4 hours ago, Ryan754326 said:

we were led to believe that 70-80% of the population being vaccinated would be enough to get those numbers down to an acceptable level, and end the social restrictions and masks. Nothing “right wing” about it.

At one point I even remember an American politician saying that the pandemic could be over in a month if people would just wear their masks. 
 

You might have been aware that the vaccines wouldn’t neutralize covid completely. I was aware, but was called a pessimist (among others things) for trying to tell anyone or show them the evidence.
The mainstream media sure didn’t make it very clear to the general public. 

 

 

I don't remember that. I remember one politician saying it would be all over by easter is all. I knew only by mid last year that vaccines would likely prevent serious illness. I got my first vaccine in april last year. Prior to that I had no idea if I'd survive long enough to get the vaccination. I had to come back to australia to avoid the virus until i could get vaccinated. It's only in the last month my state had any infections.

9 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

I don't remember that. I remember one politician saying it would be all over by easter is all. I knew only by mid last year that vaccines would likely prevent serious illness. I got my first vaccine in april last year. Prior to that I had no idea if I'd survive long enough to get the vaccination. I had to come back to australia to avoid the virus until i could get vaccinated. It's only in the last month my state had any infections.

What pro-vaccination politicians said about the vaccine never prevented or encouraged anyone from getting vaccinated (and thereby dramatically reducing their chance of serious Illness, hospitalization and death by CIVID).

 

It’s a dead cat argument aimed at distracting from what anti-vaxxers did say that did discourage many (to the cost of their health and life) from getting these safe and effective vaccines. 

11 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

About half of all people are overweight and nobody could presume anything before the vaccines came along. Deaths were out of control. You are trying to rewrite history.

Half of all people where? Certainly not in Thailand or the rest of SEA.
The USA, UK, EU, Canada? sure. Half of the people are old there too.
If western countries, who’s populations are old and fat, had a death rate comparable to many third world countries who’s populations are young and skinny, I think we’d probably have forgotten about covid by now. 

The biggest problem since the beginning has been our reluctance to admit who’s actually at a real risk from this disease, and focus on them, rather than the population as a whole. 
Many of us young healthy people, who had to continue working through the early stages of the pandemic when there was no vaccine available at all, have grown tired of the never ending restrictions on our lives now that the vaccines are available for those who want them, and deaths/serious illness in our age group has been brought down to basically zero. 

2 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

Half of all people where? Certainly not in Thailand or the rest of SEA.
The USA, UK, EU, Canada? sure. Half of the people are old there too.
If western countries, who’s populations are old and fat, had a death rate comparable to many third world countries who’s populations are young and skinny, I think we’d probably have forgotten about covid by now. 

The biggest problem since the beginning has been our reluctance to admit who’s actually at a real risk from this disease, and focus on them, rather than the population as a whole. 
Many of us young healthy people, who had to continue working through the early stages of the pandemic when there was no vaccine available at all, have grown tired of the never ending restrictions on our lives now that the vaccines are available for those who want them, and deaths/serious illness in our age group has been brought down to basically zero. 

Getting back to the topic under discussion.

 

Yes very many people are tired of all this.

 

They can also see very clearly that a small vociferous minority of free loaders have not done their part to bring this pandemic under control.

 

Macron has very rightly identified his priority to help those who are doing their bit in the fight against the virus and not pandering to free loaders.

 

Same as it ever was.

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Get over it already.

 

Tge vaccines have saved countless people from serious illness, hospitalization and death, together with the associated costs in human misery and impact on health service.

 

The vaccines have done this effectively and safely (ad nauseam if you like).

 

Why not focus on the misinformation that has cost lives?!

 

 

Safe and effective procedures don't require 1-billion Baht compensation campaigns, please show respect to the 2,264 families of people killed or permanently disabled by the Covid vaccine.

