Many of the people most at risk of dying aren’t getting COVID shots.
For years now, health experts have been warning that COVID-era politics and the spread of anti-vaxxer lies have brought us to the brink of public-health catastrophe—that a Great Collapse of Vaccination Rates is nigh. This hasn’t come to pass. In spite of deep concerns about a generation of young parents who might soon give up on immunizations altogether—not simply for COVID, but perhaps for all disease—many of the stats we have are looking good. Standard vaccination coverage among babies and toddlers, including the pandemic babies born in 2020, is “high and stable,” the CDC reports. And kindergarteners’ immunization rates, which dipped after the pandemic started, are no longer losing ground.
Whatever gaps in early childhood vaccination were brought on by the chaos of early 2020 have since been reversed, Alison Buttenheim, a professor of nursing and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told me: “We’ve substantially caught up, which is incredible. It’s actually an amazing feat.”
But even in the shadow of this triumph, a more specific crisis in vaccine acceptance has emerged. Americans aren’t now suspicious of inoculations on the whole—the nation isn’t anti-vax—but we have lost faith in yearly COVID shots. Barely any children have been getting them. Among adults, the drop in uptake has been rapid and relentless: By the spring of 2022, 56 percent of all adults had received their initial booster shot; a year later, just 28 percent were up to date; so far this COVID season, just 19 percent can say the same.
Of course, the dangers from infection have been dropping too. Almost all of us have been exposed to COVID at this point, either through prior immunization, natural infection, or—most likely—both. That makes the disease much less deadly than it’s ever been before. (Among kids, the CDC now attributes “0.00%” of weekly deaths to COVID.) But for one age group in particular—people over 65—the crashing vaccination rates should inspire dread. More than 1,500 deaths each week are still associated with COVID, and almost all of them are senior citizens; current data hint that COVID has been killing seniors at seven times the rate of flu. Across the nation’s nursing homes and retirement communities, the Great Collapse is real.
The older people I know won’t get their covid shots because of the side effects. They’ll get a whole bunch of other vaccines, like everyone other vaccine in the world, just not the covid vaccine. They just get knocked down, and are out of commission for a couple of days.
I try to convince them, but they haven’t offically caught covid yet, although they was one suspicious time prior to lockdown where they lost taste and fully believe it was covid, but it’s disconcerting thinking that if the vaccine hits so hard, what would actual covid do. Especially, when they have at least 2 risk factors for severe covid.
Which side effects are you faking your comments on?
I’ve had three Moderna’s and one Pfizer, and if you think they don’t have any symptoms associated with them, then I would assume you’ve never been vaccinated.
Walking fever, was the biggest one. Some muscle soreness, and dehydration by association. You’re not sick though, and there are no permanent effects (except increased immunity to COVID)
Yeah but those are the proper side effects, everyone feels that. The dr informs you of it usually. I’m not saying that means we should say there aren’t any but I think the person you replied to has a different perspective when it comes to side effects.
When stupid people talk about covid vax side effects they aren’t talking about muscle soreness.
There is no need for “faking” here. I, too, occasionally feel side effects after my vaccination shots. It’s the bodies’ immune system running high to make sense of the incoming materials and building antibodies. More than once, this has taken me down for a day, and I can easily accept that older people have an even harder time.
It is still way better then getting infected.
I mean the covid vaccine even gave me a fever and overall muscle soreness. It felt like I had a mild cold. Only the last Moderna didn’t have that effect on me. Other vaccines I’ve had typically only make it so I can’t lift my arm for a couple days.
I’m not talking crazy talk here like microchips or altering genetics or crap. But for many people I know, the first couple vaccines gave em the ol 1-2. I still got the boosters and I’ve had better reactions every time, but this older person didn’t want to go past the original set.
Anyone who had muscle soreness and fatigue from the vax and uses that as reasoning to never get another is fucking stupid as hell. Fuck those selfish pieces of shit for putting themselves and everyone around them at risk because of said selfishness
Another interesting observation:
Like younger American adults, seniors haven’t been avoiding all recommended immunizations, just the ones for COVID. Their flu-shot rates have gone down a little in the past few years, but only by a handful of percentage points from a pandemic-driven, all-time high of 75 percent. This season, about 70 percent of people over 65 have received their flu vaccine, in line with average rates that haven’t changed that much for decades. In the meantime, seniors’ uptake of the latest COVID shots has fallen off by more than half since 2022, to just 38 percent. These diverging rates—steady for the flu, plummeting for COVID—are notably at odds with the attendant risks. Seniors seem to understand the value of inoculating themselves against the flu. So why do they forgo the same precaution against something so much worse?
Only 38% of seniors got the covid vax? Jesus Christ, do us all a favor and fucking die already, stop helping covid to mutate and fuck us all even more
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
