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Post by bjd on Nov 15, 2019 15:39:29 GMT
I don't get flu vaccines either and don't remember the last time I had the flu. But since last year I caught bronchitis several times in the course of the winter, my doctor in Toulouse told me to get a shot in the fall. I did mention it to the new doctor (who I have seen once to get a medical certificate to go to the gym) but he told me to also get a booster shot for childhood diseases, especially since I have young grandchildren. I still have to go get the vaccines and go back to see him.
Indeed, as Kerouac mentioned, starting this year you can get the flu jab at a pharmacy.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 15, 2019 17:39:56 GMT
Regarding measles, there is room in society for those who object to or don't have a shot. I understand, if I remember it right, that as long as 95% of the population do have it, the virus fails to survive as it runs out of people to pass it on to.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 15, 2019 17:57:37 GMT
Mark, in some locales within the US, up to 18% are “anti-vaxers,” and the herd immunity you speak of is NOT sufficient to protect the members of the population who CANNOT be vaccinated, for reasons of age/youth or health issues such as compromised immune systems. This does NOT just impact those who CHOOSE not to be members of “the herd.”
I won’t tell someone they - or their children - HAVE to be vaccinated. But I am ALL FOR telling them that they cannot send unvaccinated kids to public schools, for example, and perhaps to ban unvaccinated persons from some public spaces, such as libraries, theaters, restaurants, and airliners where we all breathe the same air. There is an incubation period where infected persons can be infectious without exhibiting symptoms.
And I would suggest that anti-vaxers form - and fund - an agency to make people whole who become ill or die due to exposure to a deliberately unvaccinated person.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 15, 2019 18:15:27 GMT
In Western Europe, the same thing happened -- there were measles outbreaks because the percentage has gone below 95% in a lot of places. And of course that is not the only disease making a resurgence.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 15, 2019 20:36:23 GMT
Mark, in some locales within the US, up to 18% are “anti-vaxers,” and the herd immunity you speak of is NOT sufficient to protect the members of the population who CANNOT be vaccinated, for reasons of age/youth or health issues such as compromised immune systems. This does NOT just impact those who CHOOSE not to be members of “the herd.” I may have the wrong impression from your robust response, but, I know this. Just to be certain, from my comment, did you think I agree with them? You are preaching to the converted you know.
It doesn't change that as K2 mentioned, there are areas of Europe falling below the 95%, but in areas where there is at least 95% coverage, measles has difficulty spreading. I appreciate that though doesn't help the vulnerable in the remaining 5% that do get it before the outbreak dies out. My children, from Colombia, had to undergo rigorous examination (not medical but bureaucratic) by all authorities to ascertain their medical background when we took them to Germany to go to kindergarten, school and any and all group activities with other children. This I agreed with.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 15, 2019 20:54:40 GMT
Oh it will be utterly free for me here, at a CLSC (Local community service centre - health clinic and other thing. I have no health insurance other than the public system everyone has. Health insurance is for extras, such as a private room in hospital; it might also cover ambulance fees and such. I do buy travel insurance though.
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Post by rikita on Nov 15, 2019 21:04:42 GMT
just quickly back to the bicycle discussion above - as for people being annoyed when someone by mistake walks onto the cycling path, sometimes that has to do with them being the 50th person that day to do so, along with at least ten cars parked on the cycling path, and a couple of sofas and matresses people left there ... i do think a lot of cyclists are too aggressive and things would work more smoothly if everyone was a bit more relaxed, but sometimes i, too, get quite annoyed when i have to get to work, and have to constantly break because the cycling path is blocked ...
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Post by Kimby on Nov 15, 2019 22:38:20 GMT
I may have the wrong impression from your robust response, but, I know this. Just to be certain, from my comment, did you think I agree with them? You are preaching to the converted you know Whew! I was worried we had an anti-vaxer in our midst. Those who opt out of vaccinations for purely personal - not for medical or genuine religious objections - should do it knowing they may not be welcome in public places, and public policy should be revised as such. IMO.
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Post by mich64 on Nov 16, 2019 2:16:39 GMT
I'm trying to find where I can get a flu jab; oddly there is little publicity. Lagatta, if you have a Shopper's Drug Mart or an Independent Grocery Store (with pharmacy) near you, they do them here. The Independent actually say a message of the loud speaker frequently when I have been shopping the past few weeks.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 16, 2019 2:23:33 GMT
Don't worry; as soon as I raised the issue, I found I could to it either at my CLSC (local community health centre) or at Pharmaprix, the local name for Shoppers'. I was just taken aback that there was so little publicity, as there had been in previous years.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 16, 2019 6:21:30 GMT
Rikita, I cycled all the time in Germany and I understand completely how frustrating it is when the cycle lane is abused by pedestrians and cars. I had an old and heavy Raleigh cycle I brought over from England, I think Isambard Kingdom Brunel made it out of cast iron, and it took some stopping, and getting going again. When a car once went past me and stopped in the cycle lane to let someone off I hardly slowed down at all deliberately and rammed his back bumper cracking all the plastic. If I'm walking and stray into a cycle lane I apologise, if I'm walking and on a shared pathway with bikes, I don't move out the way. I have as much right as a cyclist to be on that piece of tarmac. Ring your bell all you want. Sorry, but I'm not moving.
