Measles, that old-timey disease we didn’t really think about as kids because of vaccinations. Welp, that’s coming back. Thanks to fucking idiots.
It’s coming back thanks to those vaccine mandates that were brought in.
You don’t put people at ease about a new vaccine by saying “you must have it otherwise you can’t participate in society”. That has the opposite effect and makes people even more reluctant and sceptical. It also gives anti-vaxxers more ammo for their nonsense that they can spread online.
All that combined has led to a big increase in vaccine hesitancy and scepticism, and the worst thing is that it’s now harming kids as a result.
It’s coming back thanks to those vaccine mandates that were brought in.
Nah, it’s because the US is full of whiny babies who don’t want to recognize other people’s authority and expertise over their whims, and rather have disease and mass murders than let other people say to them there is a better course of action.
This is not a US-only problem.
This is mainly US problem
No, but the attitude where the opinion of ignoramuses should be sacrosanct and considered over the opinion of experts and authorities is mainly USian.
Hell, USians invented the idiotic notion of “sovereign citizen”, which is predicated in the insane importance they assign to their own opinions and the notion that their beliefs override reality.
There’s always one!
I hate to break to to you, but public health policy does not and should not consider the opinion of lunatics. I legitimately cannot believe this isn’t obvious.
Always one what?
The anti-vaxxers are lunatics, yes. But they always were and it doesn’t really matter what they think.
But you think anyone who felt a slight concern about a brand new vaccine was a “lunatic”? These people needed reassurance, not “Do as you’re fucking told, idiot”. The fact people can’t see this baffles me.
Problem is those people didn’t want to listen to doctors who had the nuanced view of “there might be issues with a vaccine which development we’ve had to accelerate, but the alternative of not taking it is demonstrably worse for everyone”, they only wanted to listen to the people who shared their position.
I consider any person who thinks they know better than the medical professionals a lunatic, yes.
Medical professionals also said that Thalidomide was safe for pregnant women to take, and it turns out it very much wasn’t.
This is the kind of thing that leads to that concern about any new medication.
Never said professionals can’t be wrong.
But they will be right a hell of a lot more than the average non-medically-schooled person. That is for sure.
Problem here is the “appeal to authority” fallacy. Your brush is simply too big.
Yes when a vast majority of the medical community at many levels achieves hard-debated, critically vetted consensus, awesome, we can generally make that bet, and someone who graduated from “school of hard knocks” would be a lunatic to disagree because they wouldn’t have any grounds to do so.
But unfortunately what’s also true and rational, is that medical professionals are highly fallible, and we have a problem of credentialism where we’re inclined to trust anybody in a labcoat with a medical degree.
Turning everybody into zombies? No. (Although I love Resident Evil lmao), but I wouldn’t blame someone who’s gut reaction was “Wait, are we being used for free product testing?” Because the privatized medical community is rife with profiteering skullduggery and villainy, if not simply dangerous incompetence.
Yes, trust research and doctors, but also don’t do so blindly.
Yes, medical professionals are highly fallible.
But the average non-medically-schooled individual will be even more. So you should listen even less to them.
I feel you. The psychological aspect of crisis management was a complete disaster because it was made yet another political battleground and news panic sensation. The lack of nuance in this discussion even today is proof of that.
It was so mishandled and used for politics that they were desperate and heavy-handed because it was already allowed to go wildly out of control.
I understand vaccines have worked for many years and are a wonder of medical science. I’m all caught up. I also know all the conspiracies about microchips and “5G receptors” and other ludicrous claims are obviously bunk.
But even I had to pause for a second when, in the middle of a tornado of bullshit from every direction, they’re like “You better get this pharma-corporation-product injected soon as possible or else.”
Like, it just automatically triggers that “You can’t make me” response in everybody. I got over that, but in a country that has such abysmal education already, and a ton of people who fill that education gap with Facebook? Holy crap. Misinformation was a viral pandemic as well.
