Poll: Will you willingly get a Covid vaccine in the next year or so?

[RCAB]

I had it because I needed it in order to leave the country during COVID which was a wonderful time to travel. Being on a 767 to SFO with a grand total of 7 other passengers was a thing of beauty. Also went to LAX 9-10 times when 20-30 passengers were onboard. I miss it, to be honest. Bags were always there, was easy to navigate customs and no queues (in Australia).

Same.

I travelled during Covid around the world too. Empty Hiltons and Sofitels, with presidential suites for half a standard room price. No crowds and airports with less people than Flinders St station at 3am.

 

[errant bounce]

How did you guys go with navigating getting in and out of Australia? seems like it was mostly government propaganda and it wasn't really that hard to legally stop a citizen entering the country. a lot of those 'Aussies stuck abroad!' pages were nuts, people on there complaining there wasn't a flight on the two days they wanted to leave with zero flexibility...

 

[Chip Scab1]

Same.

I travelled during Covid around the world too. Empty Hiltons and Sofitels, with presidential suites for half a standard room price. No crowds and airports with less people than Flinders St station at 3am.

I went to Colombia 14x so was busy over there... masks inside were enforced. Apart from that, BAU.

How did you guys go with navigating getting in and out of Australia? seems like it was mostly government propaganda and it wasn't really that hard to legally stop a citizen entering the country. a lot of those 'Aussies stuck abroad!' pages were nuts, people on there complaining there wasn't a flight on the two days they wanted to leave with zero flexibility...

You needed a decent reason (and permission from Gov) from memory. I had a partner and Daughter in Colombia, which meant no issue. Just had to keep working (5pm-1am Col Time) to keep the dream alive. No restrictions once out, went to Argy for a bit of Football and many other times to USA for a bit of golf and skiing, not much else. Not sure about situation around bars/clubs but Colombia, as per, was a Free for All.

 

[errant bounce]

More unhinged.

Why are people so anti-science?

Do you realise most of what you do and use today is due scientific and technological advancements? You wouldn't be here otherwise.

Because it's not that simple and the creators and distributors are multi billion dollar companies.

So many science / vaccine lovers hate massive businesses but for some reason listed companies like Pfizer are totally not all about making money.

 

[Gralin]

,

Because it's not that simple and the creators and distributors are multi billion dollar companies.

So many science / vaccine lovers hate massive businesses but for some reason listed companies like Pfizer are totally not all about making money.

What has corporate greed got to do with being pro vaccine?

 

[errant bounce]

,

What has corporate greed got to do with being pro vaccine?'

Because massive companies will do anything to keep making money and the vaccine was essentially a blank cheque from every western country.

 

[Gralin]

Because massive companies will do anything to keep making money and the vaccine was essentially a blank cheque from every western country.

Again what has that got to do with being pro vaccine?

You either think vaccines in general are a good thing that work or you don't.

I'd say historically overall vaccines are a good thing.

Some are better than others but the principle of vaccination is a good one.

It being for profit is a symptom of capitalism

 

[Mofra]

Again what has that got to do with being pro vaccine?

You either think vaccines in general are a good thing that work or you don't.

I'd say historically overall vaccines are a good thing.

Some are better than others but the principle of vaccination is a good one.

It being for profit is a symptom of capitalism

Vaccines reduce medical spending by an enormous amount, by reducing hospitalisations.

Anti-vaxxers are really really bad at maths.

 

[Chief]

Because it's not that simple and the creators and distributors are multi billion dollar companies.

So many science / vaccine lovers hate massive businesses but for some reason listed companies like Pfizer are totally not all about making money.

You're confusing trusting the science with trusting the companies themselves.

By mistake or otherwise.

 

[RCAB]

History has no relevance to the Covid treatments. It's mRNA being injected into you to code/transform your cells, not a dead or weakened bug. They literally had to change the definition of vaccine so that they could still use the word 'vaccination' during the drive. So you also have people that think traditional vaccines are good, but think mRNA is bad.

Ah, the 'mRNA changes your DNA' myth, the 'they changed the definition of vaccine' claim, and the 'experimental technology' fear... it's like a greatest hits album of pandemic misinformation.

MRNA vaccines don’t 'transform' your cells or rewrite your DNA.

