Quo Vadis. Home V Wycombe Wanderers Sat 18-12-21 3'oclock.

[LeverEnd]

Quite glad it's off personally. I'd have missed it anyway as Mrs LE has the Rona and I'm not a completely selfish bellend!

You've just broke the internet irony-meter. Are you pleased with yourself?

Extremely. However in my defence I wouldn't have had it called off just for me.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Here’s one – if you were Evatt, desperate for new blood in January, would you risk signing unvaccinated players?

Not Evatt/Bolton, but here's an interesting look at the wider issue. Sounds like many attitudes are hardening - sceptics in the dressing room, concerns in the boardroom. Rates of vaccination seem anecdotally to be rising, but not to anywhere near the levels in Italy and Spain.

https://theathletic.com/3015756/2021/12 ... cruitment/ (£)

[officer_dibble]

Boxing Day cancelled, what a pain in the arse!

[LeverEnd]

Boxing Day cancelled, what a pain in the arse!

Our cancellation too. Was inevitable. Wonder what our vaccination rate is? Morecambe have 100% according to their manager.
Anyway I'll just have to amuse myself by starting drinking earlier I suppose.

[officer_dibble]

Genuinely don’t know what to do without Boxing Day footie. Seen some shite games over the years - a 1-0 defeat to shed weds in the champo sticks in my head.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Dibs:

Here’s one - if you were Evatt, desperate for new blood in January, would you risk signing unvaccinated players?

Evatt:

I think it’s [vaccine status] definitely got to play a part. One hundred per cent. I completely agreed with Jurgen (Klopp) when he was saying that.


When we are making signings in January, we’re making them to have a significant impact and an immediate impact.

I think last January was a great example of that for us - the way we went into the window, we got people who we wanted and we had a significant improvement in the team from virtually day one and ended up being promoted.

It’s no good to me if we’re hitting the ground running and we’ve committed money for a player, and then just as we’re hitting our stride he has to miss 10 days or two weeks with Covid, or in a more serious issue he becomes ill with Covid and has long Covid and the suffering off the back of that, and we don’t have him available for a significant period of time.

It’s something that we definitely have to look at as a medical department – there’s no doubt about that.

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/19 ... fer-plans/

[officer_dibble]

wise words IMO

[Worthy4England]

wise words IMO

Interesting as to how far you'd go down the rankings on your list. Would you go 5th best on "the list" if your first 4 weren't vaccinated and still think you'd done a great piece of business?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

wise words IMO

Interesting as to how far you'd go down the rankings on your list. Would you go 5th best on "the list" if your first 4 weren't vaccinated and still think you'd done a great piece of business?

But it’s also as I said before: if we sign “leaders” who are anti-vaxxers, might they then spread it - the disease, but also the anti-vaxx attitude - round the changing room?

Of course, it’s not as clean-cut as that. As I and others on here painfully know, the vaxxed can be laid low. But look at David Wheater’s, let’s call it scepticism. And it seems to have been mentioned in several media outlets now that United have a problem with influential figures in their dressing room being antivaxx. It’s a real problem and you can see why some clubs are leaning toward zero tolerance.

[TANGODANCER]

Antivax. So, what exactly are the reasons people refuse vaccinations? ( I'm relating to athletes, but also in general. It surely can't be fear (I'm 82 and have had all three, my wife is five years younger and had had all three), so is it on religious grounds, lack of trust in the vaccine or what? And I'm asking purely from puzzlement in objection to what seems common sense. I'm not sure there is an answer, but the question is there for opinion .

[truewhite15]

Antivax. So, what exactly are the reasons people refuse vaccinations? ( I'm relating to athletes, but also in general. It surely can't be fear (I'm 82 and have had all three, my wife is five years younger and had had all three), so is it on religious grounds, lack of trust in the vaccine or what? And I'm asking purely from puzzlement in objection to what seems common sense. I'm not sure there is an answer, but the question is there.

Misinformation and unfounded paranoia. Started with a widely discredited "study" that vaccines cause autism; it being discredited didn't stop it spreading like wildfire on social media, where it was treated as gospel.

People are stupid enough to imagine conspiracies where none exist.

[TANGODANCER]

Antivax. So, what exactly are the reasons people refuse vaccinations? ( I'm relating to athletes, but also in general. It surely can't be fear (I'm 82 and have had all three, my wife is five years younger and had had all three), so is it on religious grounds, lack of trust in the vaccine or what? And I'm asking purely from puzzlement in objection to what seems common sense. I'm not sure there is an answer, but the question is there.

