Is COVID vaccination freedom really worth it?

I’m wondering whether or not to post a brief run down of some statistics on the validity of COVID vaccination. Starting to get sick and tired of the deniers, the deliberately ignorant, the ‘freedom’ fighters. Just what freedoms are they on about? The freedom to get infected with a potentially deadly virus, the freedom to infect others, the freedom to damage society just so they can stick it to the man?

A few basic truths – vaccination helps by:

  • reducing the chance of infection,
  • reducing the severity of any breakthrough infections that might occur,
  • and reducing the chance of passing it on to anyone else

If the vaccinated individual doesn’t get infected in the first place then they cannot pass it on at all, but that little snippet seems to get ignored too often.

In contrast, if you decline to be vaccinated by exercising your freedom that means that you:

  • run a heightened risk of catching COVID,
  • are more likely to become seriously ill,
  • and are more likely, with an increased viral load, to pass on infection to someone else, with potentially deadly consequences.

Someone who does get ill and takes up an ICU bed may well be depriving a more deserving person, who didn’t have a choice regarding their ailment, that level of support, so that is doubly reprehensible.

What I see from those opposed to vaccination is a mishmash of pseudo scientific reports, often warped by agencies or individuals with little or no understanding of either the science or statistics behind the studies. When you try to show them the reality, they ignore that and switch to a different tangent. Eventually it usually ends up in name calling (I’ve had some seriously offensive stuff sent my way) and they either go off in a huff claiming we are all ‘sheeple’, or if it gets really heated they get banned from whatever forum we’re on. In no case has anyone ever been able to stand on their own two feet and say, with any credibility, that they have knowledge of the field and back up their arguments with real data.

In the meantime they continue to spread the misinformation, and sometimes downright lies, all in the service of some obsession with their rights. The latest call to emotion seems to be that armed forces fought for freedom and rights, so who are we to deny them? Now tell me, just where does the right to endanger others come from?