@a: thank goodness for the vaccine. It prevents serious illness.

@a: sounds pleasant enough. I caught it 3 weeks ago and not whilst not vaccinated I only had a mild headache when tested positive.

@a: same here. Slight congestion and 10 days peace and quiet from the family.

@Hear me now: that is nothing new. The eu Covid cert has a life of 9 months. This was said at the beginning.

@GrumpyAulFella: just because I have taken the vaccine shots doesn’t mean I have bought into the vaccination process as you put it…I still have my reservations around any new medicine that is being trialled on us…like any new 1st generation technology, I’ll wait for the 2 gen. It also doesn’t mean that because I have taken the vaccinations that I will turn my back on people who also have concerns about vaccinations, who may for medical reasons not take it or the fact its their right not to take it!
You say they can produce negative tests to mingle indoors…really…where…how easy is the access to these tests, what is the cost…the majority of unvaccinated people young & old are relegated to sitting outside in the cold if they want to go out. I will never think that is a solution.

@Hear me now: That’s why I care because we are seeing people, young & old, People being ostracised because they’re exercising not to take a vaccine.
& maybe to your shock a lot of these people are intelligent hard working people. I unlike you am not going to label them & pour scorn on them. When all is said & done, a lot of people will need to take a hard look at themselves & realise how quickly they turned on people who are merely exercising their rights. They are also wearing masks, socially distancing, washing their hands…they’re are not ‘anti-vaxers’ as you lazily label them…they are people!!!!

@Hear me now: What a martyr!! “I still have reservations around any new first gen medicine that is being trialled on us”. Really!! Bit late now pal. The time for reservations was before you took the “trial” medicine not after. That is assuming that you actually did take it. How many of the 300K or so do you think cannot take the vaccine for medical reasons? The percentage is so small that it’s negligible and those people certainly wouldn’t be ostracised as you so dramatically put it, as they’re unlikely to be heading to a pub or club anyway if they have an autoimmune disease. It’s just common sense to not mingle unvaxed with vaxed. The risk of transmission is too high, as you know.

@GrumpyAulFella:dramatically put it…you really have your head up your a rse don’t you, you di realise there are calls in the Dail for people who are not vaccinated to not be allowed to go to shops or use public transport…There are countries making vaccines mandatory, are you blind to what is going on. You just choose not to see whats going on around you because it is convent for you.
Also ‘assuming that I did take’ essentially you are calling me a liar…Grand…Will not be engaging with you anymore…Glad I could challenge your lovely little world of this situation…

@Hear me now: I’ll quote some of your remarks “ostracised from society”, “gen 1 vaccine”, “trial”, “loss of freedom”, “my body my choice”. Do you see why it might be logical to conclude that you are in the 300K club? You haven’t answered any of my questions but I’ll leave you with this last one. Do you think it would be sensible, during a global health emergency, with a highly transmissible virus that has taken nearly 6,000 lives here, to allow unvaccinated people, who have 40% more chance of transmitting the disease, to mingle with vaccinated people in pubs and clubs?

@GrumpyAulFella: As you state, statistically 6000 people have died with covid19 during the 21 months from 11/3/20 – 14/12/21, the vast majority of those with an underlying condition.

The following quote is not from Facebook, tinfoil hat central or any other dubious source, its from
The Central Statistics Office of Ireland.

“There were 31,765 deaths registered in 2020, of these 16,450 were male while 15,315 were female. The 2020 total is 2.0% higher than in 2019 when 31,134 deaths were registered.”

Meaning the actual number of extra deaths from every cause in 2020 was 631 people, this in conjunction with the fact that 84% of people in ICU with covid19 have an underlying condition, regardless of their vaccination status, paints a very different picture…

@Rochelle: I had this exact discussion with family last night. I’m not going to get this booster after only having my second jab 12 weeks ago, I feel I should be covered for at least 6 months (that’s what they told us). I genuinely think it should be just left as an option to any person who feels they need it and not promoted to the high hills for “everyone” to just get it for the sake of it. There should be no exclusions for anyone who decides not to take it either.

