Coronavirus - are you afraid?

[CrownedSun]

Best excuse I ever heard not to get vaccinated was because it gives you autism.

My understanding of this is, there's more evidence of voter fraud than there is of vaccines causing autism.

It's just something anti-vaxxers like to say.

https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/do-vaccines-cause-autism

[Dashenka]

My understanding of this is, there's more evidence of voter fraud than there is of vaccines causing autism.

It's just something anti-vaxxers like to say.

https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/do-vaccines-cause-autism

I think it's just something idiots say. Not just anti-vaxxers. :)

[Haibane]

If you study any Venn diagram you'll see that under "idiots" is a minor subset called "anti-vaxxers".

[Lexandria]

Andrew Wakefield lost his medical licence due to ethical violations, financial conflicts of interest, and numerous procedural errors tied to creating and perpetuating that myth.

[Haibane]

Good.

In the UK in 2017 we were classified by the WHO as having eliminated measles. However now we are no longer awarded that classification as our vaccination rate has dropped from 95% to 87.5%. This is the direct result of the anti-vax conspiracy affecting health. It makes me want to go find where these conspiracy website and FB group owners live and punch them.

https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2019/08/19/measles-in-england/

[TheGlyphstone]

Best excuse I ever heard not to get vaccinated was because it gives you autism.

Best reply I've ever seen to that was this SMBC comic:

[RedRose]

France went from "doc is always right" to an absurd paranoia

Also my mom who has like no social life since my dad passed might have caught corona and it's so angering

[Azuresun]

They've always surrounded us. Now they're emboldened to speak out.

The internet has enabled marginalised and oppressed groups to unite, realise they're not alone and speak out. But some of those groups were marginalised and oppressed for really good reasons.

My understanding of this is, there's more evidence of voter fraud than there is of vaccines causing autism.

It's just something anti-vaxxers like to say.

https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/do-vaccines-cause-autism

The thing is, autism had a very narrow diagnosis for a long time. Autism was Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man at best and "locked in a padded room banging your head against the wall" at worst. Once actual research was put into it and the 80's and 90's, along with the rediscovery of Asperger's research from the 40's and the Internet making it easier for people to compare notes, it was realised that autism was an actual spectrum and that many people never got diagnosed beyond "eccentric" or "that weird guy" because they were able to pass. That was what made diagnoses rise (as a lot of families and people with autism heard about the condition and realised "wait, that sounds familiar!" and saw a doctor about it), but it led to a panic that cases were rising, and vaccines are the usual whipping boy. By the way, at least some anti-vaxxers are pushing and selling "natural remedies" for autism that do much more harm than good.

There needs to be a full-on information war against anti-vaxxers, they will be the biggest threat to public health over the next year or two, and they already have far more traction and credibility than they ever deserved. It's time to shine the lights on them and drive them back under their rocks.

What I hope is that apathy will work against them. Getting grumpy and listening to conspiracy theories about lockdown and restrictions is understandable, because those are things that make your life worse. But hopefully, people will be less likely to get grumpy and conspiracy-minded about something that's promising an end to the whole wretched business.

[Azuresun]

Oh, and addendum: The Weakefield campaign was against the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine, which was supposed to give you autism. I have autism, and I had the single vaccines.

[Skynet]

To toss in my two cents, anti-vaxxers are not arguing in good faith. They're not really concerned about public health on account that they're just as willing to let their own children die of preventable illnesses or subject them to "cures" such as poisoning them with dangerous chemicals. I talk about it more in the Autism thread linked in my signature, but to sum it up they don't actually care for the wellbeing of others in their actions.

Sometimes called anti-vaxxers for short. Historical and contemporary opposition to the use of vaccines can take many forms and motivations, but as of today one of the more popular trends is due to the belief that autism is caused by vaccines. This is coupled with the belief that doctors and healthcare providers are covering up the “facts” for money, as a plot to cripple the populace, or some other conspiracy theory. Sadly it has received mainstream legitimacy by people who ought to know better, such as when Oprah and Larry King gave uncritical platforms to peddlers in the pseudo-science. That the current President of the United States flirted with it for a time only worsened things.

