Yes, that’s right. You can look at current vaccination rates here: It’s nothing close to 100% of the population because all the children under 11 aren’t eligible.
The vaccine is processed out of your body within a few days. There has never been a case of a vaccine causing a side effect that emerged more than six-weeks after the vaccine. You can’t prove it’s impossible, but why worry about something that has never been seen in the history of vaccination? This idea of long-term side effects is a made-up fear, it’s not based in actual medical realities or knowledge of how human immune systems work.
I tell them they are trusting the wrong people for information. The people spreading this vaccine misinformation have been shown to be liars again and again. Why do people keep trusting them instead of the thousands upon thousands of self-sacrificing doctors and scientists, many of them Christians, who are telling them the opposite, that the vaccines are safe and effective?
I work for Wycliffe Bible Translators, and they are also requiring vaccinations. We were given an opportunity to interact with some doctors and nurses if we had questions, (they also told us to consult the Christians and the Vaccine website), and for anyone who won’t get vaccinated, they are being offered support in finding a new vocation. They aren’t messing around.
Thank you so much for your response. The argument I keep getting in return is that said mRNA is a different type of vaccine that we couldn’t possibly know if it will effect us differently, even with all of the people that have already been vaccinated. When I ask them why so many scientists would want to harm so much of the population they respond that the scientists probably don’t know what is really in the vaccine. I feel like I can’t make a compelling enough argument since everything can come back to that.
I think, too, that some people think that all the conspiracies that came out toward the beginning of the virus have started to happen. For instance, when questions arose about the Wuhan lab it seemed dismissed and that if you believed that the virus could have come from there you were crazy. Then NY started to talk about vaccine passports and that was just a conspiracy before, and so were vaccine mandates. I’m not sure how to respond to those questions.
These are great questions. I’m not the best qualified to answer this (maybe Steve and Christy), but here is my reaction.
–Covid conspiracy folks said that someone was responsible for spreading the virus maliciously. In fact, many Chinese believe that American troops spread it intentionally in a parade in China just before the outbreak in Wuhan. There is no evidence for malicious spread in either case.
That is a far cry from saying it could have accidentally escaped from the lab. However, the evidence still points to a nature-to-man jump. On top of that, who cares if it did jump from a lab by accident? There are tons of protocols out there to prevent that–and we know how to do so. It is only conspiracy theorists that say it could have been done maliciously–and no one benefits from that sort of a thing.
–I didn’t think that there were going to be mandates for the passport idea, either, but you can see that as we were not able to get Covid under control, and more than 600,000 people have died–why mandating a passport in crowded situations is a good idea. It’s not, however, what the conspiracy theorists think–it’s not for control. In fact, most government folks that follow the scientists seem to have been in danger of losing their positions, not gaining power. A health department official in our area was nearly run off the road by an anti-masker (as @Kathryn_Applegatewrote). I honor those wise leaders who put their careers at risk for making unpopular decisions.
Great question, again. @glipsnort and @pevaquark have weighed in on this before, but our bodies make mRNA all the time–to make proteins–and mRNA goes away in a few hours. The proteins are just the antigens we need for the vaccine, as in any case. There’s no scientific reason this should cause any problem down the road. They can explain this better than I. Thanks.
Not only do our bodies make mRNA all the time, but when we’re infected with a virus our bodies make viral mRNA and viral proteins. If the mRNA in a vaccine is going to hurt you, the mRNA for the same protein is going to hurt you when you get infected with SARS-CoV-2 – plus all the viral mRNAs that aren’t included in the vaccine.
It’s true that we haven’t used mRNA vaccines before, but it’s also true that we have a very good idea of how mRNA works – it’s central to molecular biology. And as I said above, if viral mRNA is really a threat, you should want to be vaccinated, since the alternative is being infected by the virus and having your body flooded with a whole bunch of viral mRNAs.
Note that this argument is inconsistent with the previous one. If we don’t know what’s in the vaccine, then we don’t know that it’s mRNA. It’s also not really an argument: it’s raving, la-la land paranoia. If there’s a conspiracy so vast and so effective that the world’s scientists don’t know what’s in the vaccine they’re studying and having injected into their own bodies, then no one can know anything about anything. Who really knows what’s in your breakfast cereal or in your tea bag? And if the conspiracy is so vast and so effective, how come some random guy on the internet knows the truth?
To me, the mRNA is not an issue, but I wonder what the effect of developing antibodies to a protein so similar to those in our vascular regulation system is going to do. Of course, the vaccine only does what infection does in massive doses, so it is not really just a vaccine concern, but rather generalized to the disease itself. Personally, my wife who had Pfizer, is getting her booster this week, I had Moderna, so am waiting until that is approved.
I’m with Kaiser healthcare so I got Pfizer like your wife. I just boosted yesterday. Being over 65 and having had my second dose of the vaccine in February it was easier to get the booster by making an appointment with a local drugstore chain, Walgreens, than to get it through KP. But my wife beat me to it since even though she had gotten the Moderna vaccine she has an immunosuppressant condition which warranted giving her another dose of Moderna, though not one developed expressly as a booster. Neither she nor I thought she had such a condition but the pharmacist at our local Target store mentioned it while she was picking up something else and gave it to her then and there.
