D&D and the rising pandemic

[Dannyalcatraz]

Antivaxers are common enough to cause a statistically measurable negative impact on our vaccination levels, resulting in the re-emergence of clusters of infection for diseases like measles.

That’s problematic.

 

[Istbor]

With respect, I said "common enough to have a particular effect". Do you disagree that this effect is happening? If not, then we are not in disagreement.

Maybe you are assuming that "common enough to have this impact" also means "very common in general"? Because I didn't say that.

No I am fully aware that we have had outbreaks after it was declared eliminated in the US. I happened to have mono right around the time an outbreak in my area was happening. They checked for that initially. Then thought it was strep, then called later to tell me to stop taking the antibiotics because it was mono.

I mean common in that, you can walk down the street, asking 10 individuals their stance on vaccines have have 2 or more say they think they are awful and harmful. (I fully understand that the location of this make-believe street could wildly alter the outcome.)

Maybe the movement has really exploded and I have missed it? I certainly see even that small amount is problematic.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

A Harris poll last June found that 45% of Americans had some degree of "doubt" about vaccines. It's not necessarily full-fledged anti-vaxxery, but it's still a distressingly large amount of pseudo-skepticism nonetheless.

45 Percent of Surveyed American Adults Doubt Vaccine Safety

www.infectioncontroltoday.com

 

[Istbor]

A Harris poll last June found that 45% of Americans had some degree of "doubt" about vaccines. It's not necessarily full-fledged anti-vaxxery, but it's still a distressingly large amount of pseudo-skepticism nonetheless.

45 Percent of Surveyed American Adults Doubt Vaccine Safety

www.infectioncontroltoday.com

Sure, but then this is in there. Making that title a bit, questionable.

Although 55 percent of Americans don't doubt vaccine safety, 45 percent noted at least one source that caused doubts about the safety of vaccination. The top three doubt-causing sources were online articles (16 percent), past secrets/wrongdoing by the pharmaceutical industry (16 percent) and information from medical experts (12 percent).

The survey also asked Americans to choose a statement that best represented their feelings about vaccine safety and efficacy. While the vast majority (82 percent) chose in favor of vaccines, 8 percent selected responses expressing serious doubt. An additional 9 percent said they were unsure.

Many of those that can point to something that gives them doubt about it, still seem to think that the pros outweigh the cons.

 

[Deset Gled]

The survey also asked Americans to choose a statement that best represented their feelings about vaccine safety and efficacy. While the vast majority (82 percent) chose in favor of vaccines, 8 percent selected responses expressing serious doubt. An additional 9 percent said they were unsure.

I was going to say that 82% is still way too low, and that vaccines should be as second nature to people as wearing a seat belt when they're in a car; it's so blatantly easy and important that you should do both without any doubt whatsoever.

Then I did a quick google and learned that about 15% of people don't normally wear seat belts.

I believe it was George Carlin who said "Think about how stupid the average person is, and they realize half of them are stupider than that." And Ron White who said "You can't fix stupid".

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Stop right there. This is factually incorrect. The veterinary world has vaccines to protect against coronaviruses that infect bovines, felines, and canines.

And, over at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, they've had successful phase 1 human trials of a vaccine for MERS-CoV last year.

Coronaviruses are not some weirdly invulnerable beast. The fact is that, before SARS and MERS, there was not much call to develop vaccines for coronaviruses that infect humans, as the worst they usually do to us is produce the common cold. And SARS and MERS, which are deadly, largely stopped being a concern before vaccine research could finish.

Simply put, we haven't really tried all that hard.

Yes, we haven't really had to try hard before to make one. Sorry I miststated that. I believe a correct revision of my statement would be: "We have never made a safe, successful vaccine for a human-effecting coronavirus. We haven't really had to try that hard before."
Here's an article on this topic, it's about a month old, but still contains relevant information: We've never made a successful vaccine for a coronavirus before. This is why it's so difficult - ABC News

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Here's another article about the percentage of Americans that are antivaxxers/don't trust the safety of vaccines:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Even if about 10% of Americans don't get a Covid-19 vaccine, (which current estimates say 20% won't), then in America that's about 33 million people that won't get a vaccine. (66 million in the 20% scenario)

That's nowhere close enough to beat Coronavirus. If between 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 people don't get the vaccine once we have it, Coronavirus isn't going away, especially if we open up schools again.

My guess is that if we get a working Covid-19 vaccine that we will have to force everyone to either isolate until we've beaten it or take the vaccine. We're not beating it unless we all want to and work together to beat it.

 

[Umbran]

Maybe the movement has really exploded and I have missed it?

I don't claim to know. I merely say it is enough to have problematic results. The absolute numbers, or even percentage of the population, is less an issue than their results on public health.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't claim to know. I merely say it is enough to have problematic results. The absolute numbers, or even percentage of the population, is less an issue than their results on public health.

Yes, the exact numbers don't necessarily matter as long as we know the effect it will have on our response to Covid-19. It certainly helps to know how many people won't take a vaccine or don't trust them, but what truly matters is how many people will die if we can't beat the virus.