Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

This is very interesting and something I had no clue about.

Yeah - I found it fascinating. Especially stuff like the doctor pitching himself as the hero/the only honest man in medicine - just like Wakefield does. But also the circle of sources confirming each other and the doubts around effectiveness - which seems really weird to me in that time.

One of the hesitancies I can sort of understand (though less so now) with covid vaccines is that they are very new and were developed at record pace because they needed to be and funding wasn't an issue. But it is strange to see someone raising similar issues about smallpox vaccine almost 100 years after it had been discovered.

[Duque de Bragança]

A question. I'm old enough to have a smallpox inoculation scar on my arm. I remember reading about how smallpox was the first disease to be completely eradicated by vaccinations.

Was there a strong anti-vax movement back when smallpox vaccinations were being given? I mean, that one actually permanently scars you.

I was among the last ones to be vaccinated against smallpox. From what I gathered according to my parents (I was a baby) there was no opposition both in my time and theirs. Theirs was the one who left marks.
Both different times and countries, for what it's worth.

The anti-vaccination movement only came to Portugal well after Salazar and Caetano, in the early 2000s.

Odd that there was once a time when most people trusted in the wisdom of their government and health workers.

Salazar's Portugal and Giscard d'Estaing's France, to be precise.

Basic health expenses for the former (different by Caetano's time), but not proto-green skeptical stuff about vaccines the tool of the industrial, unpure world à la Blut und Boden.

[Jacob]

Bob Enyart - anti-vax, anti-mask, homophobe, mocker of AIDS victims, advocate of beating children, radio show host, Coloradan pastor dies of Covid-19.

[HVC]

Not sure how it works for universal health care countries (including canada) but can you cut off free health care for covid related hospitalization to the unvaccinated?  At this point I don't think soft measures will increase vaccination rates.

I remember having similar conversations before - in law school, one of my study friends was adamant that those who (for example) smoke should be denied publicly funded health care, because they had no excuse for indulging in that particular stupidity and the rest of us should not have to pay for it. That this would condemn lots of people who presumably had friends and family to poverty or death did not move her (at the time, I was myself a smoker, and thought it odd to be expected to agree with this argument).

Point being that once the decision is made that stupidity should be punished with a removal of social responsibility for care, it will be difficult to contain it. If anti-Vaxx should not get health care, presumably other stupid decisions should be treated similarly - smokers, the obese, alcoholics, those who fail to exercise, etc.

My cigarette taxes pay for your Healthcare

[DGuller]

Bob Enyart - anti-vax, anti-mask, homophobe, mocker of AIDS victims, advocate of beating children, radio show host, Coloradan pastor dies of Covid-19.

Are we supposed to be for or against Covid?

[Grey Fox]

It took long enough but Covid is finally delivering.

[Syt]

[Josquius]

Well played

[Barrister]

Well played

Really?

I am very much pro-vaccine and anti-covid, but I just rolled my eyes.

[Barrister]

Ugg.  My brother-in-law just had to drive home from his drilling rig up in northern Alberta, quite sick, with a bunch of classic Covid symptoms.  I know his wife (my wife's sister) is refusing to get vaccinated but I thought he was vaxxed - turns out though he just 'hadn't gotten around to it' yet.

Hope he's okay.  Quite a healthy guy with no risk factors I'm aware of, but he's in his early 50s so age alone is starting to be a risk.

He gets tested today - hope everything is okay for him.

[Iormlund]

Well played

Really?

I am very much pro-vaccine and anti-covid, but I just rolled my eyes.

Do you think religious exemptions should be a thing?

[Barrister]

Well played

Really?

I am very much pro-vaccine and anti-covid, but I just rolled my eyes.

Do you think religious exemptions should be a thing?

I'm open to the idea where there is some bona fide religious basis.  That being said even Jehovah's Witnesses are in favour of vaccination - about the "biggest" denomination with any level of questioning about vaccination is Christian Scientist, where even though they largely believe in faith healing they leave it open to members to get vaccinated.

That being said I think there has to be some greater level of scrutiny that just some random pastor signing a "religious exemption" card in exchange for cash.

[The Larch]

My regional government has just announced the lifting of some of the last restrictions for social interactions after next saturday. Only groups at bars and restaurants will be limited after that day. Until then only 6 people could gather indoors, 10 outdoors, and it was not allowed for people not in the same bubble to be together overnight.

[Berkut]

"Bona fide religious basis".

Riiiggggght.

[Barrister]

"Bona fide religious basis".

Riiiggggght.

As soon as I saw you had posted in this thread I knew what your response was going to be.

Shoo, fly.