Not only does this misinformation put many people at risk of preventable deaths, anti-vaccination movements unsurprisingly have a strong ableist streak. Many of its advocates sincerely believe that autism is a fate worse than death no matter the form it takes, and that it would be more beneficial for even their own children to die of painful diseases than even risk them getting a “mild” form of autism. For those whose children are autistic, some even go as far as poisoning their own children with dangerous chemicals in the belief that this will cure them. They focus solely on the horror stories, ignoring the many autistic people who are capable of leading successful, satisfying lives. Whether they intend to or not, they are saying that the world would be a better place were we all dead.

[Haibane]

I thought this story worth sharing. Its about the stigma of being declared a super spreader source as well as the pre-judgement that the internet can create, and there are racist overtones as well. I found it a disturbing and moving story with lessons for companies on how to behave when one of their employees suffers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54686672

[Lilias]

To toss in my two cents, anti-vaxxers are not arguing in good faith. They're not really concerned about public health on account that they're just as willing to let their own children die of preventable illnesses or subject them to "cures" such as poisoning them with dangerous chemicals. I talk about it more in the Autism thread linked in my signature, but to sum it up they don't actually care for the wellbeing of others in their actions.

If you look closely at the 'experts' who declare themselves vaccine sceptics, there's always a financial conflict of interest involved. Wakefield had developed his own measles vaccine and was trying to delegitimise the MMR in order to sell his own to the NHS. NaturalNews, one of the biggest antivax hubs in the US, are a health supplement retailer who offer their own 'alternatives', including a herbal combination to cure Ebola (which might still be on their catalogue; the article making the claims certainly was never retracted).

[Haibane]

This is one of those issues that genuinely alarms me: man's greed can be so great that he is prepared to see his fellow men suffer and die so that he can get rich.

[Mechelle]

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, several minutes late, deigned to give the new Tier 1-3 restrictions to operate from December in England.

Only Cornwall, the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly are in the lowest tier 1, while large swathes of the north and midlands, plus Kent, are in tier 3. My own area of Trafford has a rate  which is currently below the national average and s dropping fast, but we are in tier 3. This means that pubs and restaurants have to close in their busiest month of the year, and people cannot go to entertainment venues or watch elite sports, although shops are open.

The government are still going ahead with their plan to relax restrictions over Christmas, when three household can meet together. I don't see how they can possibly reconcile these two policies.

[Haibane]

I think the issue about Christmas is that had the govt. imposed tough rules they would simply have been broken en-masse anyway, so it was a non-starter. The issue is that at the end of such an awful year people really need a day or two to relax.

I also feel that with a million dead across the planet we all simply have to put up with this for a few more months until vaccines are rolled out. Its tough but we just have to suck it up. Economies must be fixed later. I simply don't agree with the Trump method of placing the economy before lives. The devil, though, as always is in the details - can all small businesses access support funds or do some fall into cracks and their owners and employees suffer? Those are the real problems.

If pubs and restaurants shut I really couldn't care less - beyond the overall financial hardship - but there should be financial support in place. I'd much rather sit at home and stare at a wall and be alive than be able to socialise and risk dying. To me its a no-brainer.

When all this horrible mess is over we can rebuild the economy and I am sure there will be thousands of compensation claims and such but I hope it works out. What else can one do but face this in a positive way?

We must face the future which will be very much changed post COVID, there is no question of that. We are living through a primary cusp in social history and afterwards will be different from before. We have to accept that and adjust.

[Azuresun]

This is one of those issues that genuinely alarms me: man's greed can be so great that he is prepared to see his fellow men suffer and die so that he can get rich.

Thing to remember is, that it's only the people at the top who usually directly benefit. Most anti-vaxxers you meet online have just had their heads filled with a bunch of scary stories and convincing-sounding pseudoscience and then been sent out into the world to spread fear and doubt like a....well, virus. And then you get the sadder cases, of people who had something bad happen to them or their child, and reached the conclusion that it was a vaccine.