@Rochelle: I suppose it depends on what the definition of serious infection is. Is serious missed days of work and potential disruption to services caused by outbreaks in say a hospital staff or a garda station or similar, or is serious infection one that ends up with someone in hospital? Enough people in hospitals the system could fall over. Yes yes they’ve had time to fix it And haven’t yadayadayada that’s another story. Personally I’m getting the jab as soon as I can, i had COVID right back as we locked down the first time, I’ve had both my shots, but I’m not taking any risks. Some people vaxxed can be positive and fine, some get a bit of a cold, others get far more serious infections. Apart from anything else I just don’t Wana be sick again. Same reason I got my seasonal flu vaccine.

@Ríain HenC: it is an option, unless you are being held down and forcefully injected.
It’s a highly recommended m and wise option, yet still an option.

@Kieran Woods: Right, but this is an endless cycle since the booster’s capacity to reduce infection will wane in a few months and require another booster.

@Rochelle: you should probably get on to Tony H. and NIAC. They can update the scientists around the world, who probably haven’t thought about that.

@Peazel: yes they do slow down transmissibility, this has been known for a while now.
It would be ripping through much worse if not for the vaccines.

@Fozz: very highly recommended yes , is it really that wise though as a blanket booster for all ? Cutting down from 5 months to 3 months to rush it over the line ? Surely being double jabbed is plenty of protection especially against what appears to be a weakened variant in Omicron ? Wouldn’t it also be wise to let your average healthy persons own immune system fight that off ?

@Ríain HenC: You state: “I genuinely think it should be just left as an option to any person who feels they need it and not promoted to the high hills for “everyone” to just get it for the sake of it. There should be no exclusions for anyone who decides not to take it either.”

Now if you and others could only just extend the same rights and no exclusions to everyone else, including people that have decided for whatever reason, that they don’t want any covid 19 vaccine shots, then we could reclaim the right to call our nation a democracy once again…

@Kieran Woods: yes but Rochelles point is still valid.

@Gerry McCaughey: about as helpful a comment as mine is to you.

@Peazel: 100% correct and with a reproduction rate of 4 in UK it is spreading quickly ..only one option left is to get them boosted reinforce masks with social distancing which in my opinion somehow got placed to one side along the way

@David Van-Standen: our country is a democracy. Our government was elected by us, the people. The government are making these decisions on behalf of the people for the overall benefit of the people. That’s how democracy works.

@Fozz: If coercion is being used ensure compliance and restriction of the rights to travel or to work are being placed on people that choose not to exercise that option are being applied as a punishment, then its not a free choice.

The analogy you use is very appropriate, because it approximates ‘rape’, in being held down and forced, but they don’t have to be held down and forced to be ‘raped’, if someone doesn’t willing give consent or is coerced into compliance, or doesn’t put up a fight, its still ‘rape’ even if force wasn’t used.

The same goes for coerced compliance in this context too, claiming there was another option doesn’t negate that coercion , because consent has to be given freely without coercion or negative consequences for not choosing a particular option.

@GrumpyAulFella: Saying this Government makes decisions for overall benefit of people is fairly laughable. They make decisions that are either easy or make it look like they did something. Roll out of antigen tests and HEPA filters was literally too much work for them so they made the decision to do other things for optics and not bother with it. That wasn’t for the overall benefit of people was it?

@David Van-Standen: The fact that you analogise rape (which was not even inferred in Fozz’s post) speaks volumes about the mindset of the anti-vaxer.
For your info, vaccines benefit the person, benefit the health service and benefit wider society. Not really the same as rape is it.

@Ríain HenC: the idea that Omicron is weaker has not been proven. The virologist who discovered it was on the radio yesterday. He said that the severity of omicron is similar to delta, however this does not translate to hospitalisation as so much of the population in SA has natural and vaccine immunity (even though it’s only a short period of time).

@Fozz: Its not an option if not getting it restricts you ability to travel or go out to restaurants and bars. The EU are now putting time limits in the vaccine certs essentially mandating boosters if you want to live a normal life. Ive had the first 2 jabs. Wont be having any more.

