(So glad I stumbled across this website again after almost 6 years! I need to change my username because I am not an aspiring nurse anymore, I have been a nurse for almost 3 years! ?)
Anyway, I really do not want to take this new covid vaccine. I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way. Typically I am not an anti-vaxxer but something about this illness is making me think otherwise. For personal reasons I really do not want to take it when available at my hospital, but I’m afraid it will be mandatory. I am almost considering finding a new job if my hospital forces us all to take it. What a shame because I do like my job and wouldn’t know what else to turn to that isn’t nursing, because chances are most healthcare related places of employment will likely require all employees take it.
I want to use the excuse of it being against my religion but I already took the flu vaccine this year. I have nothing against the flu vaccine but didn’t necessarily want it, but my hospital practically FORCED everyone to take it unless they grant you an exemption. I’m afraid they’ll question me why I took the flu shot but cannot take the covid vaccine.
What do you guys think about this? Will you be taking the vaccine? I just want us to be able to make our own decisions about this. If patients can refuse medications, procedures, and treatments, why can’t healthcare workers do the same? I read in multiple articles it will not be required by the federal government but each state and employer can decide whether or not it will be mandatory.
And forget the $1500 “stimulus check” that may be offered if you take it. All the money in the world would not change my mind about taking the vaccine. I feel as though if you have to bribe people to take it, something is peculiar.
I don’t know why this is bothering me so much. It should be a choice in my opinion. But by telling a few friends about not wanting it I feel judged. I have worked with covid patients multiple times since I am one of the younger nurses who does not have any kids/am pregnant. I feel like week after week I was always chosen to go to the covid section. At first I was mad but now it doesn’t bother me. I am not afraid to be near covid patients. Luckily through all this time I haven’t caught it. I always tell people I’d rather catch it than get this vaccine. That’s how strongly I feel against taking the vaccine. All of my non-nursing who have had covid are covered and thriving. To me catching it isn’t the biggest deal but others have called me selfish because I could be spreading it to others. Why is it looked at as selfish for not wanting to inject something into MY body. #mybodymychoice
Am I thinking about this too much? What would you do?
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
2 minutes ago, myoglobin said:
There had been a discussion of herd immunity above and I was trying to explore a bit of the nuance between several different diseases and how it interacted with those specific conditions. In the case of Varicella there was significant (but not complete, as is also the case with Measles) of herd immunity and there is also significant sequelae associated with contracting Varicella thus making the vaccine very worthwhile for most people.
My comment wasn't directed at you unless you also suggested that I'm somehow parroting a "company line" relative to vaccines.
Yes, it's a dystopian society when self described health professionals disregard and even discredit the expert opinions and analysis of chosen and elevated experts in the CDC or WHO.
Exactly how do you think that herd immunity is achieved, apart from use of a vaccine, with a covid that doesn't impart long term immunity?
No person in this thread is advocating mandatory vaccination.
I do not disregard any source certainly not the CDC or WHO. However, I also do not take it as "binding" or gospel. There are multiple variants of Covid and we do get some immunity from that form we are infected with however because there are multiple variants and the immunity endures to differential degrees it is not certain how long that immunity persists. Thus, it is likely that to achieve significant long term herd immunity that a safe effective vaccine will be necessary. As to the mandatory nature of the vaccine perhaps you are not talking about this but others are (and I have provided numerous links to these discussions).
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
1 minute ago, myoglobin said:
I do not disregard any source certainly not the CDC or WHO. However, I also do not take it as "binding" or gospel. There are multiple variants of Covid and we do get some immunity from that form we are infected with however because there are multiple variants and the immunity endures to differential degrees it is not certain how long that immunity persists. Thus, it is likely that to achieve significant long term herd immunity that a safe effective vaccine will be necessary. As to the mandatory nature of the vaccine perhaps you are not talking about this but others are (and I have provided numerous links to these discussions).
You have provided no scientific discussion which suggests that the known covid variations will in any way affect efficacy of the vaccines going forward. None of the variations, noted to date, would affect the immune response of the vaccine.
Yes, I'm aware that you keep mentioning mandatory vaccination and offered examples of such language...yet there are clear and compelling reasons that the vaccine likely won't be mandated in the near future by business and likely will never be mandated by the government. We can either accept the evidence and move forward or we can fear that the vaccine will be mandated at some future date and make that a part of discussion as to why not to get vaccinated now.
Specializes in Education, Informatics, Patient Safety.
I will be getting the vaccine as soon as it is available to me. As a nurse, I feel it is very important to demonstrate the importance of vaccination for public health. Though we don't know the long term effects, the FDA has approved it and I am willing to take the risk for the benefit of society as a whole. There is no data out yet about whether or not being vaccinated prevents you from spreading COVID-19. Until that data is available, I will continue to wear a mask. I strongly encourage anyone reading this to get the vaccine as soon as you can.
