COVID vaccination required by Safari Company or not, your suggestion

[sestoppelman]

Good because I just got a little to close to my wife’s new rose bushes with the weed eater.

Been there, done that!

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

I have the standard "dead or inert" virus vaccines. I have the yellow fever vaccine, I keep up with tetanus boosters.

I do not get the flu shot, and won't be getting the COVID shot. IF the "new technology" was proven safe and effective, that might be another story, but so far it has yet to be proven safe or effective and it should not have been emergency approved based on the fact other medications work for COVID. YMMV.

4.3 billion COVID vaccines given worldwide as of today and I haven't heard of significant numbers of negative reactions, death, etc.

I have heard that a very high percentage of current cases (90+%) are from the Delta variant and are the un-vaccinated.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

It would not matter to me either way. If my wife was with me, she would want everyone vaccinated.

I suspect, it will be yearly boosters, for the soon to be epsilon variant.

I thought the next variant after Delta was going to be either United or British Air.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I would like to say a big thank you for all that have taken part in this conversation for respecting other peoples views WITHOUT it turning into a bunfight. It is good to see we can have an intelligent conversation without put downs. Their is a plethora of information out there for both sides and it is up to us to decide what is best for us as individuals.
Once again I thank you for an intelligent and interesting discourse on this topic
Bob

 

[Hunter4752001]

G'day Lon. I would give preference to a company that fully vaccinated their people. It's unfortunate that somehow the whole issue has been clouded by some form of irrational identity politics, but you need to do whats right by yourself, your people and your clients.

ps The only reason we have the vaccines is that then President Trump had the strategic vision, and faith in western science, to kick off the vaccine development with Operation Warp Speed. He could see that it was the only way to get on top off the virus. At the time he was ridiculed and the "informed views" were that vaccines were at least 18 months away and more likely many years away if ever.

How many of the nay sayers would blink an eye about taking a yellow fever shot if their safari was in a mandated yellow fever zone?

 

[sestoppelman]

4.3 billion COVID vaccines given worldwide as of today and I haven't heard of significant numbers of negative reactions, death, etc.

I have heard that a very high percentage of current cases (90+%) are from the Delta variant and are the un-vaccinated.

View attachment 417204

How many deaths or injuries would you consider significant? A few or a few hundred? How about 6-12000 which is a number often seen in print? Percentage wise, meh right?
Not if you are one of them, and thats not counting many more thousands of injuries, cripplings etc. And these numbers are US only, not worldwide.

 

[sestoppelman]

G'day Lon. I would give preference to a company that fully vaccinated their people. It's unfortunate that somehow the whole issue has been clouded by some form of irrational identity politics, but you need to do whats right by yourself, your people and your clients.

ps The only reason we have the vaccines is that then President Trump had the strategic vision, and faith in western science, to kick off the vaccine development with Operation Warp Speed. He could see that it was the only way to get on top off the virus. At the time he was ridiculed and the "informed views" were that vaccines were at least 18 months away and more likely many years away if ever.

How many of the nay sayers would blink an eye about taking a yellow fever shot if their safari was in a mandated yellow fever zone?

Yellow fever vaccine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The risk of injury or death from YF vaccine is light years less than the Covid jab, not even in the same galaxy.
Not a real good comparison.....

 

[Just Gina]

@Just Gina
Sorry to hear about your sons stepmother I sincerely pray that she recovers. Yes you can still get sick even after 2 vaccinations but it is supposed to limit the effect. Unfortunately we are caught between a rock and a hard place at the moment.
Bob

Thank you Bob! And thank you for the prayers! She needs them!

 

[sureshot375]

The vaccine does not appear to be tremendously effective at prevent someone from getting or spreading the virus. Check out the UK numbers regarding the number of hospitalized vaccinated people.
It may reduce the severity of the illness, but it’s not stopping the spread of covid.

 

[Bert the Turtle]

It has certainly proven to be effective. Almost all of the serious or deadly cases are amongst the unvaccinated. Data on whether it reduces transmission is still coming in but it may well not be so helpful on that. Still, there is much benefit in avoiding an ICU admission and/or death. As much as I don’t want to end up in an American ICU I more so want to avoid one in Harare, no offense to the health care professionals in Zimbabwe.

safe? In the short term, yes. The news LOVES to talk about the rare adverse events. But objectively there aren’t many given the huge number of vaccines administered so far. And for most adults the risk of Covid far outweighs the risk of the vaccine.

long term? Who knows. It hasn’t been out long enough to find out yet. There is no particular reason it should present a long term danger. Sure, it is mRNA. You’ll end up with viral mRNA in you any time you get a viral infection. Not sure why a small section that codes for proteins you’d be making anyway if you caught Covid is of particular concern to people but it isn’t entirely unreasonable to be somewhat reluctant to be the first guy to try something out.

and yes, for all the messaging shortcomings that ensued in the last 18 months, the Trump administration deserves some credit for streamlining the regulatory approval process. It’s ironic that his supporters are far less likely to get the vaccine than are those who don’t/didn’t support him.

