Vaccine Thoughts

Upon close inspection, the statistics about the number of vaccinated deaths from the United Kingdom I linked a few days ago are not particularly meaningful. To make a real comparison would require something other than total deaths in a population that is overwhelmingly vaccinated. Scotland is 93% vaccinated (at the highest) and Northern Ireland is 89% vaccinated (at the lowest) in the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is obvious that the overall death rate from Covid will likely be the largest among the vaccinated. But the question is what the death rate is internally among the unvaccinated, considered alone, in comparison with the death rate is for the vaccinated, considered alone.

I have known five people who have died of Covid. I know the majority of them were not vaccinated, and I believe all five were not vaccinated. I also know a number of people in various health conditions who have been vaccinated, and none of them have died. But my sample size is far too small to reach any scientific conclusion.

The decision to vaccinate or not is something no-one ought decide for another.

My family has been fortunate. A daughter and son-in-law brought it home to Sunday dinner very early on. We all experienced mild symptoms, and minor annoyances, including loss of smell and taste for a while. But no one required any medical attention. It was like an ordinary cold or the flu.

Despite the family having natural immunity, some of our family have chosen to nevertheless be vaccinated and some have not. It is an individual decision, and everyone accepts the choice made.

Bill Gates remarked that the milder Omicron variant is a “natural vaccine.” Viruses generally get far more infectious and far less deadly as mutated strains develop. That is apparently what this Covid virus has been doing. Maybe the continuing variants will follow that normal pattern and we will soon pay no attention to this viral scare.

The political reaction has been decidedly poor and as much damage has been done by the various governments as by the virus itself.