I find what some people are saying to be really sad. You aren’t being controlled. If you want to see why this isn’t like flu, just look at Brazil. A lot of the things said above that people “believe” are just wrong, and very dangerous. Sorry, but it is. I don’t want an argument, and I know I’m not going to change your minds, but I really felt it needed saying for anybody else that is reading this. My degree is in human biology, and I’ve been reading all the science about this (not what the papers say, but the actual peer reviewed science). We could actually eradicate this completely, like smallpox, if everyone took the vaccine. That is better than having people die each year like with flu, surely?
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Sorry been asleep, like @KinkyMira I also find reading the above very sad. I know 2 people who have died from Covid, one was elderly, the other was in his 50s with no underlying health conditions.
I have also been working full time throughout though certainly not front line and other than the inability to see my parents my life barely changed until I had a had reaction to the jab which I think made me one of the very lucky ones. Many people’s lives have been devastated by lock down but Covid is not the flu and if it can be wiped out with a vaccine like Smallpox why would you not have it?
The chances of getting blood clots are much higher from taking a combined hormonal contraceptive than from having the Covid jab yet woman are happy with that because they’d rather risk a small chance of blood clots than a high risk of getting pregnant so can see the clear advantage. How can the same not be said for the much smaller chances with the vaccine?
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I’m also for getting the vaccine. Although there’s all the chat about side effects (and I’ve seen how bad they are witnessing others), I’m still for getting it. If it’s going to get us back to normality faster, then I’m all for it.
@Goth_Girl Omg this is EXACTLY the words I was told, also back in January 20’. I took myself to the doctors as I had open sores in my mouth, a rash covering my legs, shortness of breath and basically feeling like something was reaaaaally wrong. I was then blue lighted for potential meningitis. When I got there, I was told it was unlikely meningitis, but a ‘virus’. I was off for 2 weeks and took me about 4/5 months to feel vaguely normal again. If that was covid, I never wish to feel like that again.
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I’ve written and deleted a few posts because confrontation is not my thing, but I can’t stay silent either.
Please understand that in every other pandemic in the world’s history before this one, there was no vaccine, no preventative treatment, and all we could do was isolate infected people and hope that that was enough to stop it spreading. Sometimes, this did in fact work, mostly because travel was slow and not available to most people, and population densities were much lower - but in general, highly infectious new viruses will just keep on going through unexposed populations until every single vulnerable person has caught it and either developed some immunity or died. There is no stopping it. All you can do is slow it down.
Read the histories of the First Nation peoples in the New World when the Europeans arrived, if you want to know what that looks like. They died in their hundreds of thousands, from the common cold, from flu, (and if that wasn’t enough, from being deliberately infected with smallpox).
By the way, Europeans interpreted the sensitivity of indigenous populations to diseases that had become little more than an inconvenience to Europeans (whose immune systems were by then primed to recognise them) as evidence of a kind of European moral superiority - which is completely bonkers, and this attitude is still prevalent today - make no mistake, what is happening in Brazil and India right now is exactly what would also be happening in the US and Europe, if we had NOT put huge resources into vaccine development and vaccinated as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.
Yes, there is some risk associated with the vaccine, as there is with all medical treatments. But some people seem to imagine that they have a choice over whether they will catch COVID-19 or not. They don’t. Some seem to think that a sore arm and a few days of feeling rubbish is evidence that the vaccine is dangerous when actually it is evidence that your immune system has responded to it - and that’s what you actually want to happen!
A small fraction of individuals do experience severe vaccine reactions (like @Peitho, sorry for your awful experience hun),typically as a result of preexisting health issues or dysregulated immune systems. Even for these people, however, vaccination is often medically advised because they are also the ones at highest risk of the severe form of COVID-19.
Human beings are really terrible at accurately assessing risk. I won’t bore you with the details but a lot of research has proved exactly that.
If you don’t want to be vaccinated, that’s fine. Your choice. But don’t base your decision on your neighbour’s bad reaction, conspiracy theories from the internet or your belief that SARS-CoV-2 is a form of flu (it isn’t).
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I’m currently waiting to book my second jab, and will definitely have it when it’s offered, I figure it’s worth having at least some protection than having none at all. My only worry is when we have to start commuting by trains back to the office, before the pandemic my trains, both overground and underground were horribly overcrowded, people disgustingly coughing and sneezing often in my face, I dread returning to this, unfortunately I can’t see this improving at all.
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Sorry but I don’t buy into any of this.
If this virus was THAT BAD - why was everyone allowed to go mixing with others over Christmas for a few days.
Was the virus not active at that point?