I can pity and empathize with people, not the crazy ones pushing stupid insane agendas, but the ones who were simply confused and panicked, especially with how often we’re burned by megacorpos on the daily.
To people who don’t understand the details, it had a feeling of beta testing. “Uh, we rushed this through. Just take it, we’ll worry about potential side effects later!”
Such a mess.
Like, it just automatically triggers that “You can’t make me” response in everybody.
Maybe it triggers that in people with like an oppositional-defiant personality disorder.
If your response to someone telling you to do something is “I don’t want to because you told me” rather than assessing if the thing is a good idea, you’re an idiot. Get help. See a therapist.
For real. When there’s a new illness spreading across the globe and the medical community says, “we have this new vaccine, everyone should take it but we only have enough for high-risk groups right now. Everyone else continue to quarantine” my reaction was not “well now I’m not doing any of that” it was “sweet, we’re almost through this.”
Hindsight is great when you can distill it down so simply as a clear, coherent message coming from a reliable single point of trust! Unfortunately it wasn’t so easy back then.
I didn’t mind the staying home (although I was privileged enough to be paid to do so for at least the beginning, as everyone should have been.)
I concluded that the logic behind some secret plot was hilariously full of holes…
…BUT, you’d have to be willfully ignorant to not consider the possibility that maybe a rushed corporate product was contracted and pushed through normal channels way faster than usual. Why? Because Capital was losing money, and the ownership class wanted to hurry and shove everyone back into offices as quickly as possible. (The same ownership class that paid us ‘essential workers’ in pithy piano-tracked commercials instead of money)
We’re immensely fortunate the vaccines worked like they always have, but at the time it was a series of mixed messages and uncertainty and noise, and that was just from trustworthy sources! Not even counting all the ones masquerading as such and people with cabin-fever wanting to pick fights over the Internet and crazy family members.
We agree the vaccine made sense and it was a useful tool that saved countless lives, and if we had a consistent trustworthy source of information much sooner like other countries had, instead of the crackpot reality show that is American news, many more could have been saved. So I don’t get all the down votes for simply saying “It was a scary time and there was lots to be concerned about.”
Maybe realizing it’s impossible to be 100% right about everything scares people, idk.
All of this is absolutely right.
The last 8 years or so in the political landscape has turned everything into “us vs them”. The election of Trump in the US, and the EU referendum here in the UK started it all off and it has just spread since.
It’s sad, because everyone now sees someone with the opposite opinion as being the “enemy”.
No. It’s called people aren’t scientists and they are NOT qualified to make decisions regarding public health. Shut the fuck up and do what you are told. If you can’t find peace in knowing that someone is smarter in the field of biology and sociology, get a therapist and talk to them.
Shut the fuck up and do what you are told. If you can’t find peace in knowing that someone is smarter in the field of biology and sociology, get a therapist and talk to them.
People say this and seriously don’t see how this messaging might not be all that encouraging to people.
I want more people to get vaccinated for diseases. This is not how to go about it, as society is now demonstrating.
Hey, if people don’t want to get their kids vaccinated, that should absolutely be their decision. It’s a shitty decision, but I do believe that parents should have the authority to decline.
That being said, if they choose not to vaccinate, their children should absolutely be banned from any public school or community rec league sports, or anyone else publicly funded.
And the private institutions that focus on children (day cares, private schools, etc.) should have a requirement in their license agreement where all children they serve must be vaccinated as well or else they lose their licensing.
Basically going non-vax should be handled in a way similar to how they should handle these idiot sovereign citizens: sure, you don’t have to have your vehicle registered or interacted or even plated…but if you choose not to do that, you better keep it on your own property. The minute you turn onto a public road we’re gonna throw the book at you.
I get what you’re saying, but what you’ve described isn’t really giving people a choice. Even if that choice they’re making in not vaccinating their kids is a bad one.
When your choice puts others at risk, you’re damn right that there are consequences.
If you want to participate in society, follow the social contract. If you don’t want to follow the social contract, you don’t get to participate as fully in society. This applies as much to actively violating the social contract via theft and violence as it does in negligence. You have no right to risk my kids’ health for the sake of your beliefs.
