atypical_boro
Well-known member
It did happen with Brexit, 100%. People were ridiculed as loons/thick/conspiracists etc, so guess what? They didn't choose to fall in line.
Astra Zeneca vaccine withdrawn
- Thread starter 1finny
- Start date
Colgates_shaving_foam
Well-known member
Yep, and those who voted for brexit have certainly proved to be correct......oh.
My experience was that many brexit imbeciles also turned out to be antivax loons, whoodathought it eh?
I remember during the time of the daily briefings they showed slides of how the death rates of each age group started dropping in the weeks following being added to the vaccination program.
TeaCider
Well-known member
And boy did they prove people wrong!
We're all rolling in the money since that great decision.
atypical_boro
Well-known member
Exactly, so what have we learnt? The 'losers' re Brexit are all of us, not just those who voted for it.
sadgit
Well-known member
My 1st 2 were AstraZeneca, 2nd 2 were Pfizer. I managed to last until 18 months ago to avoid getting covid and it was like a mild flu for a week. Mrs S also had it. I know a few people who have long covid and a few who also died from it. Plus I know of several people who were never vaccinated and never caught it, possibly did and were carriers, like my d*ckhead late 70s neighbours who still had people round all the time. Sometimes, it is based on the individual on how they react to drugs or infections.
Colgates_shaving_foam
Well-known member
I learned that we somehow need to be able to deny people the ability to blatantly lie and spout propaganda, mainly online but in the print media as well.
I also learned that we need teach kids the skills they need to be able to think critically and independently. This will hopefully prevent them from becoming the next generation of brexit voters/antivax idiots.
There are real life impacts of spouting anti-science nonsense.
Whooping cough: Cases up again as five infant deaths reported
There were 1,300 cases of the bacterial infection in March, after just over 900 in February in England.
www.bbc.co.uk
atypical_boro
Well-known member
That's never gonna happen, in any socio-political system.
Jonny_Rondos_Disco_pants
Well-known member
Being able to identify a reputable source would help.
listening to Dr Naomi Wolf and Dr John Campbell is on par with taking medical advice off Dr Fox.
atypical_boro
Well-known member
You're asking for a perfect world and I just don't think its realistic.
Colgates_shaving_foam
Well-known member
Then we definitely need to teach kids how to spot it and question the guff they are being told.
Unfortunately it is too late for many of their incapable of independent thought parents.
Andy_W
Well-known member
People who know least should be less open minded though, which is kind of the point, they're not qualified to be open minded on that topic. Scientists are the most open minded as they test, test, test and prove, prove, prove and then this also gets peer reviewed etc.
Trust the people who do know, and it will prevent self harm of those who don't know, as well as the harm of others.
Same as when you get people who clearly who don't understand stats, sharing stats and making poor conclusions, and then sharing the conclusions. They shouldn't even be making the conclusions in the first place, never mind sharing them, as all this does is cause a feedback loop of terrible understanding, for those who struggle to understand the most. Al whilst everyone else looks on thinking "WTF are this lot doing, why is this guy listening to Bev Turner over the head of the NHS?".
It's like thinks like R rate, confidence intervals, base rate fallacy, relative risk, compounding etc, pretty much every single anti-vax or covid denial post got at least one of those massively wrong, most ticked two or three.
Yet, when on social media (which is the main problem), and things get picked up they don't reply or they divert onto something else. Either they don't want to know the actual truth, or they actively are trying to promote people making choices which put them at greater risk, which is pathetic (and should be criminal).
Corcaigh_the_Cat
Well-known member
Have you not noticed life expectancy coming down?
The lazy acceptance of one readily available form of information over another not so easy to obtain has gone a long way towards ensuring that has happened.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I think people questioning things they're incapable of understanding is the main problem.
Kids (and adults) need to be taught how to apply weight to peoples opinions though, i.e if you need a heart bypass or have had a heart attack, listen to the cardiologist or heart surgeon, not Bev Turner or the guy from Coast.
We certainly need to do more about people knowingly spreading and profiteering from disinformation too. The people doing it are the worst in the world, and the SM companies paying them are just as bad. Monetised channels should get fined for blatantly creating or spreading lies, it's extremely damaging.
It's also dumbing down a group of the population as well, at the same time the majority are greatly expanding knowledge of the truth.
Its absolutely astounding how there were suddenly so many epidemiology and virology experts that appeared overnight. Also at the same time how so many people confused anecdotal data, and actual data.
Hint: I, or my friends wife's, cousin developed this symptom, which I attribute to the vaccine ... is NOT data.
Hint: I, or my friends wife's, cousin developed this symptom, which I attribute to the vaccine ... is NOT data.
Andy_W
Well-known member
The vaccine's haven't saved many lives as they don't have much of an effect when someone already has covid, but instead of lives saved, think of it more like deaths prevented.
Think of it like this, in basic terms:
Say the IFR, infection fatality rate based on healthcare not being overwhelmed, for the developed world, was 1%, then 1% of the world is 80m, and we've had ~7m deaths. So we're ~73m better off. We're not actually 73m better off in real terms as loads of places fudged their numbers mind. Even we fudged our numbers and our monitoring and stats were up there with the best in the world.
But, also, the world isn't fully developed, most of the worlds healthcare is terrible and if that got overwhelmed (or there was none) then IFR can go up many multiples, so it may possibly have been 100's of millions of prevented deaths, if the world had done nothing an "let it rip".
There is absolutely zero doubt that vaccines and social distancing and timing protections prevented the deaths of millions.
Andy_W
Well-known member
It's mad, you had 10% with a loud opinion saying I don't trust science and neither should you, and the other 90% had an opinion which was in line with science saying you should trust it.
Yet, if you had three people in a pub, one person might be giving each of the other two's views the same weight, which is completely crazy.
Jonny_Rondos_Disco_pants
Well-known member
Im just in an argument on facebook, bloke saying it should be pulled as its unsafe. Im asking if contraceptive pill should be pulled as clotting is around 10:10000. This should be interesting.
Andy_W
Well-known member
The definition of something being "unsafe" is laughable, when it actually reduces risk for the general population.
The net benefit on average is absolutely massive, although it does differ with age. There is no age group where the risk is higher for taking the AZ vaccine, than the risk that comes with covid though.
Even if he's 40-49 the risk of death if you catch covid is near 1 in 3,000, the risk of death from the AZ vaccine is ~1 in a million, about the same chance of dying by lightening strike. Anyone has got more chance of being murdered in any month, than being killed by a vaccine.
Ask him if he would be willing to do do some things which would actually be risk averse, like getting in shape, not eating junk or drinking booze etc? Every 250 miles in a car is more risk than any vaccine.