MRNA is a temporary instruction manual that teaches your immune system to recognize a harmless viral protein, no nucleus involved, no DNA changes, and it's gone in days.
Key Difference between Traditional vaccines and mRNA vaccines:

-Traditional vaccines often give your body the viral protein directly.

-mRNA vaccines instruct your body to produce the viral protein temporarily.


In both cases, the immune system is trained without any DNA modification, and neither type of vaccine involves the nucleus.

The definition of 'vaccine' was clarified to account for newer technologies, not rewritten as part of some grand conspiracy. And as for being 'new'? mRNA research has been around for decades. COVID just accelerated the timeline for deployment, not the science behind it. If mRNA could magically alter your DNA, cancer research would've cracked the code years ago. Maybe try reading an actual immunology paper instead of a meme.

 

[Gralin]

Ah, the 'mRNA changes your DNA' myth, the 'they changed the definition of vaccine' claim, and the 'experimental technology' fear... it's like a greatest hits album of pandemic misinformation.

MRNA vaccines don’t 'transform' your cells or rewrite your DNA.

MRNA is a temporary instruction manual that teaches your immune system to recognize a harmless viral protein, no nucleus involved, no DNA changes, and it's gone in days.
Key Difference between Traditional vaccines and mRNA vaccines:

-Traditional vaccines often give your body the viral protein directly.

-mRNA vaccines instruct your body to produce the viral protein temporarily.


In both cases, the immune system is trained without any DNA modification, and neither type of vaccine involves the nucleus.

The definition of 'vaccine' was clarified to account for newer technologies, not rewritten as part of some grand conspiracy. And as for being 'new'? mRNA research has been around for decades. COVID just accelerated the timeline for deployment, not the science behind it. If mRNA could magically alter your DNA, cancer research would've cracked the code years ago. Maybe try reading an actual immunology paper instead of a meme.

Better yet if you're not an immunologist don't believe you'll be able to correctly understand the research anyway and either way listening to the actual experts is the way to go

 

[The Dice Man]

Better yet if you're not an immunologist don't believe you'll be able to correctly understand the research anyway and either way listening to the actual experts is the way to go

No one is really believing this anymore which just makes you look … well, compromised.

 

[Chief]

No one is really believing this anymore which just makes you look … well, compromised.

Nobody believes the people with years of study and experience?

 

[Gralin]

No one is really believing this anymore which just makes you look … well, compromised.

??

 

[The Dice Man]

Amazing how you posted at exactly the same time, as if it was a concerted effort in editorial manipulation.

 

[Gralin]

Amazing how you posted at exactly the same time, as if it was a concerted effort in editorial manipulation.

Nah I was just confused by your post

Still am

 

[Chief]

Amazing how you posted at exactly the same time, as if it was a concerted effort in editorial manipulation.

Oh yes, that's how we spend our time.

 

[Gralin]

Oh yes, that's how we spend our time.

Where dice sees conspiracies I see notifications

 

[RCAB]

I didn't say that mRNA re-writes your DNA, I said that it transforms your cells.

What do you think your immune system responds to? The mRNA? No - it codes the cells it comes into contact with to produce spike proteins on their surface, resembling something they believed to be close to the virus. Your immune system then attacks the first one of these cells and registers a signature for easily killing the rest. That's the theory anyway.

I didn't say that mRNA was 'new?' either (still, rushing it out on the public was completely new. It's an ongoing trial/study really). All I said was that it's an mRNA treatment, not the direct delivery of a dead or dying bug/protein which most people understand a vaccine to be. I'd even guess that the user who's post I replied to assumed this about the Covid jab. This was my whole point - people speaking historically to support the mRNA shots, even though it's a completely different technology, never rolled out on the public prior. Some of us think it's premature to group it all together just yet. If you don't, that's fine, go get your 11th booster or whatever it's up to and live your best life.

So we’re shifting from "transforming your cells" to acknowledging that the immune system isn’t attacking the mRNA itself but rather responding to the spike protein... good, that’s progress. But let’s clear up a few things:

1. Transforming cells? Not really.

The cells that take up the mRNA temporarily produce the spike protein, but they aren’t being "transformed" into something else. They don't remain in your cells, they don’t turn into virus factories, and the mRNA is degraded in hours to days. This process happens all the time in your body (cells constantly express proteins and display antigens to alert your immune system). The difference here is that the spike protein is chosen to train your immune system in advance, rather than waiting for an actual infection.