The virus has been so bad, that you have to wear a mask going in and out of places. But once you actually go in and sit down, then you can take your mask off and you’re perfectly safe?
If the virus was that bad - why didn’t we do this properly and have a complete lockdown until it has passed, like other countries did.
The virus is so bad, that during most of this time - people have still been able to travel in and out of our countries, spreading this deadly virus.
I don’t believe this ‘virus’ occurred naturally.
It was produced for a reason - and this is why people are dying.
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@Goth_Girl, you can certainly choose not to have it. But do your own risk assessment. Do you think you’ve already had COVID-19? You may have some existing level of immunity if so (We don’t know how long that lasts, but antibody studies suggest it will be less than a year). If your personal level of risk is low (age under 50, no other risk factors), is there anyone at increased risk in your family that you need to protect? Given that when you catch it you will be infectious for 3 days before developing any symptoms, and indeed might not develop any symptoms at all, is your job or other circumstances such that you are likely to transmit the virus to at-risk people?
If you’re comfortable with all of that, stay unvaccinated. After all, you can change your mind at any time.
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I think you may have to factor in that a lot of the choices this government has made during the last year were not the best ones.
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I don’t envy the government and the decisions they’ve had to make.
While I may not agree with all of them, trying to balance risk of infection with the economy and people’s mental health can’t be easy and they’re never going to please everyone 
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I’m not sure it’s meant to be about pleasing people. But realising that the government hasn’t perhaps risen to the occasion may explain a lot of the points @Cupc8kes raised.
Like mixing over Christmas. Was it okay because the virus isn’t that deadly after all, or was it just a bad idea? Same for international travel, Eat Out to Help Out, out patients in care homes, football matches, and so on.
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@Cupc8kes this virus wasn’t ‘produced’. Viruses jump from animals to humans (and vice versa) all the time. It’s what they do.
@Ian_Chimp has it right - decisions made by politicians are just that, political. They don’t always make scientific sense. I agree many of the restrictions were not well thought out, but
what they did was slow transmission just enough to buy us the time to develop treatments and vaccines. The lockdowns and masks weren’t ever going to ‘prevent’ the disease. That’s nonsense.
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So sorry about your Mum @Goth_Girl , I think we can all definitely agree cancer sucks. I’m glad you got to spend some time with her despite 2020.
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Those are excellent questions 
I wish they were asked more often. We don’t yet have definitive answers to some of them as the actual research has yet to be done, but this is what I would expect:
Being vaccinated won’t stop you from passively transmitting virus. That is, if an infected person coughs or sneezes on their hand and shakes hands with you, and you then shake hands with someone else, virus on your hands could still be passed to that other person.
Whether being vaccinated will completely prevent you from being infected or will only reduce the severity of the infection depends on the strength of your own immune response, how long since you were vaccinated, and how many doses you had. Research is still ongoing but so far one dose produces a strong and highly specific response in most people that lasts 3-5 months. The second dose provides much longer lasting immunity, we think for up to a year (because the immune system remembers the previous exposure). Do you need a booster every year to maintain an adequate level of immunity to prevent infection? We don’t know yet. Maybe.
I accidentally hit reply here so I’ll continue in another post.
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I am old enough to have had Measles before there was a vaccine, it was no picnic for me or my brother.
For all you doubters just look at India.
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My birthday discount was 20% not 40% is that right? And how long do I have to use it? Sorry/Thanks 
(Didn’t want to derail the happy birthday thread)
@Very-Ape from memory I think it depends if you’re an unlimited member or not; or it used to - I’m happy to be corrected though!
EDIT: Also from memory I think it’s a month. It’s been nearly a year since I got mine 
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Aaah yeah I thought that might be the case, I’m just not in the cool gang 
ooooh a month is good thank youuu
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We also do not yet know how effective or long-lasting natural immunity is (the sort you get after recovering from a COVID-19 infection). Best guess at the moment is that this natural protection lasts about 5 months, although it could be longer. Vaccination is extremely effective at preventing viremia (live COVID-19 virus particles in the blood). However, some vaccinated people can still carry low levels of live virus in their nasal cavity or airways, even though it doesn’t make them sick. The levels of virus are much lower than in nonvaccinated infected people, but there could still be a (small) risk of passing the infection on.
In this context, halting community transmission of COVID-19 will require 25-50% of the population to be immune at any time.
Yes @WillC people have forgotten just how dangerous measles was - they think the mild infection a few people can still get after being vaccinated is the real thing. Full-blown measles caused permanent deafness, blindness, encephalitis and brain damage in a proportion of the children who became infected. it’s a terrible disease. I am old enough to remember that, too.
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