Flu shot & COVID vaccine, who is getting it or not?

[bjl584]

Given a choice would you use alcohol 70% hand sanitizer or wash hands with soap and water?

Soap and water is probably best.

I keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in my truck for times that I don't have access to a sink.
(after pumping gas at the gas station for instance)

[disneysteve]

Given a choice would you use alcohol 70% hand sanitizer or wash hands with soap and water?

Hand washing is best. I very rarely use sanitizer even before COVID.

[Captain Save]

On their show Bull****, Penn and Teller had one episode that did an excellent job dismissing the risk associated with vaccines as compared to the consequences of not taking them.

Personally I plan on getting the vaccine as soon as it is readily available. I am not so much concerned about protection from this strand, but from future strands several years down the line.

I think alot of peoples concerns about vaccines in general come out of ignorance.

First, you can't get sick from a vaccine. You will not catch the flu from it. Second, it takes some time for your immune system to process the vaccine. 6 - 8 weeks? If you're exposed in that time you could still catch it. Third, vaccines are not necessarily 100% effective. 85% maybe? Fourth, vaccines are only going to work against the strains they are made for. If they produce a vaccine for A, but the actual virus is B, it probably isnt going to help as much. Lastly, not all vaccines last forever.

This whole vaccine vs anti - vaxx people is ridiculous...


Unfortunately .. everything gets politicized these days but it's a matter of choice .. Some vaccines are riskier than others but they all have their own risk ... Your job is to evaluate the risk vs the reward. The discussion is really about whether or not we get to weigh the risk and make our own choice..

I think someone already addressed this "you can't get sick from vaccine" lie.. if Penn & teller said that .. they're definitely the ones BS'ing.

as far as covid specifically.. I'm definitely not going to be on the front lines of a brand new vaccines... I'll let others be the guinea pig.

[~bs]

This whole vaccine vs anti - vaxx people is ridiculous...


Unfortunately .. everything gets politicized these days but it's a matter of choice .. Some vaccines are riskier than others but they all have their own risk ... Your job is to evaluate the risk vs the reward. The discussion is really about whether or not we get to weigh the risk and make our own choice..

I think someone already addressed this "you can't get sick from vaccine" lie.. if Penn & teller said that .. they're definitely the ones BS'ing.

as far as covid specifically.. I'm definitely not going to be on the front lines of a brand new vaccines... I'll let others be the guinea pig.

People are getting all worked up over the fact that half the population doesn't want the initial vaccine. My opinion is that's a win-win situation... There isn't going to be enough initial vaccine to go around, so it should be going to medical and first responders first, as well as people who most desperately want/need it.

[Snicks]

Since there is no actual Covid vaccine yet, then no I am not getting that. And, I am not interested in taking it as the early guinea pigs. I am not in a high risk category so I would am not interested to take it until it is tested and I see it over some time and distance. Takes time to see the true effects of any new medication , vaccine, etc. For the flu shot, sometimes i get it sometimes not, just depends on how i am feeling about the year.

[bjl584]

I got my flu shot yesterday

[klarose]

My family and I vaccinate but I do not get the flu shot and I will not get a Covid shot. I don't think the risk of a yearly vaccine outweighs the variable and usually low protection that the flu shot gives. Case in point that at my mom's work all her co-workers received their shot and yet over 90% of them still caught the flu... She did not get the flu shot and did not get the flu. Coincidence, maybe, but just a small example. I've had the flu multiple times and I have heart and lung issues. I'll take my chances.

As far as Covid I am not going to take some vaccine that they rushed out and have no clue on possible long term side effects. Besides the point that antibodies as of now don't seem to last very long. I agree that it seems like the vaccine is being pushed/rushed as a political move and I don't trust anything anyone says right now. I mean for real the CDC changes their mind every other day.

My Dr. promotes and pushes every vaccine under the sun and even she is leery of a Covid vaccine. That is enough to scare me.

[ua_guy]

I mean for real the CDC changes their mind every other day.

The CDC has been compromised under this administration. If you follow the chain of events you'll see the director trying to make truthful statements which are shared by experts on infectious disease, and then he gets lambasted by the president or is forced to remove information from the CDC website, or revise statements that have already been made, change course, etc. They already took important data away from the CDC so the white house could massage it and control the reporting of said data.