2. The "never rolled out before" argument... Every medical advancement was once "never rolled out on the public before" until it was.

By that logic, we should’ve rejected penicillin, organ transplants, and any novel cancer treatment. Yes, mRNA vaccines were deployed at scale for the first time during COVID, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t extensively tested before that. The reason they moved faster was because the platform (mRNA) had been studied for decades, and COVID provided an urgent, large-scale scenario where efficacy could be confirmed quickly.


3. ‘Ongoing trial’ claim.

Every medical treatment (including traditional vaccines) continues to be studied after release. That’s literally how science works. Long-term follow-ups, real-world data collection, and post-market surveillance are standard practice. The ongoing trial claim is misleading unless you believe every FDA approved drug is also just an "ongoing trial."


4. Yes, mRNA vaccines work differently from traditional ones, but they accomplish the same goal: priming the immune system to recognize and attack a virus before you ever get sick.

The reason history is relevant is because the principles of immunization remain the same. If you want to argue definitions, fine, but functionally, mRNA vaccines are still part of the immunization toolkit.



And finally... don’t worry, I won’t be lining up for an "11th booster" anytime soon. But if I ever do, at least I’ll be making that decision based on virology and immunology, not Twitter doctors.

 

[revo333]

Same.

I travelled during Covid around the world too. Empty Hiltons and Sofitels, with presidential suites for half a standard room price. No crowds and airports with less people than Flinders St station at 3am.

Would been great to experience, I know someone who went to Singapore and it was a ghost town.

I stayed in Melbourne CBD for 2020 NYE and 4 nights was about $650

Now that same hotel is about $1200 for the same nights.

 

[RCAB]

Would been great to experience, I know someone who went to Singapore and it was a ghost town.

I stayed in Melbourne CBD for 2020 NYE and 4 nights was about $650

Now that same hotel is about $1200 for the same nights.

Yeah I was in Singapore too during Covid... absolutely nobody there; no tourists at all. I was just walking around the streets by myself most of the time.

 

[Brad Goodman]

Yeah I was in Singapore too during Covid... absolutely nobody there; no tourists at all. I was just walking around the streets by myself most of the time.

The one thing that never changes about Singapore is that you you’ll always need to change your shirt minutes after stepping outside.

 

[RCAB]

The one thing that never changes about Singapore is that you you’ll always need to change your shirt minutes after stepping outside.

Wear a t-shirt.

 

[imadodgyumpire]

And finally... don’t worry, I won’t be lining up for an "11th booster" anytime soon. But if I ever do, at least I’ll be making that decision based on virology and immunology, not Twitter doctors.

Even if your virology and immunology sources say you don't need to, but your employer making you do it?

 

[RCAB]

Even if your virology and immunology sources say you don't need to, but your employer making you do it?

Employer mandates don’t change how immunology works. Your body doesn’t care whether you got vaccinated by choice or because of a policy... it either gets trained to recognize the spike protein or it doesn’t. The immune response is the same, regardless of personal opinions about mandates.

As for mRNA vaccines being "rushed" or some ongoing experiment... that’s just not how vaccine development works.

The mRNA platform wasn’t built overnight, it’s been studied for decades, including in trials for MERS, Zika, and even cancer therapies. What changed was the urgency of COVID, which meant we got large-scale human data faster than usual, not that corners were cut. If anything, mRNA vaccines were studied under the most intense global scrutiny we’ve ever seen for a vaccine rollout.

The whole "it transforms your cells" argument is also a misunderstanding of antigen presentation. Your immune system doesn’t attack the first cell expressing the spike protein like it’s a threat, it samples it, processes it, and presents antigens to train T and B cells for future infections. This is literally how all vaccines work, except instead of injecting a dead virus, we’re letting your own cells do the antigen presentation in a controlled way.

If you want to critique the rollout, fine. If you want to debate policy decisions, that’s another conversation. But pretending mRNA vaccines are some untested, experimental tech just ignores decades of virology and immunology research.