 

14 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

Half of all people where? Certainly not in Thailand or the rest of SEA.
The USA, UK, EU, Canada? sure. Half of the people are old there too.
If western countries, who’s populations are old and fat, had a death rate comparable to many third world countries who’s populations are young and skinny, I think we’d probably have forgotten about covid by now. 

The biggest problem since the beginning has been our reluctance to admit who’s actually at a real risk from this disease, and focus on them, rather than the population as a whole. 
Many of us young healthy people, who had to continue working through the early stages of the pandemic when there was no vaccine available at all, have grown tired of the never ending restrictions on our lives now that the vaccines are available for those who want them, and deaths/serious illness in our age group has been brought down to basically zero. 

The reason we don't focus on risk is that too many people are at risk. I'm over 65 and quite healthy but my age alone puts me at risk. It simply isn't socially acceptable to discard all us decrepit old useless baggage on society.

 

3 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Credible link to your claim of 2.264 please.

(I made a mistake in typing 100 billion, it's 1 billion and I have amended my post, apologies about that.)

 

Not sure what qualifies as a credible source but here are the articles from The Bangkok Post and The Pattaya Mail.

9 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

 

 

They can also see very clearly that a small vociferous minority of free loaders have not done their part to bring this pandemic under control.

 

This is where your’s and my opinion differ. I don’t think things would be much  different, even if 110% of the world’s population had been vaccinated already. At this point, there’s still too many vaccinated people taking up hospital beds, even if you took all of the unvaccinated out of the picture. 
As far as deaths go, I really don’t care if an anti-vaxxer dies of covid, any more than I care when someone who smoked for 50 years gets lung cancer. The freedom to make poor choices is important to me, and I think it’s worth a few lives in order to keep it. 
I’ve been vaccinated, so I don’t see anti-vaxxers as a threat to my personal health, and I don’t view their unnecessary occupation of hospital beds as being any worse than someone who receives insulin at taxpayer expense, yet refuses to lose weight and change their diet. 
As I’ve indicated in previous posts, I think the anti-vaxer debate has become more political than anything. Thank god - for politicians - that we have them around, otherwise who would they blame when our neglected healthcare systems still failed to keep up with the number of vaccinated individuals using up beds? 

17 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

The reason we don't focus on risk is that too many people are at risk. I'm over 65 and quite healthy but my age alone puts me at risk. It simply isn't socially acceptable to discard all us decrepit old useless baggage on society.

 

I’m not arguing for that. Im arguing for people’s ability to make their own choices when it comes to the risks they take in life. 
The vaccines have been here for a year now. The argument that someone else needs to stay home or wear a mask to protect you is wearing thin. 

Today 19th January 2022 in UK parliament.

Report by 'The Telegraph' newspaper on youtube.

In full: Boris Johnson removes Covid restrictions and faces MPs at PMQs

Lets hope this reaches the Thai government.

2 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

This is where your’s and my opinion differ. I don’t think things would be much  different, even if 110% of the world’s population had been vaccinated already. At this point, there’s still too many vaccinated people taking up hospital beds, even if you took all of the unvaccinated out of the picture. 
As far as deaths go, I really don’t care if an anti-vaxxer dies of covid, any more than I care when someone who smoked for 50 years gets lung cancer. The freedom to make poor choices is important to me, and I think it’s worth a few lives in order to keep it. 
I’ve been vaccinated, so I don’t see anti-vaxxers as a threat to my personal health, and I don’t view their unnecessary occupation of hospital beds as being any worse than someone who receives insulin at taxpayer expense, yet refuses to lose weight and change their diet. 
As I’ve indicated in previous posts, I think the anti-vaxer debate has become more political than anything. Thank god - for politicians - that we have them around, otherwise who would they blame when our neglected healthcare systems still failed to keep up with the number of vaccinated individuals using up beds? 

I really don’t care about your thoughts on your rights to make dumb decisions.

 

What bothers me is your efforts to undermine the rational of science/data based decisions.

 

Gotake your chances with Darwin by all means, but quit encouraging others to join you.