I have a feeling it will become mandatory no matter where you work, health care or not. This is how the oligarchs gain total control over people. They don't give a crap about human life or the freedom to chose. This corona virus is being uses as a tactic to gain absolute control over what is left of human dignity and individual sovereignty. I am getting to the point where I might just refuse it and live in my car instead. It's not like there are alternative jobs out there that will pay my bills like my nursing job. Everything is closed down, it's like they purposely have set it up with nowhere else to turn but take the vax or starve. It feels like a concentration camp scenario.
Who exactly are the oligarchs and how do you gain total control over a person just because they’ve taken a vaccine? Assuming someone could actually take control over you with a vaccine, which they can’t, what would be the end goal?
I’ve taken all the usual vaccines and a few extra. Since I’ve travelled a lot to all corners of the world and enjoy hiking and camping, I’ve taken some more unusual ones like rabies and japanese encephalitis. And I’m still my own person. What’s so different with a Covid-19 vaccine in your opinion? Or do you regard all vaccines as a way to control people?
Where are you getting these really strange ideas about vaccines from? The idea that the pandemic is being used to gain control over human dignity is frankly not logical. While we’re on the topic of dignity, my personal opinion is that it would be an affront to human dignity to have to keep intubating and placing people in the prone postion in an attempt to save them from a disease that we will hopefully be able to prevent or mitigate with a vaccine.
I can understand how a person who doesn’t want a vaccine might feel unhappy if they worried that their employer was going to mandate it, but it really, really isn’t anything even close to a concentration camp. I actually find that hyperbolic comparison distasteful.
I’m sorry of this post sounds negative, but I find it so hard to even begin to understand your thought process. Perhaps it’s because I genuinely view vaccines as life-savers. Not just a Covid-19 vaccine, but all the rest of them as well. They have prevented so much human suffering and saved countless life that I guess I can’t help but feel optimistic that researchers have managed to come up with several viable candidates in less than a year.
Purely anecdotal, today we were talking about Covid vaccines at work. Out of a group of eight (aged early thirties to late fifties), seven of us were really looking forward to getting it and the eighth said he would definitely get it eventually, but didn’t feel it was urgent. This was a mixed group, nurses and physicians. So for me personally, the scepticism I see in these threads is rather foreign.
You have provided no scientific discussion which suggests that the known covid variations will in any way affect efficacy of the vaccines going forward. None of the variations, noted to date, would affect the immune response of the vaccine.
Yes, I'm aware that you keep mentioning mandatory vaccination and offered examples of such language...yet there are clear and compelling reasons that the vaccine likely won't be mandated in the near future by business and likely will never be mandated by the government. We can either accept the evidence and move forward or we can fear that the vaccine will be mandated at some future date and make that a part of discussion as to why not to get vaccinated now.
I was not arguing that the vaccine will not give protection to multiple strains (it may or may not) rather I was arguing that getting the illness (in my case twice) will probably help only with the strains that I've been infected with and then only partially (we really just don't have good data). As for the vaccine I'm fine with it so long as it is voluntary, but have my doubts that it will remain so given that I've been subject to past mandates both with my job and every nursing school that I've attended. I oppose mandatory vaccination as I believe that vaccines have both benefits and risks and therefore should be a matter of informed consent.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
21 minutes ago, myoglobin said:
I was not arguing that the vaccine will not give protection to multiple strains (it may or may not) rather I was arguing that getting the illness (in my case twice) will probably help only with the strains that I've been infected with and then only partially (we really just don't have good data). As for the vaccine I'm fine with it so long as it is voluntary, but have my doubts that it will remain so given that I've been subject to past mandates both with my job and every nursing school that I've attended. I oppose mandatory vaccination as I believe that vaccines have both benefits and risks and therefore should be a matter of informed consent.
Your argument, no matter how you want to frame it, would benefit from some supporting evidence. In the absence of that it simply appears that you are afraid to take the vaccine because of your misinterpretation of the vaccine data and evidence while believing that conservative states might prevent private health industry from requiring covid vaccination in the future. Your "probably" musings about your personal immunity following two covid infections are anecdote. Interesting but ...
No one here has disagreed with you about voluntary vaccination and informed consent. Why keep beating that horse? You previously assumed that we disagree on that, but we don't.
Your argument, no matter how you want to frame it, would benefit from some supporting evidence. In the absence of that it simply appears that you are afraid to take the vaccine because of your misinterpretation of the vaccine data and evidence while believing that conservative states might prevent private health industry from requiring covid vaccination in the future. Your "probably" musings about your personal immunity following two covid infections are anecdote. Interesting but ...
No one here has disagreed with you about voluntary vaccination and informed consent. Why keep beating that horse? You previously assumed that we disagree on that, but we don't.
The thread started with concern over mandatory vaccination. I relied upon my personal experience of being required to take a flu vaccine both for work and school as a basis for this being a valid concern. It remains a concern to me based upon my past experience with these other vaccines. So long as we agree on not requiring mandatory vaccines then we are in agreement.
Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
I'm just posting a couple studies and a link.