Well, those unvaccinated germfactories don’t give the people with actual allergic reactions to the vaccine a choice if they come near, so there is that.
Its kind of the same choice as needed to get a driver’s license to operate a vehicle.
Wrong.
It’s absolutely a choice. It’s just a choice with consequences.
Anti-vaxxers always seem to want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to enjoy the benefits of herd immunity and participation in society without doing the things that society agrees upon to keep everyone safe and healthy.
Decisions have consequences, and those who would make decisions that put others at risk should be the ones to bear the burden of the consequences of their decisions.
How is it a choice when you can get fired for not having a vaccine? You live in a society that requires people to be employed in order to survive. If you need a vaccine to be employed, then it is not a real a choice at all.
I’m not trying to encourage anyone. There are rules to society and people are having full on temper tantrums rather than accepting the rules. I’m just sick of fighting over things they are not qualified to assess. It is insulting to everyone that goes to school for a decade to save their life, do the research, come up with a solution and then “dO yOu KnOw WhAt’S rEaLlY iN iT?!”
You seem to be only thinking of the anti-vaxxers and the types of people who won’t get vaccinated whatever happens.
I’m talking about the people who are just apprehensive, for whatever reason that may be. Getting angry with them isn’t going to help anything.
Also, vaccine mandates for COVID were not endorsed by the doctors or scientists due to them being counter-productive to getting more people vaccinated: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2957/rr-1#:~:text=Evidence does not justify mandatory,to informed choice | The BMJ
Also, vaccine mandates for COVID were not endorsed by the doctors or scientists due to them being counter-productive to getting more people vaccinated
Untrue.
- ABC News, July 2021 - Over 50 major health care organizations call for mandating vaccines in their own industry
- AMA, October 2021 - What doctors wish employers knew about COVID-19 vaccine mandates
- CNN, October 2021 - Covid-19 vaccine mandates work, Dr. Anthony Fauci says
- Mayo Clinic, December 2021 - Ethical Issues in Mandating COVID-19 Vaccination for Health Care Personnel
Perhaps you meant to say “some doctors and scientists advised against vaccine mandates?” Because clearly many did support them.
Who is the House of Lords? And this is from 3 years ago.
One of the British houses of Parliament
Measles cases were on a steady rise before COVID. They just got a bump from the anti-vax crowd being given further ammunition, coupled with one group deciding public health during a pandemic should be made into a political football. In fact, the year with the highest number of cases in recent times was 2019, the year before COVID was on most people’s radar. It also saw a major drop the next year, likely due to all the physical distancing.
Idiots will have stupid responses to anything.
“You must get vaccinated to control the spread of this dangerous disease” -> “how dare you tell me what to do. I won’t do it”
"This vaccine is optional, but please get it to control the spread of this dangerous disease " -> “well if it’s optional I won’t get it. Sounds risky.”
That’s not even touching the like “the UN logo shows Antarctica at the center therefore the worst is flat” level insanity.
Bro you always had to get vaccines for school. It’s not a new thing.
That’s a long winded way to say thanks to fucking idiots
I AGREE! Even though before Covid we also couldn’t participate in things like travel or schooling or sometimes even workout with the Right Vaccine!
I gained the superpower of crippling anxiety, depression and panic attacks. I had very mild anxiety prior to Covid, but something broke in my brain after I got sick.
I am anxious and yet constantly tired. I can barely function before noon and can’t shut my brain off to sleep.
I hat every fucking person on Earth who said it was bs.
I’ve been feeling the same way. Some days I’ve felt better, but I don’t really get back to where I was. It feels like my discipline has broken down.
You sound a little like me.
Give liposomal C plus L-Arginine a try.
There’s been some studies showing it helps with long COVID.
I feel a little improvement. Not great. Some.
You might as well recommend some healing crystals or magnetic wristbands.
@Gerudo@lemm.ee should speak to a doctor about possible treatments and not take random unproven advice from the internet.
