dublinpilot wrote:
I can’t help but think that if there was a real significant refusal rate in France that data would be published on it and it would be easy to find.
I do believe that we will (in any country) only get hard data on actual refusal in several months from now. There are several reasons for that:
- If you do not live in a nursing home, as far as I know the French have a very similar system to Germany that you have to actively register for vaccination. If you do not want to get vaccinated you do not have to “refuse” but you simply do not register.
- As far as I know there is also in France no systematic tracking of the reasons for declining an appointment offered to you. If you decline you decline – nobody knows if you decline because you are out of town at that week, are too ill (from a different disease) to get vaccinated, already went through Covid in the meantime or actually “refuse” to be vaccinated with that vaccine
- People change their minds over time – therefore at least some of the people who e.g. refused to get AZ might agree to it at a later try (or when they offered another vaccine). So it ist unclear, how “refusal” is actually defined.
dublinpilot wrote:
I really don’t know why we are still talking about vaccine refusals in France. Nobody seems to be able to come up with any data on it, myself included.
When have I said anything about actual refusals of Covid-19 vaccines? I’m referring to general levels of scepticism and historical attitudes to vaccines of any sort.
As some have pointed out, when the reality stares them in the face people tend to make slightly more sensible choices. Not dissimilar to opinion polls and actual voting.
I appreciate it’s little more than ‘everybody knows’ and there is probably not much good data on it (which of course means there’s no reason you have to believe it) but it’s there and it’s real – just like putting a drug in suppository form helps, err….. penetrate… the French market. What you believe is up to you.
As an indicator of attitudes, consider that the French Covid-19 vaccination programme originally required (I don’t know if it still does) a F2F consultation for consent with one’s own doctor five days before the jab.
Whether that translates to lower vaccination rates is another question.
This was predictable. Anyone with options will exercise those options if you try to squeeze them.
My prediction is for total vertical integration of PPE and vaccine production, within every country which can afford to do it. Fujifilm… who would have expected that?
The GDPR aspect is interesting too, but is really for the politics/OT thread. I wonder what it might be?
@Graham So there is no proper data yet anectdotal evidence saying something opposite to your opinion should be ignored.
There is a world of difference between wearing masks in Japan and possible vaccine sceptiscism in France. For one I can see the number of mask wearers in Japan, or would that too be anecdotal?
The data map shown by @Kwlf shows a survey of 140,000 people, worldwide. I would hardly call that a representative sample.
However, if in yours eyes, vaccine sceptiscism is defined by someone who asks questions and reads the small print on the packaging, then I would be surprised if vaccine sceptiscism in France is as low as 45%. The French tend to question everything, its a national trait.
Btw I have never heard of heavy leg syndrome, what is it?
Over the past few weeks the number of Covid 19 cases has been rising in what some are calling a 3rd wave. The majority being of the UK variant.
Alongside this the number of ICU cases has been rising too. But, today it was reported that the average age of those in ICU is under forty and with no comorbidities.
@gallois I do wonder if this is worth continuing, but I shall try.
One at a time….
With the anecdotes what I mean is that just because you (or I) don’t know anyone who takes that view then it doesn’t mean it isn’t out there.
I think @kwlf’s post is a perfectly reasonable data point. There is some data – the questions may not be perfect (can they ever be?) and the absolute numbers probably don’t tell us much but as a comparator between countries it’s very useful. I doubt that the French approach to answering questions can account for the entire difference.
Of course that is not how I would define vaccine skepticism.
Heavy legs is a pseudo-medical phenomenon which is exactly what it says, your legs feel heavy (and tired). It is largely unrecognised outside of France, but within France has at least partial acceptance as a real condition within the medical profession.
I think I’ll leave it there on French vaccine skepticism. It’s real, it’s there, and has been around for a while. Either that or a whole industry (the one I work in) is labouring under a myth.
The only definitive data (on Covid-19 vaccines) we’re likely to get will be ~12- months from now when everyone in the EU has been offered two jabs and real uptake rates can be measured.
Graham wrote:
When have I said anything about actual refusals of Covid-19 vaccines?
Once again, I didn’t say what you have accused me of. I never said you said anything about vaccine refusals. It was another poster who claimed the French had 40% vaccine refusals.
I really don’t like using stereotypes to bad mouth a nation of people. If evidence is found that the French have a 40% vaccine refusal rate, I’ll happily join the condemnation. But based on nothing other than people’s own beliefs and British tabloid press reports, I refuse to take part, and am happy to call it out as being unfair.
And it’s nothing to do with a particular fondness for the French and being anti British. When Le Stving previously accused the UK be being Europe’s basket case (or something similar…I can’t remember the exact words now) of Covid infections I was happy to call that out too.
dublinpilot wrote:
Once again, I didn’t say what you have accused me of. I never said you said anything about vaccine refusals. It was another poster who claimed the French had 40% vaccine refusals.
After I put out there that the French have a history of vaccine skepticism pre-Covid which is in excess of the European norm (and admitted that it was hard to find data on it) you said that you didn’t know why we were still talking about French vaccine refusals and that if it was a thing there would be data. Forgive me if I assumed that was a direct response to me, especially since you cited my use of ‘everybody knows’.
It’s not a stereotype to bad-mouth anyone. There’s no condemnation (certainly not from me) and nothing in the British tabloid press as far as I’m aware. It’s just a thing, the French aren’t so keen on vaccines as a nation. Most of the damage was done, if I understand correctly, in the scandal when the French government spent hundreds of millions of EUR on enough H1N1 vaccine to do the entire country when, in the end, there was no need.
We’ve now seen two charts (the ourworldindata one and the one @kwlf posted) which show France as a significant outlier in Europe on attitudes to vaccines. It’s not condemnation, or bad-mouthing, any more than saying the UK’s high death rate from Covid-19 is probably due to our poor diet and lifestyle. It’s just an observation.