Misinformation and unfounded paranoia. Started with a widely discredited "study" that vaccines cause autism; it being discredited didn't stop it spreading like wildfire on social media, where it was treated as gospel.

People are stupid enough to imagine conspiracies where none exist.

Thanks Truewhite. See, I've read all the publicised information/misinformation, but the
real root of my question I suppose is where the decisions involve far more than just the individual. Sport, particularly is a classic example on two fronts: business and entertainment and affects millions worldwide. Just how much do the players owe the public as well as themselves (and health is the priority) ? Again, I expect no solid answer.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

There are other causes besides the ones TrueWhite has correctly mentioned. Having expanded from sport into news since a few months before the pandemic started, I’ve ended up researching and writing a lot about this, including a 40,000 word special back in April 2020. I’ll try not to go on as long here…

This is a different type of vaccine that doesn’t necessarily stop you getting the disease, like most vaccines in living memory have (an immense achievement now sadly taken for granted). It makes you less likely to die, and thus less likely to clog the health system, but the fact you can be jabbed and still positive means it’s easy for people to say it doesn’t work.

Polarisation is another problem. As forum dwellers we’ve been accustomed to disagreement for years, but social media now weaponises differences. It’s easy for anyone to find people they agree with, and to witch-hunt those they don’t. Bitterly divisive things like Brexit and Trump have been fuelled by this constant bickering.

Which leads me to another point: how often has anyone ever had their mind changed by being told they’re an idiot? Rarely, I’d say, and vanishingly rarely since that person can now go back online and find people they do agree with.

Finally, the speed at which vaccines were produced is a marvel of ingenuity and cooperation. It took 40 years to come up with a vaccine for chickenpox, and we still haven’t got one for HIV, MERS or SARS, so hats off and applause. However, that merely made sceptics ask: has it been tested or rushed? Every side-effect has been leapt upon, every tragic death used as ammunition.

There is a long, long history of anti-vaxx feeling, because horrendous mistakes have been made. Some of them were accidents - bad batches kept incorrectly - but others were not. The infamous Tuskegee study in the US purposefully witheld treatment for black Americans suffering syphilis, a horrific medical decision for which a presidential apology and multimillion dollar payouts have done little to quell widespread suspicion among ethnic minorities that maybe the white establishment haven’t got their backs. Vaccine takeup is notably lower in some ethnic minorities here, too.

It’s a vast, complicated thing.

[Worthy4England]

wise words IMO

Interesting as to how far you'd go down the rankings on your list. Would you go 5th best on "the list" if your first 4 weren't vaccinated and still think you'd done a great piece of business?

But it’s also as I said before: if we sign “leaders” who are anti-vaxxers, might they then spread it - the disease, but also the anti-vaxx attitude - round the changing room?

Of course, it’s not as clean-cut as that. As I and others on here painfully know, the vaxxed can be laid low. But look at David Wheater’s, let’s call it scepticism. And it seems to have been mentioned in several media outlets now that United have a problem with influential figures in their dressing room being antivaxx. It’s a real problem and you can see why some clubs are leaning toward zero tolerance.

Oh, for sure it's complex, vaxxed here and booster and also currently laid low. It feels like this variant has better ability to duck the vax. But there must come a point on the "list of players" where any investment starts to make a lot less sense...

[Worthy4England]

Antivax. So, what exactly are the reasons people refuse vaccinations? ( I'm relating to athletes, but also in general. It surely can't be fear (I'm 82 and have had all three, my wife is five years younger and had had all three), so is it on religious grounds, lack of trust in the vaccine or what? And I'm asking purely from puzzlement in objection to what seems common sense. I'm not sure there is an answer, but the question is there for opinion .

Most players are in the 20-29 age group. The mortality rate isn't particularly high...(obviously ignoring the possibility they catch it and pass it on to someone in a much higher mortality rate bracket).

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

wise words IMO

Interesting as to how far you'd go down the rankings on your list. Would you go 5th best on "the list" if your first 4 weren't vaccinated and still think you'd done a great piece of business?

But it’s also as I said before: if we sign “leaders” who are anti-vaxxers, might they then spread it - the disease, but also the anti-vaxx attitude - round the changing room?

Of course, it’s not as clean-cut as that. As I and others on here painfully know, the vaxxed can be laid low. But look at David Wheater’s, let’s call it scepticism. And it seems to have been mentioned in several media outlets now that United have a problem with influential figures in their dressing room being antivaxx. It’s a real problem and you can see why some clubs are leaning toward zero tolerance.