I'll be seeking the vaccine developed by one of the companies that isn't part of the administration's "fast and loose" program to overlook and ignore protocol on development in order to speed the delivery of said vaccine.

[disneysteve]

I don't know when it happened but we've become a nation of people who think their personal opinion carries more weight than scientific evidence and proven facts. It's really sad. It's a big reason why the US is in the position it is now with COVID, as well as plenty of other issues.

[kork13]

I don't know when it happened but we've become a nation of people who think their personal opinion carries more weight than scientific evidence and proven facts. It's really sad. It's a big reason why the US is in the position it is now with COVID, as well as plenty of other issues.

I point the finger at the internet. People think that they can find answers to everything online, and people will form their beliefs based on whatever blogs or social media posts or trash "news" articles or Russian misinformation that they find (typically, focusing on whatever suits their opinion -- hello confirmation bias). And because they got their information from the fount of all knowledge & truth (the interwebs), they after obviously correct. Because in the words of Abraham Lincoln, "Everything you read on the internet is true."

[disneysteve]

I point the finger at the internet.

The internet is definitely a main cause. It puts every wacky theory on equal footing with actual facts. Do a search and you get a zillion results and most people don't bother to vet the sources. And confirmation bias is a huge problem. If you're the type to doubt reality, you're going to gravitate towards sources that also doubt reality. If you're more discerning, you're going to look to sources that are more discerning and actually do their research and fact-checking rather than just making crap up.

[Snicks]

I don't know when it happened but we've become a nation of people who think their personal opinion carries more weight than scientific evidence and proven facts. It's really sad. It's a big reason why the US is in the position it is now with COVID, as well as plenty of other issues.

Not sure what you are referencing, but there are plenty of opinions in the medical community that vary on a lot of things.

[kork13]

Not sure what you are referencing, but there are plenty of opinions in the medical community that vary on a lot of things.

But many of those varying medical opinions are not peer-reviewed and proven out with sound experimentation protocols.

Not to mention that if it involves a product, there seems to be a never-ending supply of random docs out there of unknown qualification or expertise who will conduct a sponsored "test" of said product, endorse it, then the company can slap a "clinically proven" sticker on there. It's all just marketing smoke & mirrors...

[disneysteve]

Not sure what you are referencing, but there are plenty of opinions in the medical community that vary on a lot of things.

Everyone has opinions on any number of topics. That's normal. The problem is when people start to confuse opinions and facts.

[~bs]

I got my flu shot yesterday

I got mine about 2 weeks ago. Regarding the flu shot, I do think that people should get it, as it's a reasonable precaution, and it is possible to get BOTH flu and covid at the same time. Double whammy.

But I will say that the somewhat ironic thing is that with all the disinfecting, social distancing, mask wearing, etc, it'll likely cause the flu season to be very mild this year, and cause flu deaths to plummet. For anyone that thinks I may be making things up, this is already widely reported. It is already winter in the southern hemisphere, and doctors and researchers have reported cases of flu have absolutely plummeted. A 14% rate going to a 0.06% rate or a 470X reduction in flu positivity from 2019 to 2020 is INSANE. It makes me wonder if many of the precautions we're currently taking with covid should be standard practice. On that note, there's so many things that we could be doing to save lives totally unrelated to viruses that we're not doing that it makes me wonder if our priorities are all skewed. What's the number one killer in the US again? That's right, totally preventable.


https://www.livescience.com/flu-seas...ecautions.html


There's been very little flu activity in the Southern Hemisphere as well. From April through July (during the Southern Hemisphere's fall and winter, or peak flu season), there were only 51 positive flu tests out of more than 83,000 people tested in Australia, Chile and South Africa, for a positivity rate of 0.06%. In contrast, during April through July in the years 2017 to 2019, nearly 14%, or 24,000 out of 178,000 people, tested positive for flu in those three countries.

Initially, declines in flu activity were mostly attributed to doctors testing for COVID-19 rather than the flu. But even when public health officials made renewed efforts to test for flu (and conducted an adequate number of flu tests), there was still "little to no influenza virus" detected, the report said.

The findings suggest that "community mitigation strategies implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19 … appear to have substantially reduced transmission of influenza in all these countries," the report said.