@Paul Clancy: “similar to delta “, so the original two dose vaccine should do me fine for 6 months as first advised and there is no need for a 12 week booster ? Right ?

@Peazel: Yeah, vaccines slow down the rate of transmission. News to me too.
Viral load similar to unvaxxed but with the jabs, that load drops much faster – so not carrying for as long hence less transmission.
Published in the NEJM last month.

@Aidan O’ Neill: you’d swear that they were the only decisions made. Antigen tests are useful when they give you a positive test. That’s their only use and that’s why they need to be used cautiously.

@Mark B: Fozz’s used the graphic image of being held down and forcibly being injected, physical restraint and forced bodily penetratration via an injection.

You clearly don’t understand the concept of consent, if you think it doesn’t apply to all questions of bodily autonomy.

@David Van-Standen: you clearly don’t understand transmissible diseases if you are trying to draw a comparison between a vaccine recipient and a rape victim.

@Ríain HenC: completely agree. I have had 2 vaccines, was told that I was fully vaccinated. Now 3 months later I need a third shot, and they are already talking about a 4th. I will have my 3rd shot a year after my second, and not before that. My immune system is good, and I don’t want it over stimulated, and kick off autoimmune diseases either. I will not be coerced into something I don’t need.

@GrumpyAulFella: You clearly don’t understand bodily autonomy, consent, or the right to say no.

Or the fact that the use of coercion from a postion of authority, to force consent from others by any means, doesn’t equate to actual consent in any circumstances.

@David Van-Standen: you lose that right to choice when you endanger others. That goes without saying.

@David Van-Standen: Yes, he said this was not happening to anyone with respect to vaccines, which it true. So it’s all good right.
You brought up r@pe and tried to compare this to getting vaccinated, which seems a little insulting to me to those victim to such violence.
So let’s think of a few other similar things that the government promotes for the good of the individual and society.
- Wearing of seat belts
- Speed limits
- Non-smoking in public places
- MMR vaccine
Are these things also like r@pe to you?

@Mark B: Respectfully, I didnt bring it up, I expanded on Fozz bringing up the idea, that not holding people people down and injecting them, somehow made coercing people to choose the option of mass vaccination or suffer negative consequences ok.

I pointed out that forced consent, either through the use of force or by authoritative coercion, either in the case of r@pe or a quasi mandated mass vaccination programme, removed the right to say no, undermining the right of bodily autonomy, by virtue of the punative measures put in place for people that don’t comply, such as social exclusion or workplace exclusion.

Nullifucation, using emergency legislation to circumvent the existing protections at the expense of personal autonomy only seem reasonable if you are unaffected by them.

There is a very simple way to test if the use of this type of coercion is morally acceptable, forget about covid 19 and just imagine the exact same approach was being taken to coerce you to take a new HIV vaccine, that you felt that didn’t need because of your personal circumstances made you low risk and you didn’t consent to being injected and then emergency legislation was introduced to circumvent your bodily autonomy as guaranteed in law, claiming it was for the common good and would prevent illness, not necessarily in you but perhaps in others, but simultaneously the efficacy of the drug was being questioned and reduced every week, meaning not only would you have to take the initial drug, but have to continue to do so every two months.

@Franny Ando: political posturing aside they can’t hide from the numbers.Modelling predictions for worse case scenario if there is immune escape and the boost is less effective say to expect between now and next April 495k hospitalisation with 80k deaths best case is 175k hospitalisation and 25k….figures are from London School of Hygiene and infectious diseases.

@Patrick Fitzgibbon: Bit like the modelling predictions from our health experts probably grossly exaggerated. There is no information at this moment to say omicron is a variant to be concerned about even within WHO.

@Franny Ando: Not going cross swords with this one even as you state it is not a concern!

@Michael McCormack: yes I heard that interview,a very interesting take on things from a doctor that certainly makes you think.
He is neither anti vax anti covid but more anti nephet …not been up to the job.