So, an innocuous supplement treatment, with multiple legitimate studies is the same as healing crystals? Got it.
Not everything in the world is horse parasite quackery.
My doctor did review the studies and agreed it was worth trying given the lack of known long COVID treatments.
an innocuous supplement treatment
Healing crystals are an innocuous treatment that have been involved in multiple studies also, so yes.
Let’s not dwell on the outcome or legitimacy of those studies at all, for either treatment.
Your doctor did a review? Such a nice claim to authority there with zero evidence. It is nice that everything and everyone on the internet can be trusted.
I stand by my statement. Anyone suffering medical issues should seek help from a medical professional and ignore random internet advice.
I was assaulted by a family member for not giving “IV Ivermectin” to someone with COVID who I had just crash intubated (honestly thought they were going to code, but somehow didn’t) back during the Delta wave.
My view of humanity has gotten pretty pessimistic since COVID. If I had the guts I’d honestly love to go create an insulated community of people who actually think about stuff and want to help each other.
Yeah, covid broke my faith in humanity. When we encounter a real global threat that could wipe us off the face of the planet, we will not rise to the occasion and band together.
Climate change, disease, aliens, asteroids, a super volcanic eruption. Just not gonna happen the way it’s portrayed in movies.
And it’s this weird thing where a decent percentage of humanity was working super hard to save everyone else—did save most everyone else—and a ton of people are just going on about the “Fauci Ouchie” and nanochips.
The general public has no idea how many people we saved with the mRNA vaccines and critical care medicine. They’re blatantly oblivious to it. The death toll would’ve been monumentally worse without a coordinated effort of public health, healthcare, and research. Yet no one has any idea. COVID was simultaneously one of humanity’s greatest unrecognized accomplishments and one of its greatest blunders.
If you’ve ever read or watched The Expanse series I feel like it’s spot on as far as humanity’s response to disasters.
Don’t give them ideas thinking the protomolecule is in the vaccine lol
Na khorocho, que si?
Except it maybe will happen like in Don’t Look Up
Well yeah, Don’t look up is all about how stupid we are as a species.
No need to create such a community - there’s one ready-made in Iceland! They even had a vet who was on top of the vaccine* research in the early days.
EDIT: Just looked up that story, and (a) it was in the Faroe Islands not Iceland, and (b) they adapted their salmon-testing labs to detect covid in humans, allowing them to test 5% of the population per day, locally.
I nearly got assaulted by another staff member, sort of defended myself from it by just shoving him away and creating distance, and then I ended up on a disciplinary over it. Despite everything he’d seen he still thought he was hard-done by and tried to take it out on myself. I had an exemplary record for nearly 28 years up until then.
I still see “heroes work here” banners outside of healthcare facilities and nursing homes. I imagine a number of the low-paid and overworked staff say “fuck you, pay me more” every time they drive by too.
I created an extremely awkward silence at work when someone was like “are you all clapping at 7pm?” (Because there was a thing where people could clap and cheer for workers at 7pm?), and I said “if you really care, you could give them money. They need that more than claps”.
Silence.
These were all software developers working safely from home making six figures.
They’ll all be there with thoughts and prayers… and apparently claps. I mean, I know that’s what “I” do whenever someone wants money from me… I’ll think about them, pray I’m never in that circumstance, and clap for them. Seems to help.
That’s sarcasm… for anyone instantly seething and spitting foam.
The awkward silence is because they know that clapping is not doing anything useful.
What was really annoying was other industries saying the same thing. There was a laundry that had “heros work here” on their sign, as if they were anywhere near the same level.
No. This is the wrong thinking imo.
I worked/work for a hospital Trust here in the UK. Any job that brings you within close proximity to other people had a quantifiable risk. Hindsight is great and all that, but in the early days of any pandemic you dont know what you can touch safely, where you can breath safely. Our Government tried to bail some out, but not everyone can get help or close shop. Anyone who was afraid and still struggled through it gets my respect.
It’s got to be pretty god damn insulting for sure.
