vs your lives/health we know what their choice would be. All of these are not “Anti-vax” sentiments.
If you’re less likely to die from a “vaccine injury” than to get hit by a car enroute to the clinic, then you might as well consider the vaccine to be 100% safe. I mean, how many people give up driving or crossing streets due to the danger of cars? If that level of risk doesn’t keep you off the roads, then the much smaller risk of vaccine side-effects shouldn’t keep you from getting vaccinated.
Also, the J&J vaccine isn’t the only one, so that clotting problem shouldn’t stop anyone from getting another vaccine.
@Holms, I did not catch that. I stand corrected.
Deepak @6:
Everything you say is true. When the pro-vaccine side of the argument is framed as “the vaccine is 100% safe” it’s understandable you might feel forced to point out that this is incorrect. You’re not wrong to do so. Howeve reading that sort of reply, even when you explicitly say it’s not anti-vax and is not meant to be, is how people are edged into anti-vax positions.
What I try and stress is that the statistical number of nasty effects that unvaccinated people suffer from catching covid, up to and including death, completely dwarf the number of effects that people suffer from getting vaccinated. The former are many and the latter are few. And that’s at any age.
Of course there’s a chance one might never catch it, and if some compare never getting covid to exposing themselves to potential side-effects from the vaccine, then they may not want to “take that chance”. What they’re really doing though, even if they don’t realise it, is putting themselves in a horrible kind of reverse lottery, where they hope that they will be one of the few who never contracts it. Statisticallly though, that’s been shown to be a losing strategy.
Agreed with file thirteen: the odds of catching Covid are very, very high. The odds of dying from Covid to the unvaxxed are very, very high. The odds of a bad reaction from the vaccine are very, very low. Millions and millions of vaccines from all the different brands, given all over the world…and the overwhelming side effect is feeling tired-ish for a day.
At their age they would have to be considered at risk.
OTOH, there is this guy:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/04/fit-and-healthy-man-42-from-southport-who-rejected-vaccine-dies-of-covid
Also, this guy.
Me @9:
… one of the few who never *contract it…
On a related note, Novak Djokovic’s self-alleged “exemption” has been rejected, and he will now have to leave Australia or take it to court. Novak, known anti-vaxxer, was coming to Australia to defend his title in the Australian Open (tennis). Turns out “previous infection with the same pathogen” is on the list of reasons that are not considered valid.
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/immunisation-medical-exemptions?context=22436#a2
or take it to court
Pun not intended!!
“They were convinced their healthy lifestyle would protect them”
Tell that to the indigenous people of Central and North America when the Spanish arrived over 500 years ago. They were healthy and strong and were wiped out by the germs the Europeans brought with them. The European colonizers spread disease, bringing germs the natives had never encountered and lacked immunity against. Within five years of coming into contact with the Europeans, 80% of the population were wiped out.
If you have any kind of genetic predisposition to infection, how will a “healthy lifestyle” fix that?
@Raging Bee
I dont think I understand where you are going with your analogy -- if you are indicating that a small risk is acceptable to humans when performing an action then that argument can be made for both pro and anti-vaccine sentiments , especially by those who have been infected , had mild symptoms and recovered, no ?
One of my friends had a severe allergic reaction to Pfizer -- And so had to choose between risking the second dose , Taking J & J where she had happened to be in the higher risk category due to gender and age and not taking it all with the very helpful medical advice of “Uhh its your choice”. Its meaningless really at that time to cite statistics to the person who beat the odds.
@file thirteen
I agree but I think this is a variation of the trolley problem. Catching Covid is something that you do without any choice(as perceived) in the matter -- However taking a vaccine is an active choice. Therefore the lower risk from vaccine somehow outweighs the higher risk of the virus -- Why this is I dont know.
Note for me , its a pursuit of “How to convince people of your position when the facts and reason(vaccine, anti-religion,evolution etc) are on your side” rather than any vaccine hesitancy.
Deepak @18- one of my questions is: how many of the “vaccine hesitant” have had other vaccines? How many have fooled themselves into thinking their motivations are grounded in science, not politics?
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” -Richard Feynman
@DeepakS: “that argument can be made for both pro and anti-vaccine sentiments”
So you don’t understand probability either.
The odds of getting ill from vaccinations are not zero; neither are the odds of getting ill from covid (whether vaccinated or not). That doesn’t mean these three odds are the same. Exactly that’s why that argument should not be made for anti-vaccins sentiments.
This applies even more drastically to the odds of dying.
“a pursuit of “How to convince people of your position””
Not by getting probability wrong in any case.
More unpleasant news. It appears that not even being young, fit, healthy, and double-vaccinated can necessarily save you from Covid.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/james-kondilios-23-dies-after-catching-coronavirus-double-vaccinated-no-underlying-health-conditions-nsw/e00a1bcb-99b5-4644-a86d-8fba06008bb9
@mnbo
Your reading comprehension seems to be worse than my understanding of probability because I don’t see a place where I compared the relative risks of being vaccinated v/s not. Neither did the analogy compare it -- the analogy was based on the acceptance of a risk.