 

2 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Thanks for your response.

 

I’ve since discovered the compensation that you claim undermines the safety of the vaccines amounts to an average of Bht176.7 per family.

 

Serious stuff.

Yes it is very serious stuff indeed.

2 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

I really don’t care about your thoughts on your rights to make dumb decisions.

 

What bothers me is your efforts to undermine the rational of science/data based decisions.

 

Gotake your chances with Darwin by all means, but quit encouraging others to join you.

 

Not sure what you mean by this. I’m not undermining anything. I’ve said repeatedly, on this forum and elsewhere, that vaccines are effective in reducing serious illness and death, and I’d encourage others to get theirs, like I got mine. I just don’t think it should be forced on people, any more than they should be forced to quit smoking, eat better, or exercise regularly. 
If the “vax or die” crowd could just settle down and be happy knowing that they are fairly well protected having had the vaccines themselves, then I’d be on their side laughing at the anti-vaxxers too. 

12 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

I’m not arguing for that. Im arguing for people’s ability to make their own choices when it comes to the risks they take in life. 
The vaccines have been here for a year now. The argument that someone else needs to stay home or wear a mask to protect you is wearing thin. 

Plenty of people are winding up in ICU despite being triple vaccinated. The argument for restricting unvaccinated people won't go away anytime soon unless the virus does.

4 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

Not sure what you mean by this. I’m not undermining anything. I’ve said repeatedly, on this forum and elsewhere, that vaccines are effective in reducing serious illness and death, and I’d encourage others to get theirs, like I got mine. I just don’t think it should be forced on people, any more than they should be forced to quit smoking, eat better, or exercise regularly. 
If the “vax or die” crowd could just settle down and be happy knowing that they are fairly well protected having had the vaccines themselves, then I’d be on their side laughing at the anti-vaxxers too. 

I’m not qualified to address what might be behind someone who has been vaccinated adopting and posting ant-vac messaging,

 

Just now, Chomper Higgot said:

I’m not qualified to address what might be behind someone who has been vaccinated adopting and posting ant-vac messaging,

I am and it's politics.

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

I am and it's politics.

Or psychology 

5 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

So long as you don’t take anyone else with you into oblivion, who cares?!

Right. Who cares? So as long as the unvaccinated aren’t going around coughing in other people’s faces trying to deliberately infect them, then what do I care?
Covid is endemic now, so there’s no escaping it. We all just have to adjust according to how much risk we’re willing to accept. 
Right now there are a lot of unvaccinated people in hospitals taking up resources unnecessarily, but before they came along it was flu patients clogging up the ICUs every winter, and if it wasn’t for them, then history indicates we probably would have scaled back hospital capacity to reduce waste.

Eventually those unvaccinated people will either die, or survive and become immune, so I think it will be a short term problem if the vaccines work as well as is being claimed. 
 

 

Just now, Ryan754326 said:

Right. Who cares? So as long as the unvaccinated aren’t going around coughing in other people’s faces trying to deliberately infect them, then what do I care?
Covid is endemic now, so there’s no escaping it. We all just have to adjust according to how much risk we’re willing to accept. 
Right now there are a lot of unvaccinated people in hospitals taking up resources unnecessarily, but before they came along it was flu patients clogging up the ICUs every winter, and if it wasn’t for them, then history indicates we probably would have scaled back hospital capacity to reduce waste.

Eventually those unvaccinated people will either die, or survive and become immune, so I think it will be a short term problem if the vaccines work as well as is being claimed. 
 

 

Except anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, anti-public health measures people are going about, mingling with others.

 

Some go a bit further:

 

https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/anti-vaccine-protester-spat-at-nanaimo-nurse-rcmp-say-1.5571428

 

 

6 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

I am and it's politics.

Nonsense. Anti-vax thinking was always around. Actress Jenny McCarthy was publicly telling people it caused her Child’s autism years ago, and the media wasn’t afraid to publish her unsubstantiated claims. 
 