Also would have accepted the meme with the Muppet like puppets being asked "and what did we learn?’ and they all scream “Nothing!!”
I wonder if it would’ve been on net better if COVID had been deadlier. Like if people had been dying from a new disease with blood gushing out of their eyes, would idiots have taken it seriously? Probably not.
The funniest thing is watching all those pandemic/deadly virus movies before 2021. In all those movies, governments, people, scientists, the military and world leaders all work cooperatively together in an orderly way to solve the problem and try to save people and in the end succeed because they worked together.
In reality, we had a world leader suggest that we could inject disinfectant or use UV light inside the body, panic buying for toilet paper and people in North America start near riots for being asked to wear a mask.
It was a lot more like Jaws where the mayor won’t close the beach to save lives because it will mess with the tourism business.
Not long before covid took off, the first case of ebola in the US was confirmed and people flipped the fuck out. I’m fairly certain that if ebola were actually spreading even a little, those same assholes who treated masks like some kind of human rights violation would have been more than ready to quarantine it, lock everything down, and burn the entire affected area to the ground.
Some of those people would have formed a militia to hunt down anyone who they suspected of being infected. It would have been a long, drawn out, paranoid massacre.
There actually were lots of people who started out being like “they are sweeping it under the rug wel are all going to die!” Only to turn around and become anti mask zealots when the public policy controls went into place. Some people really do just have a very childish take on authority of any kind, and I say that as a person who is very skeptical of authority myself.
I think Covid was right in the bad spot of seriousness. If it was less deadly, it would be less of an issue. If it was more deadly, it would have been taken more seriously. But it was right at the point that people could say ehhhhhh (encouraged by their media of course).
Although I’m still amazed over a fucking million Americans dead and people are acting like it didn’t even happen.
*US 1,180,025 deaths. Worldwide 7,037,007 deaths.
I can’t believe people are falling for Trump’s “Four years ago you were better off” bullshit
Even if I wasn’t better off financially now, not having that shitstain as president would make be much better off overall.
I mean I’m better off financially, but to be fair that’s because of the labor shortage Covid created being so bad that the local power plant started hiring part-time entry level.
I mean… yeah… I say “Labor Shortage”, but I mean “The Labor Force Realizing That They’re Working For Too Little For It To Be Worth It!”
But hey I’m poor as fuck, I’ll take what I can get… I’m just grateful I finally escaped retail.
I can’t believe people still adore T@&#! after he has repeatedly grifted them, lied to them, demonstrated time and again he has no empathy and is a horrible human all around.
He grifted us over medical supplies during a pandemic. He damn near ended our democracy and became a dictator. His list of retributions he has declared if he gets elected is terrifying. Racist and classiest as hell.
And they ignore everything and just parrot the " hE iS pRo LIfE!" BS
April, 2020 unemployment was almost 14%
Worked through this myself. Not as a nurse or care assistant, but as an NHS binman. Still saw lots of shit I basically cant talk about (not due to emotion but due to Trust policy as its a bit too specific). Saw doctors, nurses, care assistants walking around like zombies after having worked 18 hours straight. Saw morons walk in and film them thinking there was some major conspiracy. Heard the lungs of patients rattling as they struggled to breath. Two workers I knew died. Heard from colleagues how some other morons had “served legal papers” on the staff (thats not how you get “served” here btw) and then saw it on the BBC 6 oclock news. I also saw the hard work of every delivery driver, supermarket worker.
What did I learn? That some people will fight to save your life, even if you’ve not taken heed of all the advice.
I have a two year old niece now. I’m reminded of when I was a kid in the early 80s and war veterans would come and talk to us about WW2 and Korea. I am thinking it would be good if some of us did the same for these kids in a few years. If we went and talked about what we saw, not the scary/nasty stuff, but the stuff that makes people hopeful for humanity.
I currently live in a province in Canada, that is currently ruled by a government that is governing under what’s basically an MO of Covid and vaccine revenge.