Oh, for sure it's complex, vaxxed here and booster and also currently laid low. It feels like this variant has better ability to duck the vax. But there must come a point on the "list of players" where any investment starts to make a lot less sense...

Yeah, there always is. It’s never a perfect craft or science in which you get your first choice in your most urgent position on Jan 1st, then your first choice in your second most urgent position on Jan 2nd, etc. Your first choice might not even become available until his current club make a signing on the 27th. Then there’s fees and wages, which might be higher early in the window (but possibly also rising again on deadline day as desperation loosens purses). Oh and you’ll have your own surplus players who you can’t just put on eBay and hope for the best; the size, or non-existence, of offer you get will affect your overall WarChest. Vaccine status now adds just one more layer to all that uncertainty, and again there’s no 100% right answer - if you go hardline you narrow your scope, but if you don’t you increase the risk of paying good wages for incapacitated players later, as Evatt’s quotes make fascinatingly clear.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Antivax. So, what exactly are the reasons people refuse vaccinations?

Most players are in the 20-29 age group. The mortality rate isn't particularly high...(obviously ignoring the possibility they catch it and pass it on to someone in a much higher mortality rate bracket).

Yeah, that’s another good point. It will be interesting to see if this is changed by Omicron’s impressive forest-fire contagion through that younger age group: four out of six twentysomethings in my extended family now have it, and the anecdotal evidence among their friends - particularly in east and south London - suggests that pretty much *all* their friends have it.

Now, that might persuade them that it’s a real thing, but thankfully Omicron’s mortality rate is low so will that generation think, to quote the hashtag, #ItsOnlyACold?

The big hope is that Omicron has the “right” balance of high transmissibility and low mortality. Viruses don’t actually want to kill you, they want you alive to propagate them. That’s why Ebola, while horrifying, is *relatively* easily contained - sufferers tend to die before they can spread it too much. For maximum effect a virus needs high transmissibility and low mortality (and better yet high levels of asymptomatic carriers). Early days yet but it feels like Omicron might be ticking those boxes - and if it stays the dominant variant, we might just be looking at a brighter future.

Doesn’t mean we’ll be playing Burton though…

[Prufrock]

I think there's an important distinction between anti-vaxxers and the (electively) non-vaccinated. The former are a small but vocal subset of the latter. I think it is fair to call the former idiots. Your Piers Corbyn it's a government conspiracy types are thick as pigshit. I'm pretty confident the govt have no interest in microchip-controlling this lot.

But must of the unvaccinated have bad but understandable reasons not to, and the answer is persuasion. Among footballers I suspect it is a combination of being young (so the virus itself feels like less of a risk, even though by any metric it is still more of a risk than getting jabbed) and unfounded worries. There have also been some very irresponsible stories linking the heart issues of Eriksen, Charlie Wyke and others to the jab (even though there has been no credible link or overall jump in numbers). Some little f*cker lied to go viral, but I can see how footballers would pause when that story is going around. The Eriksen incident messed me up watching it, imagine being a professional seeing that.

On the unfounded worries, non-specialist science journalism is absolutely atrocious. From the way the MMR nonsense was covered (though tbf that was specialist science journalism too, hard side-eye at you, The Lancet) to the constant Daily Mail X cures cancer, no X causes cancer, to at a most basic level the sensationalist use of relative risk to absolute risk (yes, x does DOUBLE your risk of cancer, from 1 in a million to 2 in a million, you'll be fine). And, as always, f*ck Andrew Wakefield.

In light of that climate I think managers/authorities need to do more. Yes it's right to say it's personal choice but too many have been effectively neutral on that. You don't have to have it, but you very much should, and here is the club doctor and every other person who knows what they are talking about telling you that you should.

I don't think that there are many footballers who are resolutely "I'm not getting jabbed", they are just taking what seems the risk-averse decision. Josh Kimmich (Bayern and Germany) who I have mentioned elsewhere is out for months with scarred lungs from Covid. He said something like he thought he would be OK and so just hadn't really got around to it/didn't want to take the risk of feeling rough from it and missing games. He is now going to have the jab and has urged others to do the same.

If more clubs take the position that they won't sign players who aren't vaccinated I imagine that is probably enough to nudge some too. A reluctant rather than anti-vaxxer is probably going to get the jab if it's the difference between the big move or not.

Agree with Worthy and DSB that it's only a factor. If it was #1 choice and no-jab, or 10th choice, basically just a body but not going to improve us with a jab, I think I'd still go #1.

Get well soon, DSB!