Politicians have made covid vaccines political because they need to cover for the fact that they’ve dropped the ball on every play. 

2 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

Nonsense. Anti-vax thinking was always around. Actress Jenny McCarthy was publicly telling people it caused her Child’s autism years ago, and the media wasn’t afraid to publish her unsubstantiated claims. 
 

Politicians have made covid vaccines political because they need to cover for the fact that they’ve dropped the ball on every play. 

You seem to have misunderstood the ability of others to remember that the anti-vaccine/anti-public health measures messaging was coming out of a particular set of politicians long before any accusation of ‘dropping the ball’ was made.

6 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

Nonsense. Anti-vax thinking was always around. Actress Jenny McCarthy was publicly telling people it caused her Child’s autism years ago, and the media wasn’t afraid to publish her unsubstantiated claims. 
 

Politicians have made covid vaccines political because they need to cover for the fact that they’ve dropped the ball on every play. 

The vast majority of the anti vax messaging is politically driven. I have posted articles demonstrating this previously. The number of people genuinely concerned about side effects are miniscule in comparison.

1 minute ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Except anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, anti-public health measures people are going about, mingling with others.

 

Some go a bit further:

 

https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/anti-vaccine-protester-spat-at-nanaimo-nurse-rcmp-say-1.5571428

 

 

I don’t see a problem with mingling, as the vaccinated shouldn’t have much to worry about. We all know by this stage in the game that you can catch covid from a vaccinated person too. People should just take it upon themselves to stay home if they are looking for a 100% positive guarantee of safety. 
 

Spitting on someone, on the other hand, is, and always was a crime, long before covid ever came along. They should be charged and made an example of…because of their actions, not because of their opinions. 
 

By the way, I happen to live on Vancouver island, two hours north of Nanaimo. My hometown just competed a major addition to our hospital a couple of years ago, and my aunt, who is a nurse there, says that everyone knew it would be too small before they began building it. 

Hospital overcrowding is nothing new in Canada. 

7 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

I don’t see a problem with mingling, as the vaccinated shouldn’t have much to worry about. We all know by this stage in the game that you can catch covid from a vaccinated person too. People should just take it upon themselves to stay home if they are looking for a 100% positive guarantee of safety. 
 

Spitting on someone, on the other hand, is, and always was a crime, long before covid ever came along. They should be charged and made an example of…because of their actions, not because of their opinions. 
 

By the way, I happen to live on Vancouver island, two hours north of Nanaimo. My hometown just competed a major addition to our hospital a couple of years ago, and my aunt, who is a nurse there, says that everyone knew it would be too small before they began building it. 

Hospital overcrowding is nothing new in Canada. 

Right, so everyone knew hospital over crowding was a problem.

 

But some (thankfully a minority) still chose and choose to refuse a safe vaccination that is demonstrated to dramatically reduce the probability of they themselves adding to the problem of hospital over crowding.

 

Gotchaya on that.

 

 

The bottom line is IF IF IF everyone had taken the vaccines when they first became available along with recommended boosters hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved, hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations would have been avoided.  Hospitals would not have had to turn away other sick people because they were full of the unvaxxed.  Medical staff would not be stressed to the max working double shifts.  Many economies around the world would have fared much better, business owners and their workers and families would have fared much better.

 

Instead we still have millions of unvaxxed refusing to admit the simple FACT that vaccinations do a very good job in preventing hospitalizations and deaths.  They continue to argue with scientists, doctors, and other experts who have spent decades studying viruses, vaccines, and treating real patients.

 

It is beyond time for the vaccinated majority to call these morons out who continue to allow the virus to spread and mutate, hospitals to be clogged, economies crippled, travel disrupted, all because they are too pig headed to admit they are/were wrong, that all their absurd conspiracy theories are BS, and simply get the damn shots and be part of the solution and not the problem.

