America can politicize a can of baked beans.
The sad reality is the politics in this country meant Trump was uniquely positioned to have led an effective response to this. The people who listen to him the most were the ones who were always most likely to reject public health initiatives from the government, so he had the credibility with those people to convince them of the need to take certain actions that few other Republicans, and certainly no Democrat, would have had. But Trump went the wrong way on this from the outset and that entrenched the attitudes of those the Public Health establishment were always going to have to win over to ensure an effective response.
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But there’s a huge anti-vaccination movement in Germany made up of right wingers and new age hippies
I know, same here. That’s why I came up with the higher Anglo-Saxon acceptance levels. There seems to be a marked difference.
But yeah, definitely not only the Mediterranean countries mistrusting the vaccines. I wonder where that comes from to be honest. Fake news? But why would Germans for instance be more susceptible to fake news than British citizens? I struggle to make much sense out of that to be honest.
As far as Germany goes, there are those two groups. Firstly, the right wing AFD types who are generally opposed to anything the government does. Most of them are in Eastern Germany and come from a group of people who are extremely cynical about government after the abuses of the DDR and neglect after reunification. This scepticism is common across Eastern Europe.
Secondly, there is a large group of people who are wary of pharmaceutical companies and modern medicine and who believe in homeopathy and other alternative treatments. The few anti-vaxxers I know are from this second group.
One guy told me he’d been advised not to get vaccinated by his Shaman.
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There is a bit of a joke in politics that if you go far enough right you eventually find common cause with the far left. Anti-Vax sentiment is a great example of that as pre-covid, most of the anti-vax community was on the left.
Actually? That’s just bonkers.
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I’m getting my booster tonight. My initial shots were Pfizer back in March and April and I’ve elected to go for the J&J shot for the booster. There’s really good evidence that the best immunity is achieved from varying the exposure, such that people who were boosted with mRNA had a better response if their original regime was AZ than those who had 3 doses of mRNA. Almost all of that data is from AZ rather than J&J, and in people in whom the sequence was AZ then mRNA, so it’s bit of an extrapolation that J&J is the best option for me, but it seems right.
I was wanting to hold off maybe a month or so longer, again due to good data that a longer interval is beneficial, but I’ve got too much travelling and family exposures coming up to chance it in the level we’re currently seeing here.
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The garlic odeur might not keep the virus away but apparently it’s very good against vampires and women, strangely. 
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It’s a very complex social question here. Most is due to confused messaging from government and ‘expert’ sources (it’s difficult to have a coherent knowledge on health when the state has been subsidising homeopathic medicine, doctors are liberal and spout nonsense a lot of the time …). It particularly affects fairly uneducated populous with hard right sentiments from what i can gather but there’s some rich cunts that fuel it. Easy targets. France isn’t at all like Spain though where regionality comes in (Catalan and Basque regions being the evident ones that have fewer freedoms than those that toe the line). The French actually are very conforming on many levels with the ‘governments stance’.
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Any word about similar but lesser benefits from mixing the mRNAs? I have a booster tomorrow, not sure if I will have any choice at all, but if I do I will ask for Moderna - double Pfizer to this point. AZ and J&J are not available.
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My dad had his 3rd dose over the weekend. At the government centre, the nurse gave my dad 2 mRNA options. He decided to go with the same vaccine as 1st and 2nd doses (he only had the sore arm minor reactions, and would rather not take any risk in major reaction with his age).
Nothing I’ve seen indicates any benefit of switching between the two, but also there appears no downside, which is great news by itself.
When I had the mixture of the 2 mRNA vaccines, I was floored with the 2nd dose (strong reaction to the 1st dose as well).
I’m planning on doing similar and getting AZ when I can get a booster in late Jan.
With Austria’s mandatory vaccination law, has there been any talk of what the government will do in the case of vaccine injury etc? While I can understand a small minority’s concern for vaccination but I do think the majority of anti vaxxers have very strange reasons for being anti, like I just don’t trust the government and then go on to take some strange medication instead. So when vaccinations become law, then I am sure the results of it will be challenged like will government take care of the person for life if the person becomes incapable of caring for themselves? Just trying to understand what are the policies around that because I am sure this will be challenged especially if other countries start adopting the same policies too.
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I know a couple who spent pretty much most of the 80s off their tits on drugs. They are now objecting to the vaccine on the grounds that they do not know its “long term effects”.
So that Charlie that was laced with baby powder and horse tranquilliser sourced from Christ knows where was fine, but a billion dollar vaccine is totally suspect?
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