 

[One Day...]

Perspective, perspective... 95% effectiveness rate...

As posted in a previous post on p. 5, what does an effectiveness rate of 95% mean? It means a non-effective rate of 5%.

As of today ~165 million Americans have been fully vaccinated. 5% of these will possibly still get COVID, hopefully in a milder form.

Expect, therefore, 8.25 million fully vaccinated people possibly still getting or spreading the virus, some getting hospitalized, and some dying, possibly up to ~140,000 if the pre-vaccine overall mortality rate of 1.7% holds (165,000,000 x .05 x .017 = 140,250) , and hopefully a lot less if the post-vaccine mortality rate is much lower

Still, a 95% effectiveness rate is, by all qualified medical opinions, tremendously effective in a vaccine even though thousands, and maybe tens of thousands, of vaccinated people may still die

While we all mourn the losses, especially when they hit close to home, the discussion regarding a pandemic - thankfully not anywhere near as lethal as some of the past - should consider the statistics as opposed to the number of cases alone

 

[V.Veritas]

@Tokoloshe Safaris From what I can see for any company dealing with the public and possible medical and legal ramifications, count me as being on board with required shots. Like the Godfather said "It's not personal, just business".

For some it might be business, but for the ones taking the jab is as personal as it can get.

It's funny that the conversation completely ignores 2 significant aspects of this Covid pandemic.

If you have been exposed to it and did not get sick or died, your immunity system did it's job - protected you of the virus and now you already have the immunity that the vaccine is suppose to trigger. So why would you be forced to take a vaccine?

Second, if the vaccines works, why would you care if others are vaccinated or not. You are "protected". Apparently it works so good that a "booster" is now required after less than 6 month.

To each his own. But to impose your belief on others it is never a good thing. In any dictatorship the leaders are always right.

For those "know-it-all" my I suggest to research what is happening right now in Israel - the country with the highest number of vaccinated people?

 

[Chris M.]

I am thinking that it is very reasonable to ensure that clients coming in had a less than 72 hour old COVID PCR test and are not displaying the array of known symptoms. This default is what airlines, grocery stores, entering countries and custom requirements et al require and is the de minimus for travel. You should be able to ask for this information and hope that the client has the decency to quarantine themselves should a test or symptoms manifest themselves after arriving and before being picked up for the safari. That being said, the biggest risk is in the intervening 72 hour period of travel where contact with (infected) people becomes much greater than what most individuals typically face in terms of exposure to the virus during their normal day-to-day lives, so a person can be negative but contract during the travel. So it is a fairly low probability that in the typical 24 to 30 hour travel from North America or less from Europe period, that a previously negative tested person would be symptomatic and know about it when they arrive for pickup by the safari company, and yet have contracted the virus and spread the infection during their travels.

As a retired microbiologist and former specialist of human health risk assessment I find how many opinions there are regarding the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine effectiveness and the breadth of Internet self-taught experts. It behooves me to try to rationalize with entrenched individuals with strong opinions but based on the science, it is known that vaccination of elderly individuals and/or people with comorbidities lessens the risk of serious disease but does not totally eliminate. Put it simply, a fully vaccinated individual in their 80s may now have the immunity of a unvaccinated 50 year old. Similarly, fully vaccinated individuals are with high probability, protected against risk of serious disease (hospitalization or "long-hauler" symptoms) but still could carry the infection for short-term. So how does this relate to requesting that clients are vaccinated? Well, given that the science strongly indicates that vaccination is protective against the disease but clients could still be infectious, vaccination of the client may not protect anyone in your camp if your people are unvaccinated themselves. So reliance on testing and presence of symptoms are your best bet. I am also a believer in wearing masks, distancing, washing hands and avoiding contact with face/nose as a deterrent which significantly lowers (but does not totally eliminate the risk - N.B. would you want a surgeon and attendant nurses operating on you to not have masks on???) but this is not practicable while hunting and being in camp.

So in summary, the best advice I can think of is to insist on the default COVID testing of clients before they arrive and for the Love of God, hope that the PH, staff and family at safari camps can get vaccinated as soon as possible in the hunting countries. Clients with vaccines are in a position to protect themselves and reduce to a significant amount, the spread of virus by lessening the duration and intensity of the infection (through a relatively lower virus titre in the body over a lesser period of time thus lowering the risk of spread to others); but, it does not totally eliminate the risk of spread.

