[commandlinefan]

Wow... I thought it was just tinfoil hat types that were avoiding this vaccine because they were afraid Bill Gates was using it to implant a tracking chip inside them. But if healthcare workers - who actually know what's in this thing - are so vaccine-hesitant that the government has to mandate it to them, I'm suddenly worried whether or not I should think twice about getting a booster (or worse, giving it to my children).

[a45a33s]

as an anecdotal data point, my wife has a phd in a relevant field. her dissertation involved the lipid nanoparticles used by the pfizer vaccine as a delivery mechanism.

in her words no one really knows how the lipid nanoparticles actually work, and it is much too soon to be forcing this onto the public, and thats just the delivery mechanism. so you have a novel mRNA vaccine, with a novel delivery mechanism, and very little long term safety data. she does not feel like these have been tested to the same standard as other vaccines, we are at the point where if this is mandated for our children we will probably move somewhere they are not.

[shantnutiwari]

As a Britisher, is there an ELI5 explanation on why so many Americans are opposed to the vaccination, even educated people working in healthcare? It all seems very bizarre to me...

[_fat_santa]

The problem that so many have is that the mandates completely ignore other ways to gain immunity and the fact that not everyone can get the vaccine. Right now the one single line from the government is "Everyone should get vaccinated, it's safe an effective".

To anyone paying attention it's obvious that this is not the case. Everyone should not get vaccinated, some folks can't get the vaccine. And not it's not safe and effective for everyone, some have had a bad reaction.

It would be one thing if the government realized this and placed reasonable exceptions for those who either can't get it or don't need to because they have natural immunity or immunity through monoclonal antibodies. But they don't and they continue to push this one way of getting immunity.

And that's where the distrust forms. More and more it seems that the government doesn't actually give a damn about these edge cases, all they want to do is check the box that says you have been vaccinated.

[kevingadd]

People dying from the virus is useful to an opposition party when they want to argue that the ruling party is doing a bad job and should be replaced.

Things like vaccines also threaten the status of people who use the virus in order to extract money from their audiences, like megachurch preachers and snake oil salesmen. Some people got really wealthy off Ivermectin and HCQ prescriptions during this whole thing.

[acomjean]

I work near hospitals. You'd be surprised how many staff are outside on break smoking..

[aixi]

I don't know if you're being disingenuous, but health care workers is a very wide group of people; most probably have absolutely no idea about 'whats in this thing', and in my experience most doctors are vaccinated --- it's hospital staff that aren't.

[sjwalter]

The doctors here in Montana I've talked to about it are not exactly advertising it but are unvaccinated and have recommended to me to avoid the vaccine and one intimated it's insane to vaccinate children.

So that's not the case with all doctors.

Then again, I'm fit, healthy, great diet, low stress, eat well, lots of sunlight. Covid poses less risk to me than driving, my kids it doesn't rise to the level of conscious thought.

Covid's over here.

[beerandt]

Also, it's not like doctors are doing it based on medical judgement.

Their jobs are being threatened too, and are more likely to have large debt from school and to be the primary breadwinner of their family than nurses.

Nurses just have more realistic freedom to say no.