On a different thing, Rikita, I see you used the word 'break' instead of 'brake'. First time I've ever seen it on here. I see it all the time on other things in the last few years but never asked if it is just a keyboard/mental slip or a thought that it is the proper spelling to use.
Kimby, no problem, I wanted to illustrate that humanity en masse won't die out if a small minority are stupid. As humans are. It's where the minority is not so small that the problem occurs. Flat earthers and ant-vaxers should be rounded up, put on an island with air drops of supplies and left to their own devices. I've never had mumps and I wondered for years if I caught it, would I become sterile. Now I am of an age where that doesn't bother me, though both my mistresses in their early thirties disagree.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 16, 2019 6:52:24 GMT
My stepfather had the mumps when he was about 25 and did indeed become sterile.
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Post by bjd on Nov 16, 2019 6:59:51 GMT
I think just the anti-vaxxers should be put on an island, and some measles infected supplies dropped to them. Given the huge amount of progress in public health over the past century with the development of vaccines, I just cannot comprehend anyone being against them. like this guyEven worse are those pushing ideas of "vaccines cause autism" and other nonsense. I caught the mumps as an adult when there was a bout at the school my children went to. I didn't even realize what I had because I just felt lousy and had a bit of pain in my jaws. When I told my mother about it later, she said I had been vaccinated against them when I was a child, which explained the light case I caught 30 years later.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 16, 2019 7:03:08 GMT
I wonder if there is a vaccine against the plague, since those two cases were just reported in China.
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Post by rikita on Nov 16, 2019 17:51:07 GMT
Rikita, I cycled all the time in Germany and I understand completely how frustrating it is when the cycle lane is abused by pedestrians and cars. I had an old and heavy Raleigh cycle I brought over from England, I think Isambard Kingdom Brunel made it out of cast iron, and it took some stopping, and getting going again. When a car once went past me and stopped in the cycle lane to let someone off I hardly slowed down at all deliberately and rammed his back bumper cracking all the plastic. If I'm walking and stray into a cycle lane I apologise, if I'm walking and on a shared pathway with bikes, I don't move out the way. I have as much right as a cyclist to be on that piece of tarmac. Ring your bell all you want. Sorry, but I'm not moving. On a different thing, Rikita, I see you used the word 'break' instead of 'brake'. First time I've ever seen it on here. I see it all the time on other things in the last few years but never asked if it is just a keyboard/mental slip or a thought that it is the proper spelling to use. well yeah, on a shared lane the only time i would ring the bell would be if there are several people walking next to each other in a way that there is no chance of passing them at all - and since shared lanes tend to be quite wide, it'd have to be quite a few people ... at the same time, i get annoyed at cyclists who insist on cycling next to each other, too ... agnes and i will sometimes cycle next to each other, but only if there is enough space and we aren't in anyone's way that way ... actually, that is a mistake i make quite often - i know how brake is spelled correctly, but it seems in my mind the words brake and break aren't separated properly, because i misspell it whenever i don't make an effort to think about it ...
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 16, 2019 19:45:20 GMT
I used to cycle for miles as a girl. We lived in a small village in Bedfordshire and all my school chums lived in other villages spread across the county. I would use my mother's Raleigh, great clunky thing it was with small, wide wheels and 3 gears. I would ride the 5 miles to my best mate's place (Myrt) then we would cycle to other villages picking up our other friends until there were about 8 of us...great fun...speeding around country lanes. Unfortunately I was knocked off my bike by a lorry one day, opposite a garden centre as it happens so there were folk to help me..no major injuries just grazes, cuts and bruises but it put me off cycling.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 16, 2019 20:09:23 GMT
One of my BiL's ex-wives is a holistic medicine herbalist anti vaccination person. She runs a clinic in Devon and handed out a load of leaflets at my BiL's funeral. Jackie is a vivacious, lovely lady in her late 60s... has been on many courses, has tons of qualifications and is fully committed to her chosen stance. We don't really get along. Especially when we talk science.