At a time when we are still dealing with a variant-infested reality, whenever a vax-vs-unvax thread pops up on this forum, it tells me that things have been rather quiet and someone needs to stick their finger in and stir up the pot, in the progress pushing a button or two - or three. The vaccine dead horse will be propped up and beat back to death again, while the same old vitriolics, fanatic nonsense disguised in medico-politico-socio mis-info/mis-statistics /deflection and spin/ will hit the fan at a blizzard rate.

 

Some folks seem to like the stench of dried old turd and keep going back for more. In the meantime, I side up with Macron "emmerdant" policies. We won't force vaccination on anyone, but private business, government premises (including hospital and school) reserve the rights to add "no-vaccination" to their "no shirts, no shoes, no admission/services" sign. In short, you want to reserve the freedom to not get vaccinated, we therefore reserve the right to not do business with you. No one is forced to do anything they don't want to. Vive la liberte'!

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

The vast majority of the anti vax messaging is politically driven. I have posted articles demonstrating this previously. The number of people genuinely concerned about side effects are miniscule in comparison.

It is now, because it’s been made that way. In the old days it was hippy moms who were worried about vaccines causing developmental issues with their children. Hardly a bastion of the far right.

 

I get you, and I agree it’s become political. Anyone who disagrees with what’s going on is branded a right winger, and when society treats them like outcasts they are pushed further into that box. Those on both sides are making it just about impossible to sit somewhere in the middle of the debate. 
 

I believe that anti-vax sentiment mostly comes form people who rejected the lockdowns and restrictions first, and then rejected what was given to them as the only solution. The right, by definition, claims to be against big government and over-regulation, so it wasn’t hard for a few opportunistic right-leaning politicians to drag those people into their camp. 

With that said, I never understood the connection between Trump and anti-vaxxers. Wasn’t he the one cheering on his “operation warp speed” to get vaccines rolled out faster than ever before? Wasn’t he booed by his own supporters when he endorsed vaccines at one of his own rallies? 
Maybe I just don’t pay enough attention to Yank politics, but I think I’ll keep it that way. 

18 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Right, so everyone knew hospital over crowding was a problem.

 

But some (thankfully a minority) still chose and choose to refuse a safe vaccination that is demonstrated to dramatically reduce the probability of they themselves adding to the problem of hospital over crowding.

 

Gotchaya on that.

 

 

Got me? I don’t know about that.
 

People choose to drink

People choose to smoke

People choose to eat garbage food 

People choose to spend their lives sitting on the couch while doing all of the above, and they’ve only done more of it since they’ve been locked down in their homes. 
 

We’ve always known why we use more resources than necessary on healthcare: Because too many people have refused to do what we’ve always known is required to avoid chronic diseases caused by poor overall health - Eat better, don’t smoke, don’t drink, exercise once in a while. 
 

I doubt the seasonal overcrowding due to flu would have been the problem it was either, if people simply chose to live healthier lifestyles from the start. 

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

Plenty of people are winding up in ICU despite being triple vaccinated. The argument for restricting unvaccinated people won't go away anytime soon unless the virus does.

That’s my entire point. If the triple vaccinated aren’t staying out of the hospital, then why are we still blaming the unvaccinated for all of these restrictions still being placed on society?

 

What good has restricting the unvaccinated done? Omicron didn’t spread around the world in the span of a couple months by stowing away inside the bodies of unvaccinated travelers. They can’t travel. 
 

9 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

That’s my entire point. If the triple vaccinated aren’t staying out of the hospital, then why are we still blaming the unvaccinated for all of these restrictions still being placed on society?

 

What good has restricting the unvaccinated done? Omicron didn’t spread around the world in the span of a couple months by stowing away inside the bodies of unvaccinated travelers. They can’t travel. 
 

The unvaccinated are still the largest proportion of hospitalisations and are overwhelming the system. Delta is also still very much around. People seem to be assuming that omicron has displaced delta. That could take a long time yet. I'm only advocating restrictions on the unvaccinated until all the kids and more people are vaccinated.