Quote
PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE (BNT162, PF-07302048) VACCINES AND RELATED BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE BRIEFING DOCUMENT
[From page 32] … Across both treatment groups, 20.5% had any comorbidity. The most frequently reported comorbidities were diabetes (with and without chronic complications, 8.4%) and pulmonary disease (7.8%) and were reported at similar frequencies in each group. More participants had comorbidities in the older population (31.1%) than the younger population (12.8%), including diabetes (14.6% and 3.8%), malignancy (7.4% and 1.0%), and pulmonary disease (8.8% and 7%)…
The thread started with concern over mandatory vaccination. I relied upon my personal experience of being required to take a flu vaccine both for work and school as a basis for this being a valid concern. It remains a concern to me based upon my past experience with these other vaccines. So long as we agree on not requiring mandatory vaccines then we are in agreement.
The thread started on the topic of employers requiring those who work with high risk populations to protect them through vaccinating caregivers, not about forced vaccination of the entire population.
The risk of death from Covid decreases significantly with each decade of age. Kids are at almost no risk and people under 50 are based on CDC numbers have at least a 99.6 percent chance of survival. Of course we should mitigate risk through things like masks, however lockdowns pose a risk greater than the disease. Therefore I favor an approach more in line with the Barrington declaration that focuses on protecting the most vulnerable while the less vulnerable live their lives. I believe that this virus has enough variation that getting it once or twice does not confer complete immunity but does mitigate subsequent infection.
0.4% of the US population under 50 would be 1,400,000 deaths. And that's not counting the even larger number with ongoing debilitating chronic conditions that result from the infection even after recovery.
There is no evidence that subsequent infections result in less severe courses of illness. The dataset is small, but so far subsequent infections actually appear to produce more severe illness than previous infections, which isn't all that surprising giving it's immune system based mechanisms.
The duration of immunity after infection doesn't appear any different than other Coronavirus strains, which is about 4 months of effective immunity.
I was arguing that getting the illness (in my case twice) will probably help only with the strains that I've been infected with and then only partially (we really just don't have good data).
I want to emphasize that this is speculative (I know you weren't necessarily claiming otherwise, in fairness).
For one, discussing different "strains" of the virus is probably a little misleading, and largely the result of over-simplified reporting of scientific findings. Of course the virus mutates over time, but small variations in the virus found at different times or locations are not clearly distinct from each other either in terms of how the virus affects people, or how one's immune system interacts with it. It is probably more correct to say that many isolates of SARS-COV2 exist than that there are different 'strains.'
Admittedly, this type of information is difficult to porifice. There are many discussions of 'strains' and their various effects in the media and even in scientific journals, but not a ton of compelling data to conclusively prove anything more than what we already know - this virus, like all others, mutates.
Secondly, and more to the point, it's very much an open question right now how susceptible people who've had covid are to reinfection, and how soon. While I am admittedly speculating myself, I think the following statements are more likely true than not:
- People who have had covid19 are less likely to get it again in the immediate future than people who haven't. Short term immunity, while not universal, seems to exist.
- People who are susceptible to reinfection may be so less because of encountering a different strain than because of mounting an ineffective adaptive immune response (I'll explain below). However, even the concept of dormant covid19 has not, to the best of my knowledge, been definitively shot down, though there have been at least some documented cases of reinfection by second exposure as proven by genetic sequencing
- I've seen no evidence at all the multiple covid19 infections makes one less likely to get covid19 than a single infection does. If the problem lies in the adaptive immune system rather than viral mutation, then the converse is disturbingly plausible.
There is a real lack of data about covid-19 reinfection and what that reinfection says about an individual's immune response. What's really interesting is that the data from the vaccine trials are incidentally some of the best data I've seen yet on the subject.
In the Pfizer trial specifically, a little over 500 people known to have tested positive for covid-19 were included in both the vaccinated group and the placebo group. The results of the trial were as follows:
In the placebo group 164 out of 17720 participants who had never been covid positive developed symptomatic covid-19 during the trial. So 0.92% developed covid-19.
Also in the placebo group, 1 out of 567 participants who had previously tested positive for covid-19 developed symptomatic covid-19 again. So 0.018%. We should note that this study is not powered to come up with any reasonable CI for the rate of reinfection among positive patients, but the difference between previously positive and negative participants is stark enough to be noteworthy at least.
In the vaccinated group, 1 out of 526 participants who were previously positive again developed symptomatic covid-19. Again, not adequately powered to detect any real difference, but it's interesting that the vaccinated and placebo groups had very similar results when only looking at people who've had covid-19 previously.
Finally, in the vaccinated group, 8 out of 17,637 participants who were previously covid negative developed covid-19. So a rate of 0.045%. Once again, the trial wasn't powered to make this conclusion, but it's notable that vaccination performed substantially better than prior infection in the prevention of subsequent infection.
The moderna vaccine trial produced fairly similar results, although the covid-positive-but vaccinated group produced no new symptomatic infections.
It's hard to draw super firm conclusions from this data. Too little, too soon. But I'd keep an eye out for more data from these and other vaccine trials for some of the best info we're likely to see on covid-19 reinfection.
toomuchbaloney
16,033 Posts
My comment wasn't directed at you unless you also suggested that I'm somehow parroting a "company line" relative to vaccines.