Yeah you folks are lucky there. Only 8% of the Japanese population is vaccinated so far and none of the general population under 65 yet.
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we were at the hospital on thursday picking up meds and they cleared the hallway bringing out a covid patient on a gurney. Now Iād be the first to tell you we have all probably been sitting next to someone infected and never knew it but this was a bit intense.
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Last time I looked at the hospital stats it was pretty grim in Tokyo and as the news says, Osaka is done. Canāt take any more patients, turning away gravely ill cases already.
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Tragicā¦kills me to think of people being denied the help they need
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Yup. I think Saitama is pretty close to that state too.
And the govt still wonāt admit the Olympics arenāt going to happen. Surreal.
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Unfortunately not - anyone who gets infected has the potential to develop new strains that can get around the existing vaccines. 
Quite the opposite actually. Drug and vaccine trials usually take too long because theyāre held up by funding problems and difficulties getting volunteers. In this case, both were available and there were customers putting up huge orders in advance. What weāve seen with the covid vaccine is how it should be done. IMO countries should have public run vaccine production but I guess govts wonāt want to carry the costā¦
Pam weāre at the stage where either you get vaccinated or you will eventually get the virus - itās not going awayā¦
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Yeah. Itās mutating fast enough now that the general opinion is that itās moved past pandemic to being just endemic, and weāre likely looking at yearly vaccinations like flu shots from now on.
Basically, the world was too slow to respond.
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I was surprised that Japanās response was so slow - certainly compared to other countries in the area! Europeās response was terribleā¦
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Not to mention the US.
Japan was quick to close the borders and slow to do anything else, in part due to lack of power, in part due to seemingly incompetent bureaucracy around the vaccinations.
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If I get it, I get itā¦ my immune system will handle it. Thereās a good chance Iāve already had it and my immune system has built up an immunity to it. I never get the flu shots, and I have no intention of getting this one. I canāt even tell you the last time I had the flu, or even was seriously ill.
Like I said, to each his/her own. If you feel you need to get immunized, do it. I support your right to choose. and ask only that you do the same for those who choose not to.
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Thatās a fine risk to take for yourself, but will be pretty unfortunate for all the people you spread it to while asymptomatic but infected, as is common.
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The only thing I spread is my infectious smile 
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The chances of a vaccinated person dying from catching the virus from an unvaccinated person are mathematically calculable. The number is out to the third decimal place of a percent. If we held to that standard of responsibility on other topics, people wouldnāt be able to do a great many things, including drive cars. I respect @PamPurrs choice.
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Some just donāt seem to get it @howard and no matter how you try to discuss it with them they just continually just keep coming up with glib statements with no basis on facts.
My son is one of these and I just donāt get the thinking.
Makes no sense to me.
I hope the @DaveT statement is factual.
Then at least I have a little hope to survive against the non vax crowd.
I can actually see a time where we will have to prove we have been vaccinated before being allowed entrance to venues such as big box stores or the like.
Not sure how they could do it logistically but I will support it.
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I have a vaccination card with clinic, date of first shot, date of 2nd shot and a stamp.
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I remember polio, I had friends in school that suffered from it, and the only reason kids today donāt know polio is we have vaccines. I donāt get the resistance to vaccines.
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You wonāt shame me into it either. Why canāt people just live and let live. SMH.
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In the spirit of science I try not to say anything that you canāt observe for yourself. I donāt listen to any one person or group of people, no matter what their credentials are, and then I cross reference multiple sources to see if someone is inconsistent.
The death rate for oneās age group is fairly well documented. So the first number to start with is looking that up. Thatās the chance of death if directly injected with the virus and being susceptible to contracting the disease as a result. (This is going to be the most conservative number possible because it doesnāt account for asymptomatic or other types of uncounted cases. For the real chance of death one could de-rate this to some amount.)
Then we can lower your chances by multiplying by the ineffectiveness of your vaccine. If you took a vaccine that is 95% effective, then your chance of it not working is 5%, which makes the multiplier 0.05. Multiply your chance of death by the ineffectiveness of your vaccine and this is now your chance of death if you are vaccinated and come into infecting level contact with someone who has the disease.
Surface transmission was shown to be nearly if not entirely non-existent a year ago. Outdoor transmission is nearly non-existent at 6ā social distance without masks, even prior to vaccinations began. The virus is also unable to survive in sunlight.
With the case rates dropping as fast as they are (at least in my neighborhood) you can then multiply by the chance you come into an infecting level contact with someone who has the disease. That number for me is fairly easy because I donāt like crowds. What I havenāt really havenāt been able to find is details on indoor spread and under what conditions. So, I keep an eye toward quantity of people, proximity and air circulation quality and guess this one conservatively or not at all.
At this point I chalk it up to the risk of being alive. I donāt wish to impose behavior on someone else, especially when it comes to injecting a lab made substance into their body. I think itās too complicated of a web of life to start down that road. If that door gets opened I am perhaps more scared of unknown future scenarios where Iām required to inject who knows what. Once government opens a door, the tendency is to continue to slide the line, maybe further than I like.
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