Thank you. I’m just wondering about the conspiracies though. It seems like there were conspiracies about people being forced to take the vaccine and that is true now with the mandate. The CDC does seem to have changed guidelines. In Australia it seems really scary right now and like their government is taking away rights. I’ve heard of conspiracies about being taken to camps before and now that’s seemingly what is happening in Australia.
I really want to thank everybody for answering me. The person that had these concerns is someone extremely close to me and I want to guide them but it’s challenging.
If there have been 700,000 deaths within the US and I’m reading this information from the CDC right, heart disease in 2019 killed just about that many.
Can anyone shed light on why the flu numbers were down last year?
Are any of you worried about the government overreaching and possibly taking away our rights and religious freedoms, or I know this sounds a little wild, but putting anyone who is unvaccinated or exposed in a quarantine camp?
True, but you don’t catch heart disease, it develops over time, and susceptibility to it is part of normal aging. It’s comparing apples and oranges to compare diseases that are essentially the breakdown of human body systems over time and diseases caused by pathogens.
Social distancing, frequent hand-washing, having children out of school, and mask-wearing all prevent the spread of flu.
No. That is ridiculous. There are people who refused to get measles vaccinations and nothing happened to them, even when there were dangerous outbreaks. Saying you need to be vaccinated to attend school or serve in the Army or travel is not really anything new. Also the idea that vaccination has something to do with religious freedom is bogus. The groups fussing about this do not have a history of being “religiously opposed” to other vaccines or medical interventions or the use of technology. In my mind there is no difference between saying a church can’t meet in a building because of an imminent public health crisis and saying a church can’t meet in a building because the building is structurally unsound and condemned. You need occupancy permits in most incorporated places, and to get and maintain them you have to pass safety inspections and you have to comply with laws designed to protect public safety. That has nothing to do with “right to assembly.”
Freedom is not selfish, but involves responsibilities. Do unto others as you would have done to you. I call antivaccerss terrorists bent on killing others, through selfish ignorance. The me generation seems to still exist. Choose this day whom you will serve, either God (positive input to the world) or Satan (negative input to the world), love or hate, bless or curse, giver or taker. Healer or killer, friend or foe, beauty or beast, loved or hated. We have choices(freedom) every moment of every day in every interaction.
I just received a text from my nephew: “Good news. The vaccine gave my pancreas WiFi. Now I get internet.”
I told him: “Next step is the Booster shot. I hear that one gives you “total body” teleportation capability. With that, Scotty can beam you “up” wherever you are.”
Probably because of masking. Flu spreads through the air, as well. No one diagnosed a flu as Covid. I am a family doc, and we tested every single one with a very accurate PCR that does not make any mistakes between the 2. That is the standard. NPR reported on a study that with the mask, viruses and asthma bouts were down as much as 50%. Wish we kept that up–the common cold is way higher this time this year than last year, especially after starting school again.
That’s awful. How many people do you know who have heart disease? If you knew someone who had a disease that caused people around them to catch a heart attack for up to 2 weeks, but refused to stay away from the vulnerable, would you let him or her run around, or would you try to get some rules out there to protect the weak?
A better way to ask what the rules might be is not “what kind of freedom might I lose,” but “what does the science say will protect the weak”?
I have some very, very close family members who say exactly the same things your close friend is saying. I love them much, but sometimes, when they get angry or refuse to listen, it’s ok to just leave it alone, too. I had to do that (but if they are willing to listen peaceably, that’s wonderful!). I would not sacrifice your relationship for a disagreement, though.
What about what is happening in Australia? People are being asked to quarantine in camps and that was just a conspiracy before, but it is happening now.
The thing with the vaccine passports was a conspiracy and now that is happening, too. If we are all required to have the vaccine and show our passport to get in to different places then that is a totally new occurrence, right?
It just seems to them that the health officials have changed protocol during the pandemic and have said some things work but then ended up finding out they don’t. Why is the vaccine different?
Thanks for being so patient and generous in all your responses.
When was quarantining in special quarantine facilities a conspiracy theory? That’s something that’s been done many times over the centuries.
Same question here. Proof of vaccination has long been required for all sorts of things, and I saw lots of mainstream speculation that it would be needed for covid-19, too.
No, it’s not new. You need proof of lots of vaccinations to enroll in public schools or to be a health care worker or to serve in the US military. I have a yellow vaccine record stapled into my passport as proof of yellow fever vaccination, which is required for entry into many countries. In the past, the US has actually required everyone to be vaccinated by law (for smallpox), which is something that no one is suggesting for covid-19.
This is totally expected as health officials respond to a changing situation involving a previously unknown disease. Did people expect them to have psychic powers? They are always trying to evaluate the current problems in light of what is now documented and researched, and both the current situation and the body of data they have to evaluate changes from week to week. People need to trust that the experts doing the evaluation have the expertise to make the best-informed decisions for here and now instead of putting out these “they were wrong in their ignorance once” arguments in favor of distrusting the entire global medical and scientific establishment. The naysayers and conspiracy promoters have been wrong in their ignorance at almost every turn, but people still keep giving credence to the latest nutty claims they throw up on YouTube or Facebook.
