I’ve always felt like I was different than most people, other than a few that had the same unusual childhood as me. Where I lived before I always felt different but accepted, even though I was strange to them lol, and I had a number of really good friends. Where I live now I feel different from everyone, but here I don’t feel acceptable, and I have mostly only acquaintances and really only 2 people, outside my family, that I would call friends. I’m not sure how much that bothers me or not. I’d like to have a really good friend or 2 but may be out of luck with that. When I see my old friends, from my previous location, it’s like we’ve never been apart and we just carry on where we left off.

I’m a nurse and I work with some people who are refusing to get vaccinated. I can tell you from talking to them that, for many of them, a lot of their reasoning is based on the circulating conspiracies and their political affiliations , or that they are not well informed at all. I don’t want them to lose their jobs, and I hope it does not come to that. I don’t think a vaccine mandate is an effective tool at the moment. What troubles me though, is that some of them are also inclined to not wear their masks as per the hospital rules. This isn’t all of them at all, but I think that the morally correct thing to do would be to be scrupulous about protecting others as much as they possibly can. It’s quite sickening to me how much politics plays in the actions taken during a public health event. Some of the behavior of those I thought were kind, caring people makes me sick at heart. ETA - I thought I should clarify that some of the nurses I work with, although I feel they are misinformed, are not who I was meaning when I mentioned unkind behavior. They have cared for people wonderfully well and worked extremely hard, but have been influenced by the misinformation being spread around as far as the vaccine is concerned.

I think it’s fair to say that many of the people protesting against masks and vaccines, because of their human rights, are not the ones protesting or speaking out against the issues Sneezy mentioned.

I thought this would be your answer. ETA It sounds like what is informing your position is your opinion and not a principle you believe in.

So what do you think about the places that are tying businesses hands by passing laws saying they can’t mandate vaccines or masks?

The trouble is, I think, that some places have so many militant anti-vax, anti-mask people that an employer finds it very difficult to implement something they believe to be the right thing to do, because the push back and intimidation is huge. How can an employer do that somewhere like your state, Texas I believe, where the governor bans them from doing so? I think that is why the federal government acted on this. I honestly don’t know what I think of vaccine mandates, and I don’t know it it’s going to help, but there appears to be a war of intimidation going on by a certain portion of our population, along with election seeking politicians, that is not allowing others the rights they should have. Do you think it is right to give in to this intimidation?

@Mrs Tiggywinkle I’m so sorry, it is so hard to see all that and then see the way some people respond. Hope you are able to rest today.

Where are these vaccine passports mandated for? What type of places? I realize there are people from many places on the forum. I’m from the UK myself, but live in the US. I don’t define a productive discussion as being one in which everyone agrees. I have found though, that someone who almost immediately comes up with the whole Nazi thing, isn’t usually open to hearing other people’s points of view. Maybe you’re different.

I don’t think anyone on here has said they think healthy children should be mandated to have the vaccine, rather that they want children, and parents, to have the option to be vaccinated. As far as I’m aware, other than California schools, there aren’t mandates for children. It’s a bit hard to have a productive discussion, by the way, when you move the goal posts. To be fair though, I don’t really get the impression that you are after a productive discussion.

This might interest you.

I don’t know what to think about mandates, but I don’t necessarily think the primary purpose of mandating a vaccine is for the good of the individual getting it. I think it comes from a public health perspective of trying to end the pandemic as soon as possible. It’s not perfect but being vaccinated does reduce your chances of getting infected and reduces your chances of passing it on if you do get infected. For vaccinations to help to end the pandemic there needs to be sufficient people vaccinated to reduce transmission, to enable it to end. Somehow, by hook or by crook, I think, from a public health perspective, you have to get sufficient people vaccinated. Not saying I agree with all the methods and tactics, but I can understand, academically where they are coming from. The main problem, in my opinion, throughout the pandemic, is that we have had to try and get people to act in the best interests of others, and not just themselves, and sadly there is a tremendous resistance to that. I’m really sad because I now realize that that is the kind of society I have to live in, and I really don’t want it to be so.