I'm convinced (like most people thankfully) that immunisation is of immeasurable benefit to humankind. I find it incredibly irresponsible when parents refuse to immunise their offspring and send them out into the world saying 'Freddy has German measles/chickenpox/measles..but he's not really ill' no..Freddy may only have a mild infection...but my immunocompromised child with leukaemia...my sister on chemotherapy, my newborn, my elderly but active and fit mother...will catch Freddy's germs and will probably die of an overwhelming infection, septicaemia and multiple organ failure! hmph....
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Post by questa on Nov 17, 2019 8:44:00 GMT
Part of my job was to do health checks on 4-5 year olds. I noted the low take-up of immunisation and the Director said it is not that the parents were against it but were so busy, they just couldn't get around to it. Following term they had 100% immunisations. A little child had started in class who was having chemo.The director had sent a note to all parents who immediately had their children done. I wondered about not giving your own child the benefit but so quickly acting so another child was protected.
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Post by bjd on Nov 17, 2019 9:54:23 GMT
When I was a kid in school in Toronto, we went to a really big school, with about 6 classes per grade, of which there were 8. I remember being vaccinated at school, all the kids of each class lined up outside the nurse's office and going in and getting their shot. I also remember that some were crying in the line because they were afraid but stopped once it was over.
We also had to get a smallpox scrape (it wasn't a shot) before being allowed to immigrate to Canada from nEgland.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 17, 2019 12:29:10 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 17, 2019 12:37:45 GMT
I had most of my vaccinations at school, too. It seems like the most efficient way to handle the situation, except that it seems that most vaccinations are now given to infants or just barely older -- not school age in most cases.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 17, 2019 14:39:38 GMT
Until kids go to school - or day-care, or pre-school - it is (almost) possible for parents to (mostly) shield their kids from other people’s germs.
If they want to put their kids in group settings, then they NEED to have them vaccinated. Homeschool your kids, if you don’t want them vaccinated. Or start your own anti-vaxer schools. Don’t put other peoples children, and elderly parents, at risk.
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Post by rikita on Nov 17, 2019 21:49:25 GMT
reminds me i have to make a doctor's appointment, according to the list from our health insurance, a. needs a booster on one of her vaccinations ...
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Post by questa on Nov 17, 2019 23:06:31 GMT
1955 -at boarding school. The Salk vaccine was given to all of us..1st dose, second dose, but I left that school before the third 1956 -at a State school...had to start again as no sign of any records. Changed school again before 3rd was due. 1960 - started nurse training...had to start from the beginning again. In the line-up for the third injection I remarked that I should be immune by now as this would be number seven and the Senior Nurse giving the shots screamed at me,"How dare you line up for another shot, there is a shortage on and this is expensive. Go away, I'm not giving you any more!" 1970 - I was visiting a couple of my aunts and told them of the saga. "But, Dear, you didn't need those...you had polio when you were 4 years old. You were one of the lucky ones that got better quickly with only a weak leg" "Yes, that is why your mother started you in Ballet class to get it strong again".
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Post by lagatta on Nov 18, 2019 0:26:33 GMT
Yes, while I agree with vaccination, bureaucratic nonsense is a reality.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 18, 2019 16:05:04 GMT
The café right across from my flat suddenly closed a couple of months ago and started to look abandoned. Le Roi du Café was an institution and was even used consistently by politicians to hold meetings for local elections. I was worried that it might turn into a Burger King or something (there is already a McDonald's less than 50 metres away), but workers finally arrived to start fixing it up but without removing the café counter or anything. The new name Joséphine has been put on the establishment. Since they worked all through the weekend, it looked like they had a target for opening today, but it is not quite ready yet. But they have also put up "changement de propriétaire" banners to bring people back in. It will work with me, because the old place shortchanged me 20 centimes about 5 years ago, and I never set foot there again. (It doesn't take much for any place to lose a customer.)
In a day or two, it will open and I will probably spend 2.50 euros to have an espresso if I want to sit down or 1.10 if I stand at the counter. But I will probably sit down, because I have been curious for a long time about whether my personal wifi reaches the café.
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Post by whatagain on Nov 18, 2019 18:22:32 GMT
😂
I have a cat called Josephine. Called Fifine of course. Her brother napoleon went under a car when young. Not a good name for a cat in Waterloo.
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 18, 2019 21:59:47 GMT
The new name Joséphine has been put on the establishment. As long as people don't think 'Not Tonight, Joséphine'
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Post by whatagain on Nov 20, 2019 22:35:00 GMT
Osez Joséphine. Bashung.
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Post by questa on Nov 20, 2019 23:47:31 GMT
I helped in the birth of healthy girl triplets. The Parents had the names well and truly organised. Jacqueline, Geraldine and Josephine... to be called Jackie, Jerry and Jo
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