confused about the vaccine

Severity of symptoms has a lot to do with viral load. That became apparent last summer.

Viral load is how many of the wee virus you have in your body. How many you have will depend upon whether someone coughs millions of them into your face, or you pick up three, or four oorganisms off your bulk bought toilet paper packaging.

Once you have at least one virus in your system, it will replicate increasing your viral load, but you'll also have an immune response which kills them off.

So, somene who picks up three, or four virus and has a healthy immune response will not have a high viral load and will not get too sick.

If someone is already sick and/or old and they pick up millions, the virus will replicate rapidly and leave them very poorly indeed.

The vaccine primes your immune response, so even if you have millions of virus coughed into your face, your immune response will kill them off rapidly. That means, even if you get covid, you won't at any point have a huge viral load - you'll either have mild symptoms, or be asymptomatic.

With the vaccine, even if you pick up the virus, you won't have millions to cough into someone's face. You might pass on a few virus, but not enough to make other people really sick. Fewer virus kicking around means fewer transmissions.

The vaccination programmes starting with the sick and elderly was tactical. If the sick and elderly became ill they were less likely to have a good immune response and more likely to have the virus replicate inside their bodies increasing their viral load. These people had plenty to cough in other people's faces and so spread more disease.

Vaccinating those most likely to spread the virus reduced the spread. It also meant that with fewer people reaching the hospitalisation and dying stage due to huge viral loads, there was less strain on health services and more nurses available for vaccination programmes.

The problem as I see it is that once you've vaccinated the over 80's and sick, your over 70's become the juiciest hosts for the virus. As the vaccination programmes have advanced in descending age order, we are now finding more young people and children are getting sick as they become the only hosts left.

The question for me is whether as vaccinated adults we can reduce the incidence of the virus enough to protect our children and grandchildren, or whether they will start getting sick instead of us.

I have concerns about vaccinating children: a child might be less able to express symptoms of underlying health issues, or if they do, we might assume the have growing pains before we thnk of something like leukemia. We also don't know how chldren and young people will react to vaccinations, as with the risks of blood clots with the AstraZeneca affecting youngsters with low platelet levels.

You're more than welcome, Johnny.

Let's talk about herd immunity.

It is unlikely that we will reach herd immunity. It's more likely that covid will become endemic like 'flu, with surges and hotspots.

There are a number of factors which affect herd immunity. One of them is whether vaccinated people can still catch covid and spread it, but as above, that's looking promising.

Uneven roll out across countries and/or states will impact upon global herd immunity. Countries like the UK and Israel owe much of their vaccination success to a centralised and consistent programme. We should have had a global version of that, or in the case of the US, a country-wide version instead of each state doing it's own thing.

Emerging variants will affect herd immunity if current vaccines fail to work for new strains, but it looks like so far we've been lucky. How long protection lasts from the disease, or the vaccine will also be a factor. Will we need updated vaccines to cope with new strains and/or regular boosters to maintain protection?

Vaccine hesitancy is a major issue with respect to herd immunity. We need to get a certain proportion of the population vaccinated to reach herd immunity. To my mind, adults should be taking on that responsibilty so we can avoid risk of disease, or risk from vaccination in our children.

The more adults who refuse to be vaccinated, the more likely our children will have to take up the slack. It's likely children won't have the privilege of choosing for themselves as parents will choose for them.

If someone said to me that the vaccine has risks and there's a possibility you could become permanently debilitated, or die...BUT...if you take that risk your grandchildren won't have to, it's a total no-brainer.

As adults we should be aiming to achieve herd immunity, whatever the risks to ourselves, to protect the short, cute ones. Lobbing kids out of life boats and taking their place is simply not cricket.

The facts as I have heard them:
If you get BOTH shots you cant get the virus. If you get one shot you can. If you get one or both, you CAN get covid.
The shots protect against Delta. They only protect 56 % against Delta.
You wont need a booster. You may need a booster. Or yearly or monthly. The shots protect 6 month. Or a year. Or indefinitely.
It is safe to mingle if you have both shots. But, wear a mask cause you may have it and not know it. You wont end up in hospital if you catch it and had both shots. But, you might get sick. And might get sick from the shots.
Kids cant catch it. Kids can catch it. Kids shrug it off. Kids can die from it. Kids can spread it.
Covid can make long haulers. The shots can make long haulers.
You can catch it from surfaces. You cant catch it from surfaces. It spreads by sneezing or coughing. It spreads from breathing. You need to be 6 feet apart. You need to be exposed for 15 minutes in a closed room. Open the window and it is OK. Delta can spread passing someone only.
Masks dont work. Masks do work. The surgical ones are worthless. Wear two masks. Better yet, a cloth over a surgical. Wear a mask. Dont bother with a mask.
You are immune if you had covid. You are not immune and need the vaccine. Donate plasma if you had covid. Dont donate if you had the shots because it destroys the antibodies.
Covid hates heat. Covid hates cold. Covid likes both.
Covid will fade away if we all get the shots. Covid will not because the whole world isnt vaccinated.
Covid will run its course. Covid will just be another winter flu forever.
Covid kills more than flues. Flues kill more people.
There you have the facts as I have heard them. But, dont count any of them because they will be changed tomorrow.

I am glad we have folk from all over the world studying this virus making a vaccine. The world has to open up sometime and yes some mistakes have been made but this is a new virus and it keeps changing as fast as i change my knickers

when the plagued wiped out half the population (atishoo) i rekon those folk would have had a vacine even if it only half protected you,

I will by my own choice wear a mask on public transport, in shops or large gatherings--- if i go to those until well after xmas i reckon regardless. I do not have to wear lippy every day then