[Andol]

Eh for me my biggest worry over any vaccine is how quick it has been rushed out, in response to a sickness that hasn't been around that long in the grand scheme of things. So I have started to question is it even safe to take at least the moment without more testing. 

[Missy]

I'm expecting my company to foot the bill of innoculation for myself and many other staff, they've been taking the whole thign pretty seriously

[Haibane]

Over 150 arrests made in anti-lockdown protests in London today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55116470

People gathering in large numbers to protest against mask-wearing and other lock-down laws. I honestly have no sympathy for their cause whatsoever. I think it was a mistake back in August to ease the UK's first lockdown and certainly re-opening schools and universities was a disaster. Our COVID infection numbers bloomed soon after.

[Mechelle]

I do agree that the ending of the first lockdown was very poorly timed, and seemed to be aimed to suit the rate of infection in London, with no regard to its rate and progress in other areas. Words fail me, too, at the timing of the second lockdown, which only began after children had had their half-term school holiday.

Yet now, with the infection falling fast in the north, we are still under ever stricter restrictions, which are not applied in London. For example, the football team I support are playing in London next week, with infection rates of 156 and 284 per 100,000 in the two boroughs. Yet we are the ones under stricter restrictions! How can this be justified?

I also agree that there should be restrictions for public safety but they need to be proportionate and fair. Presumably, London will be moved into a higher tier after the behaviour of the "covidiots" today?

On a more positive note,  government minister Nadhim Zahawi, who seems less incompetent than most of his colleagues, has been placed in charge of rolling out the vaccine.

[TheGrandAdmiral]

I am really worried that my mother stumbled upon one of those wild conspiracy theories on Facebook and she had read the same thing on another site, which can be rather sketchy in that regard, and it got repeated by a couple of people she trusts. It basically says that there is no virus that it is all chemtrails...

I tried to explain to her that this has been going on for years. I was pretty upset and tried to explain to her that those people are being irresponsible and this theory is dangerous and that she should check the hospital areas where they keep the COVID patients and see whether or not there is a virus.

I think it is some sort of denial, trying to make sense of the events, but in this case it is dangerous. Both she and my father are in the risk group (especially my father who has a long list of diseases that makes COVID terminal).

If she persists I am going to ask her whether or not she is willing to risk hers and my father's and by extension my life as it will devastate me, for this...

[Haibane]

There's a couple of interviews online of people who denied the virus existed then had family members die, you might try to find one or two of those for her to read.

I can also recommend a YouTuber by the name of Potholer54. He's extremely good and always lists EVERY source he quotes which are often peer-reviewed scientific papers. He hasn't done a great deal on C-19 but he's done a couple of videos.

I had someone I know well spout some anti-vax stuff the other day and it completely sent my world wonky for a good few days, discovering someone I thought was intelligent and well-educated get sucked into that dangerous nonsense. It can be upsetting so you have my sympathy and support.

[Haibane]

Alternatively see if you can find out who posted that stuff and find other things they've posted. If they are wild conspiracy nonsense too, that might help indicate to her that the source isn't trustworthy. Good luck!

[Oniya]

I hate to say it, but if she didn't get a clue that it was nonsense from 'chemtrails' alone, you may have an uphill battle.  'Chemtrails' is an automatic tell that the person posting it has no clue about reality.

[Lilias]

Everything wrong with antivaxxers, in a single screenshot:



Translation:

- So you're not afraid of what the vaccine RNA will do to your DNA?
- Not at all.
- Why not?
- Because the m-RNA will never enter the nucleus of my cells, where my DNA is. It will remain in the cytoplasm, it will enter the ribosomes, it will give instructions to build the virus' protein spike, it will promptly decompose, and then the protein spike (which in and of itself cannot make me ill) will pass out of the cells, it will be identified by the itinerant cells of my immune system as 'foreign', and they will develop the defences that will protect me from the real virus.
- What did you say, I don't get it.

(It's high school biology, which we all did, not just those taking the equivalent of AP in prep for uni entry exams. But even if you've forgotten the biology, there's nothing arcane in that explanation, you just dumb.)