What upsets me most is the information they are using to inform their decision not to get vaccinated. My ex pastor’s wife is stridently anti Covid vax on social media. I have looked at every single piece of information she has posted and linked to and it is just downright bad and untrue information. Most of the time the links quoted in the articles don’t say what the article says they do. If you even were to click on the linked information and even thought about it at all you would come away with something very different than the article headline. I can only assume that she doesn’t bother examining any of the so called evidence for the claims. Every source she posts is politically motivated. Who uses politics to inform their health decisions? I just don’t understand that.

Unfortunately I think it is not only that they don’t understand that there may very well be no connection between the two events, but they also have no interest in understanding that, and wish to grasp on to anything that confirms their fears. I would not want to bear the responsibility of passing on false information if I were them.

This is really frightening to me, especially because the anti-vaxers I know are very strident in trying to persuade pregnant women not to get vaccinated. There is also a story about a breast fed baby who died a few weeks or a month after the mother was vaccinated, that is all over social media at the moment. I tried to look into it some more and it does not seem clear cut at all that it was a result of the vaccine, but not many details. And I keep thinking of the number of unborn babies that die because their mothers are seriously ill with Covid.

Unless the situation is unbearable for her, I think it is really important to think very carefully about how she will feel having to share custody of her children. How will she feel not having them every Christmas etc, dealing with important occasions like graduations and weddings, grandchildren etc, when her children may have to take turns between their parents. That doesn’t just end when they grow up. There are still Christmas and other holidays and important life events to negotiate. I don’t know the right answer for everyone, but I think it is very good to consider those things when deciding what to do.

That is wonderful! My dh had an exposure 2 weeks ago that I thought would be inescapable. He was in a room for an hour with someone the day before they were symptomatic and tested positive. But both of them were vaccinated, my dh with Moderna, and no symptoms and dh tested negative. I think I hear so much about the breakthrough cases and not much about the ones that don’t, so your story is encouraging. On the other hand, I continue to see how protective, against serious illness, vaccines are at my work place.

It is interesting to see all the attempts going on to manipulate us through social media etc. That probably makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist lol, but I have noticed it a lot during this pandemic, usually as a way to deflect attention away from something else, I think. For instance, initially there was a lot of stuff about Covid being just the flu and no big deal, or even completely false, then, when that became a difficult position to hold, there was a huge interest in human trafficking, or at least that was where the focus shifted with the people I know. At the same time those people were calling other people sheep, and it just seemed so ironic to me when they seemed to be so susceptible to obvious manipulation themselves.

Anyone thinking the Bible promotes people fighting for their individual rights, above all else, has not read it, or at least not understood it. In my opinion people get mixed up with what it means to be an American, and what it means to be a Christian. I find it really offensive to see that women attempting to use the Bible to defend her ideas and actions.

Maybe not about the same things, but I do think that people on both extremes are equally intolerant of the other side. I don’t think the answer lies on either extreme. I think it lies somewhere in the middle, where tolerance really can exist. If we are to live in a community we can’t have everything our own way.

I agree. That’s what they’re like around here too. Not sure what the answer is, but I don’t think patently obvious biased rhetoric, from either side, is it. I wish that more measured voices could be heard in this country, but it seems the appetite is all for extremes.

It really is amazing! My state, which has had a lot of hospitalizations and deaths is still at only 48% fully vaxed and 54% initiated vaccination. I don’t think we are going to get much higher so I guess it will have to be natural immunity with all that entails.

Anything to turn the attention elsewhere. Some people here do a lot of that, I’ve noticed.

I know you aren’t anti-vax. I don’t really think the answer is making people get vaccinated against their will. I was really commenting that, even without a huge surge, Covid is still really disrupting hospitals. Also these people aren’t aware of how far the spread goes from them and the effect it has.

It may well be a mild case for them but who are they passing it on to? There are many problems within the health care system but Covid is a big one. Things have calmed down quite a bit here right now, but still at least 1/2 the patients in ICU are Covid patients. They are really sick and take a huge amount of resources. If we did not have the Covid patients, which would put numbers more like they usually are for us at this time of year, things would be way more manageable. There is no way to honestly deny that it isn’t a huge issue in a lot of places. I would love to go back to the days when I didn’t get multiple texts most days begging for people to help out at work.

There are a lot of people acting dishonorably and dishonestly now, I know a bunch, but I would be surprised if they are willing to go as far as forgery. I may be wrong though, unfortunately.