At the risk of making the same flawed argument as my opponents, I’m going to discuss this anyway.
Doubtless you will have noticed stories in the media of people who regretted not having the Covid vaccine as they lay dying. More and more of these have hit the headlines in recent weeks and my response has been the same – these cases are in the headlines precisely because they are rare. Of a population of nearly 70m, the amount of people who declined the vaccine and then went on to become seriously ill or die is statistically insignificant. For the vast majority of people, this illness is much like a nasty dose of flu that does not require hospitalisation.
So, why this?
BBC presenter Lisa Shaw died due to complications from the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, a coroner concluded today.
As with the vaccine regret stories, this is statistically insignificant. Those who have had complications are a small number and those who have died, smaller still. The actual risk – short term – from the vaccines is small. Tiny, even.
So why this?
It’s because it is a documented risk. In deciding whether to go ahead with taking the vaccine or not, it is a matter of looking at the potential risks involved in whichever decision I finally decide upon. I know what the risk of covid is – it is statistically small. Likewise in the short term, so is the vaccine. I do not know what the long term risks are, so without that knowledge, I have decided to take the risk of the disease. But, and it’s an important point, the vaccine is not risk free and this story is a reminder of that.
Look at it this way, if I don’t get the disease and I don’t have the vaccine, my risk is as low as it possibly can be.
Spend a bit of time on twitter and you’d think the majority of people who have taken the vaccine are now dead
Some days it seems like everyone knows at least five people who died or suffered hideous complications and they all have the made up infographics to prove it
Add to that those who think that’s the plan and the new world order is behind it all. It gets tediously annoying
I find my friends always know of someone, not at risk (either fit, young, etc…), who died of covid…
Did they attend the post mortem?
I was speaking to a friend who recently attended a relative’s funeral. “Was it a heart attack, or what?”
“Covid.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did she have any underlying conditions?”
“Well, she was diabetic. They think she was so tired from the Covid that she forgot to take her insulin…”
I just smiled sympathetically because I’m not a dick. But honestly, this is what we’re dealing with.
Since the very start YouTube and other comment threads have been full of ghoulish catastrophiliacs claiming to have known multiple people dying from Covid-19, of mass graves being dug, etc. Did you not notice any of these, or is it just the insane fringe ‘anti-vaxxers’ that have caught your attention?
In just the past week I know of 10 people, neighbours and friends who have COVID despite being fully vaccinated. Some with Pfizer and some with Astra Zeneca. Fortunately none are seriously ill but you wonder what the point is if you are not protected.
To reduce the severity of the symptoms. In that, it has a purpose, but it is not a proper vaccine as it does not give immunity.
The crazy thing is that people who have already contracted the coronavirus and recovered are told that they need to be stabbed too in order to be safe. What on earth for? These people have acquired natural immunity from the virus. They don’t need the bloody vaccines.
It’s almost as if all those years of scientific development never happened. We re back to the stone age and worshipping the sun or whatever.
I have heard our current times referred to as The Endarkenment.
Natural immunity superior to vaccination:
https://unherd.com/thepost/bombshell-study-finds-natural-immunity-superior-to-vaccination/
Well blow me down…
I’m thinking that the inability of the common people to calculate and hence deal with risk has its converse in the urge to buy lottery tickets. When the national lottery started I did some basic sums, I think that, given the odds, your £1 ticket was worth about 0.01 of a penny. Having said that, I think that there is some logic in investing an amount of money that you will hardly miss for the chance of a massive life changing amount of money. Horsey accumulators and placepots make much more sense because the odds better reflect the difference between the amount that you bet and the amount you could win given the actual odds.
Yet, I’ve still to meet anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19 AND actually been unwell enough to attend hospital, let alone died of it.
Anecdotal, but there you go.
Same here. As always the best way to check the weather is to step outside the door; far too many people these days put their faith in what they see on a screen instead of what is actually happening around them. We were the ones without masks in supermarkets; they are the ones cowering under umbrellas in the sunshine.
Same here. I know plenty of people who have retrospectively diagnosed themselves as having had Covid-19, and a couple who have been tagged in testing mania, but no-one who has been seriously unwell or died, or knows anyone else who has. Perhaps we’ve just been lucky.
“More and more of these have hit the headlines in recent weeks and my response has been the same – these cases are in the headlines precisely because they are rare.”
I’m sorry but that’s bullshit. The real reason that these people are in the headlines is because they are ACTORS, hired by the MSM to push the narrative.
https://hugotalks.com/2021/07/17/bbc-covid-man-is-actor-yet-another-actor-hugo-talks-lockdown/
https://hugotalks.com/2021/07/07/gmb-covid-man-is-actor-hugo-talks-some-more-lockdown/
The BBC even stooped low enough to use the death of Lisa Shaw to peddle propaganda.
https://hugotalks.com/2021/07/15/bbc-vaccine-death-husband-interview-hugo-talks-lockdown/
I disagree that the “vaccine” (put in quotes because it neither prevents you from suffering the effects of the disease, nor prevents you from passing it on) is safe. The evidence is gradually creeping out that it is positively harmful. Follow the links in these articles for the original source of the Government supplied figures:
https://voxday.net/2021/08/25/vaccinated-5x-more-likely-to-die/
https://voxday.net/2021/08/18/running-the-aus-numbers/
And you can check the New Zealand governments own figures from their website:
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-current-cases
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-vaccine-data
The propaganda figures simply do not add up or make sense. I believe that I have had Covid last year – chesty cough and a nose that ran like a tap for a month – but do not appear in the “positive” test figures so I would adjust the total number of infections upwards by a goodly amount. Similarly, adjust the deaths down because if someone dies in a road traffic accident and is found to have Covid antibodies, will that be recorded as a covid death? Answer – yes, it has happened around the world.
A survey panel I belong to began doing questionnaires back at the very beginning of the panic. They were weekly for a long time, then eventually became monthly and ceased after ‘Freedom Day’. They sent out email summaries of responses received. One of the questions asked was ‘Do you personally know anyone who has died of Covid-19?’ 20% of respondents answered in the affirmative. The panel members must surely be grotesquely unrepresentative of the general population – that, or they contain a large number of liars. I suspect the latter, as comment threads (especially early on, but with a recent uptick) teem with ghoulish catastrophiliacs claiming to have lost multiple friends or family members.
Wasn’t there an Israeli study recently which concluded that the double vaccinated were 13 (Thirteen! Yikes!) times more likely to catch the dreaded lurgi than the unvaccinated?
I agree with your point that these “covid denier dies of covid” are not interesting due to the size of the population.
The number of celebrities and professional sports people is far smaller and we see more vaccine issues stories than covid issues stories in this population. These are interesting as they are getting in the paper as they are famous not because of covid issues. Once you get into the old fogies this is less true but we all know covid risk is enormously age dependent.
And that’s the point. They, being vulnerable are better off taking the vaccine as long term risks are less of an issue.