if you are hesitating to get a Covid-19 vaccination.
Something to think about
Published
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum
A place for civil discussion of the events of the day for Tidewater residents without the limitations imposed by media forums.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
There will be plenty of unvaccinated people in the third world to fuel mutations no matter what we do.
There are many good reasons to get vaccinated but this isn’t one of them.
LikeLike
This isn’t one of them?
Why not? Because someone might want to use your tax dollars to vaccinate people in poor countries? Heaven forbid.
LikeLike
I fully support helping poorer countries get vaccinated, for many reasons
But even with maximum effort a lot of them will remain unvaccinated and that source of mutations will dwarf the number in the US who remain unvaccinated and lacking natural immunity.
LikeLike
“There will be plenty of unvaccinated people in the third world to fuel mutations no matter what we do.”
At least one viral disease – smallpox – has been eradicated globally by vaccination. Worldwide polio cases have been reduced by 99.9% from the start of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. What makes you think that this cannot be repeated with other viral diseases? Especially now with so much refinement in vaccination technology.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am hopeful that polio will follow Smallpox into the fossil record. But remember that it took 300 years to irradicate smallpox
But vaccination is one form of foreign aid I fully support.
LikeLike
“But even with maximum effort a lot of them will remain unvaccinated”…
Why the pessimism? A maximum effort campaign by the richest countries to ensure those in the poorest receive vaccinations is part of being in the global family. Something it appears you do not believe in.
Herd immunity is the goal. Working toward that goal is a herculean task. American exceptionalism, along with that of the other G-20 countries can get us there.
It ain’t about the money; it’s about getting it right.
LikeLiked by 1 person
RE: “There are many good reasons to get vaccinated but this isn’t one of them.”
Propaganda is never a good reason to do anything. The video is obviously propaganda because the substantive argument it makes is an emotional appeal, not a factual or scientific one.
LikeLike
The appeal is entirely factual. This virus cannot be suppressed and possibly dangerous mutations prevented if we continue to let it run wild which is exactly what those people refusing to do their part are allowing to happen.
You seem to be one of those people. If you are, can you explain your reason for not getting vaccinated?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Emotional appeal is how people are sold or not sold on just about anything you do or buy. That is advertising in a nutshell.
Trump used that technique as well as anyone in recent history. It worked for a sizable percentage of the population. (And, like a virus, variants keep popping up even though the originator of the disease is gone. But that’s another story.)
The US sold War Bonds by emotional appeal. A cost-benefit analysis of debt ratios to revenue would not have worked.
The current race to the bottom by the GOP to “fix” (pun intended) election laws is sold on a complete fabrication and emotional appeal. Facts need not apply.
If cars were sold on facts, not a single Corvette would leave the lot.
Now, if the facts are correct in the video, which they seem to be since we are experiencing the variant problem right now, then selling the vaccine is important. Discussing the mRNA technique along with a treatise on how viruses evolve would be a snoozer for most people. So putting the issue into laymen’s terms is the way to go.
LikeLiked by 2 people
RE: “Now, if the facts are correct in the video, which they seem to be since we are experiencing the variant problem right now, then selling the vaccine is important.”
The facts in the video are not correct. Virus mutation is not a good reason to get vaccinated. Dr. Tabor points out one explanation: There will always be populations of unvaccinated people in which the virus continues to mutate. Another is that vaccination itself can accelerate a natural process called “immune escape” in which the virus mutates to a more deadly form.
Keep in mind that the Covid vaccines now in use are effective in a very narrow sense. They don’t prevent infection and spread across the board, so to speak, but they do reduce the severity of symptoms, thus reducing mortality and hospitalization.
For certain populations — the old, the obese, the diabetic, etc. — these benefits alone may be sufficient reasons to get vaccinated. Fear of virus mutation is not.
LikeLike
“Virus mutation is not a good reason to get vaccinated?”
Your opinion.
LikeLiked by 2 people
My valid opinion.
LikeLike
You tend to lack validity on a regular basis. Your high opinion of yourself is detrimental to open minded thinking.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A truly open-minded person would examine my statements and respond to them. Whatever my personal defects may be, they are irrelevant.
LikeLike
I did examine your statements. ALL OF THEM. And I stand by my observation that you have too high of an opinion of yourself.
LikeLike
“My valid opinion”
Your opinion on this subject seems driven by the desire to validate your selfish refusal to get vaccinated. You are grasping at straws to justify your decision.
There is no law of nature that says there will always be a body of unvaccinated people for the virus to grow in. That totally depends on the efforts made by countries like ours to eradicate it. Polio provides one example of what is possible.
The idea that people getting vaccinated accelerates dangerous mutations is pure poppycock. The more unvaccinated people there are, the greater the chances of unfavorable mutations. Period.
You were all for “herd immunity” when the Trump plan was to get there by letting the virus run its course a la Sweden. Now that there is a path to getting there without mass casualties but which requires YOU to do something you are singing a different tune. What is up with that?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Global commerce is dependent on tamping down this viral problem. If the First World is relatively COVID free, who is going to establish trade and manufacturing in the Third World with an epidemic raging there.
You think the cost of fossil fuels rising will starve poor countries because of the economic impact of alternative energy production. Well imagine what a pandemic continuing in poor binational will do.
Not to mention 100’s of millions of refugees.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I did not say we should not help poor countries get vaccine, you need to distinguish between what I say and the straw men Paul attributes to me.
LikeLike
“There will be plenty of unvaccinated people in the third world to fuel mutations no matter what we do.“
No matter what we do. The fact is that the First World has to fund the vaccinations if they want to maintain global commerce.
So the “no matter what we do” has to change to “no matter the cost”. Africa has only vaccinated about 1 1/2 percent. Wealthier nations can make an impact.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Interesting how someone worships the market doesn’t think anything can be done to protect the global market, of which we are a major player.
Horse and buggy thinking at its finest.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, then there is this thought, a sort of Gaia. Covid is the balance answer to the climate change question.
“The Martians had no resistance to the bacteria in our atmosphere to which we have long since become immune. Once they had breathed our air, germs which no longer affect us began to kill them. The end came swiftly. All over the world, their machines began to stop and fall. After all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved by the littlest things which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this Earth.”
Who are the Martians?
LikeLiked by 3 people
American males are from Mars, no?
You make a great point. We either learn to co-exist rather than try to dominate the natural Garden of Eden we live in, or we will go into the museums a million years from now as a failed species along with a host of others.
Intellect may or may not save us, but hubris will surely end our little experiment.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Men are from Pluto.
Women are from Goofy.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Reminds me of the old joke:
The judge asked Mickey Mouse if what he wanted was a divorce because Minnie was mentally ill. Mickey corrected the judge saying: “I did not say that, I said she was f****ng Goofy.” 🥁
(Be sure to tip your waitress.)
LikeLiked by 3 people
I yelled at the wife, “Quick, gimme the newspaper!”
“Here, use my iPad.”
Spider never knew what hit ‘im.
LikeLiked by 2 people