There’s no hope for humanity. Absolutely none. That’s my lesson from Covid. The majority of the people around me, my neighbours, etc, are basically all incapable of logical thought and highly susceptible to disinformation and rogue actors.
Ya that’s the lesson I took from the pandemic as well. At any given moment ~30% of the population is actively working against the best interests of the whole, merely to be contrarian. We don’t have any hope as a species.
I have to admit, before Covid i didn’t think people would be joining the war on disease on the side of disease in any meaningful numbers and yet here we are. I think we may be in decline as a civilization, not sure how that kind of brain rot is survivable.
It’s very survivable, the same way we’ve always survived - if you see a moron saying that sort of shit, punch them in the face.
Their heads are like rocks. You’ll just break your hand.
This pretty well sums it up. It’s hard to believe it’s been four years. It used to feel like it’d been ongoing for forever. Now it feels like a dream. What a fucked up thing we went through and how fucked is it that my brain can just sort of “forget”. I guess that’s how we cope. It isn’t evolutionarily advantageous to dwell on the real threats. Only on the stupid social fuckups that happened that embarrassed me.
Why are you talking about it like it’s over? Roughly 30000 people are getting long covid per day, right now. That shit is disabling. We’re still in a pandemic and we’re not taking it seriously, at all.
I truly think there is a component of unprecedented, shared psychological distress (everyone needing to stay inside like solitary confinement) and post-COVID cognitive distortion that makes the entire pandemic feel like some sort of fugue state. I was working in healthcare during it and when I look back at those years it feel like someone that was a dream. I’m in my 30s and no other part of my life feels like that.
Just to say, as a hospital worker, that Covid is still very much around. Its not killing in the same numbers but it does kill many. Many who will be missed by their loved ones. Covid still leads to long covid in some.
It’s amazing how quickly we adapt and forget. But when I stop and think about it life was so different before Covid and it’s just never been the same. My workplace has just never been able to adjust to the staffing shortages and it’s hell.
Turns out conservatism was the real plague all along.
Covid awareness? On Lemmy? Getting over a thousand points? It feels like I’m in a dream.
Reminder to everyone that wearing a well fitting n95 mask in public takes very little effort but helps others (who may be immunocompromised, already battling long covid or other conditions, or otherwise vulnerable) and yourself avoid getting sick which can save people from chronic pain, disability, death, and more. Please do what you can to take precautions and prevent the spread of disease!
PS: I recommend 3M’s Aura respirators. I know 3M sucks (understatement) but they do make a good and affordable n95. If you have issues with your glasses fogging up with masks on, this one is for you.
During all that time all I could think of was the shareholders.
Covid was the most terrifying time of my life (i know covid itself is still here). I have a severe health anxiety disorder and a single ache of spot on my body can instantly convince me i have a terminal cancer or illness and i WILL die. After about a year i finally build up all courage to go to the supermarket with my partner, wearing a good fitting mask. We stood at the checkout and this guy asked another guy who wasn’t wearing a mask, and standing waaaay to close to them, to please keep his distance and to please wear a mask. The guy instantly got aggressive and knocked the man out for asking him to please keep distance and wear a mask. I didn’t go anywhere again.
I still struggle with all of this. After 2016 it felt like people got a free pass for conspiracy and fascist shit. I’m from europe but the trump presidency had a big influence here too. So many conspiracies that trump shouted got popular over here and fascist parties got A LOT more popular. Hell, a fascist party won the election here less than a year ago.
I lost a lot of hope and love for humanity. But i also see smart and beautiful humans fight for us every day. Whether its with climate and antifascist protests or through videos i find on social media or the news. And i cant give up hope or stop fighting for them. I cant let those people down. Because if people like that exist, there is hope.
I felt the same way as you. I actually left America because of the crazies. During early covid, during the Delta phase. I had someone yell at me while I walked to my car because I was wearing a mask. Scariest shit I have ever felt.
We learned that in the zombie apocalypse, there is gonna be people that march right into the horde convinced it wont kill them and that zombies arent real.