Postscript:
For those who spout anecdotal information about knowing people who get the "shot" and yet were infectious and/or sought medical attention and are against vaccination as a result, you are not really understanding the science and yet I do understand, as there is a huge amount of (mis)information on the Internet. For those, however, who think that it is not a serious disease, that it is some kind of means of government control, that the vaccine does not in any degree confer protection and that you should shun your responsibility and recommend actions as your professed personal right or freedoms to otherwise protect the vulnerable and in preventing spread of the virus, please shut the F**K up!

 

[V.Veritas]

4.3 billion COVID vaccines given worldwide as of today and I haven't heard of significant numbers of negative reactions, death, etc.

I have heard that a very high percentage of current cases (90+%) are from the Delta variant and are the un-vaccinated.

View attachment 417204

@375 Ruger Fan
I lived in a dictatorship. I'm not sure how many members and on this forum can "brag" with this accomplishment.

But I can tell you one thing: during the communism regime all the people were "perfect". You would never hear about any criminals or wrong doers in the politically controlled mass media.

There is no secret that all politicians and mass media are pushing mass vaccination. So the simple fact that you did not hear about a significant number of vaccine injuries doesn't mean it did not happen. In Canada the Dr. are heavily punished if they acknowledge any vaccine injuries. They will definitely won't report it and they are not allowed to voice their opinion, hence there is no more medical informed consent (since the patients are not allowed to hear opinion divergent from the Government" s sanctioned one pushed by the mass media).

The point is stop believing " what you heard" and start believing what you see.

Do you personally know lots of unvaccinated people that are sick right now with delta in your neighborhood?

 

[npm352]

I know you are asking a question in a general manner, but treating people who are flying 10,000 miles to spend thousands of dollars with you like they are nothing more than disease spreading hosts is not a good business practice. The irony of a business where people are offering hunts for animals that want to bite or gore or stomp them to death but are more scared of an unvaccinated client is kind of silly to me. Personally, I would look for a lot of other things in a hunt before something like that, but if two identical opportunities stood side-by-side, I'd do the one with less regulations.

It is not that I would not hunt with a company doing that solely based on principle, but adding more requirements and regulations on top of already highly regulated travel, gun clearance, hunting licenses, etc is not something I admire.

COVID-19 originated two years ago. We've been dealing with the pandemic for about 18 months. It is time to move forward. I would say that if an outfitter/ph, and/or staff are still that concerned with getting it, they should find another line of work outside of international tourism. Everyone is allowed to sit at home in the corner shaking in fear with a bottle of hand sanitizer and seven masks on.

I was vaccinated in January through work. I didn't think twice about it simply because I knew it would help me travel. I needed it to enter Hawaii (which is basically a third world country) to hunt two weeks ago, and it may have helped me to get a negative test in March for RSA.

I understand not every place has the same access to the shots, but if the vaccine is effective, then people who want it should take it and not worry about what others are doing.

 

[HuntingGold]

To keep my answer simple: no, I would not hunt with company that requires this vaccine at this time. I may change my mind at a later date, but at this point, nope.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

no.
I know 3 people that had the shot and have covid right now.
my wife told me on the vars website she found the death totals of kids that got the vaccine and died.
I personally know of 8-10 people that had severe side effects from the shot.

 

[Trogon]

I work with a group of guys, eight of us total, doing air emission testing, so we go to various manufacturing facilities. Up until now, masking/distancing has been followed, no directive on who is vaccinated or not. Today I got a call from a client that we are/were supposed to be testing with in a little more than a week, telling me only vaccinated personnel would be allowed on-site. Of our group of 8, 3 have not had the vaccine. One currently has Covid 19 and hiding out at home for the past 8 days. I need at least six to do our project. Quite a quandary. I think we are at the brink for some big life changing decisions. Whispers from corporate now about a company mandate for the vaccine, I think it's coming.
I did the Moderna earlier this year only to help to get to travel to South Africa. Hated my bodies reaction. Now talk of 6 month efficacy, and needing a booster shot? No thank you!

 

[ChasingHemingway]

I have no issue: everyone is entitled to their own opinion. As a member in the healthcare industry I personally would feel better with an outfit that required it. Just my personal opinion.

At the end of the day no one is forcing anyone. Either you get the vaccine or not. There may be more people more willing to travel if they knew the outfit was fully vaccinated.

Having traveled back from SA just 3 weeks ago and seeing what I saw at a clinic it is worrisome. Just my two cents.

dt

 

[sestoppelman]

I fear we have been led down the garden path.....