I find it ironic that there are plenty comments that paint the picture of how mandatory vaccinations divide the country.
Hello? Have you been awake for the last month? How much more divided can a country already be when the absolute democratic majority has made their decision months ago to take the shot but 30% are holding everyone back. Anyone in my family or from my friends that has taken one for the team (and got vaccinated) could receive worse-than-usual ICU treatment because of some egoistic anti-vaxxers. Hell, even anti-vaxxers benefit from better ICU treatment if vaccination numbers are higher.
Yes, this is a democracy and so it can also be deemed legitimate and representative to govern according to the majority decision. Besides, it's in everyone's best interest to get vaccinated.
Its worth remembering that division is due to the other side always.
This is an absolute statement as division is literally caused by dividing between "sides". You get a divided country when the people within it divides each other into sides. Its never been the case when people have said "our side has caused the division". never.
That is the irony you should be finding! If you do finally see this irony you might find more nuance, but maybe more frustration and more uncertainty and confusion but less anger and possibly more empathy to the other. That's why its so easy for people to divide, as its less painful. Dividing and categorizing is how we make sense of the world, but it can be a curse too.
>> I find it ironic that there are plenty comments that paint the picture of how mandatory vaccinations divide the country....
>> How much more divided can a country already be when the absolute democratic majority has made their decision months ago to take the shot but 30% are holding everyone back.
> Its worth remembering that division is due to the other side always.
That's an unhelpful muddying of the waters. If some clear minority is undermining a popular policy, especially if it's doing so for irrational reasons or out of spite, you can definitely point to that minority as the cause of the division.
I think assuming that it's out of "spite" is an example of not realizing how "your side" might be causing the division.
There are a lot of people who have already had covid and now have antibodies, who were also never in, and continue not to be in, a risky demographic. The risk for these people is very, very low already.
On top of that, the vaccine is not entirely without risk. There have been many reports of side effects, specifically heart issues in young males. There have been some deaths.
The counterargument might be, "okay, that may be technically true, but the risk is very, very low." And the people who do not want the vaccine, who are not in a risky demographic, might say in reply to you: exactly, that's the same thing we're saying about the virus.
>> especially if it's doing so for irrational reasons or out of spite
> I think assuming that it's out of "spite" is an example of not realizing how "your side" might be causing the division.
With "out of spite," I was specifically referring to things like "owning the libs."
> There are a lot of people who have already had covid and now have antibodies, who were also never in, and continue not to be in, a risky demographic. The risk for these people is very, very low already.
So? Getting a vaccine isn't only about managing personal risk. Also, from what I understand natural immunity is often weaker than vaccine-induced immunity, and "hybrid immunity" (natural + vaccine) is superior to either alone.
> On top of that, the vaccine is not entirely without risk. There have been many reports of side effects, specifically heart issues in young males. There have been some deaths.
This is a good example of an irrational reason: I'm scared of a choice that has a very small chance of producing myocarditis, so instead I'll make a choice that has a greater chance of producing myocarditis.
> This is a good example of an irrational reason: I'm scared of a choice that has a very small chance of producing myocarditis, so instead I'll make a choice that has a greater chance of producing myocarditis.
This isn't true.
"Healthy boys may be more likely to be admitted to hospital with a rare side-effect of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart than with Covid itself, US researchers claim."
> If only we could apply such a black and white view to things like racism and LGBTQ rights.
You shouldn't read a pithy comment as a complete statement on any manner, and mine certainly indicated there's more complexity that wasn't being covered.
That said, in this case, the COVID anti-vaxers are the source of this division.
That’s literally the opposite of a black and white view - why the minority is blocking the majority is what creates the gray area.
It’s the difference between small c conservatives who have reasonable concerns about how affirmative action might worsen the problem and flaming racists who think they’re fundamentally superior.
Are you under the impression that only a minority cares about minority rights and, for example, heterosexual people would uniformly oppose LGBTQ rights?
In that case I’ve got news for you. But first, I need you to stay strong: President Kennedy was….
If 70% want one thing and 30% want another, it doesn't matter who "caused" the division; in a democratic society you should be doing the thing that 70% of the people want.
Except! And this is a big "except": when doing the thing the majority wants would violate the civil rights of the minority. The problem (in the US, at least; I can't speak for Germany) is that the minority is trying to paint vaccination as a civil rights issue, essentially. I can see the argument, but it all feels a bit hypocritical, as I expect most of the minority who are complaining now were vaccinated (by mandate) against other diseases when they entered public school as children (and vaccinate their children by mandate before enrolling them in school). And while there is still some resistance to even that in some quarters, it is nowhere near the size of the resistance toward COVID vaccinations.
Is agency over ones body not a civil rights issue? I'm fully vaccinated and even boostered, but I'm extremely uncomfortable telling other people that they have to do something to their own body.
And I don't think taking vaccines (usually as a child) by mandate in the past changes the ethics of it.
I think it's fair for there to be consequences to refusing the vaccine. Your work may decide they don't want to expose their staff to an unvaccinated human... so you may lose your job. Government may decide that the risk of sitting inside with someone unvaccinated is too high so you may not be welcome at certain businesses. Maybe you have to wear a mask when others don't.
That doesn't cross a line to me, but saying "you absolutely must take this vaccine or we're going to use the force of government to make you" does.
I feel the same hesitation around bodily autonomy, but there's a VERY important point: the decision impacts more than your own body. It's the same logic we use to outlaw certain substances like heroin or PCP--you have a right to do things with your body up until the point where that decision impacts the health and safety of people around you.
Looking at things through that framework is how we end up with controlled substances, anti-smoking laws, DUI laws, and a whole host of other things.
One's rights in the US usually stop at the point where they impact the ability of people around you to live their life without undue interference.
This is a Trolley Car problem: you're going to kill someone: do you flip the switch to kill the baby, or let the Trolley plow through the crowd of people?
Now you know why Philosophy professors teach this problem in Philosophy 101.
> I'm extremely uncomfortable telling other people that they have to do something to their own body.
I'm extremely uncomfortable with granting a novel coronavirus a gigantic reservoir of freely available incubators to infect and try out new ways to use the human body for its own goals, all the while having a way to largely prevent it. The concept of "individual rights" as you present it here is at odds with best practices learned from epidemiology. Is that in-and-of-itself a troublesome fact? Absolutely.
I am vaxed but… this reminds of the abortion argument. If one is against allowing someone right to bodily autonomy (remain unvaccinated) because then exercising that right could lead to the suffering and/or death of another, then that person ought to also be against abortion, as there should be no right to bodily autonomy in that event either, given that the death of another is guaranteed.
Yet on the left we have many who anti-anti-vax while pro-abortion. I don’t understand the consistency of that position.
What’s your argument for it, if I may ask? I cannot convince myself that abortion is a judicial matter as opposed to a legislative one. If it’s an innate right, there shouldn’t be any issue aborting an 8 month old fetus.
In effect, the parent comment is attempting to argue their position through proof by lack of counterexample. Now, whether this is a valid proof construction technique, and hence, whether their stated position is of any meaningful merit besides an exquisite example of doublethink, is left to the interpretation of the reader as an exercise.
> I'm extremely uncomfortable with granting a novel coronavirus a gigantic reservoir of freely available incubators to infect and try out new ways to use the human body for its own goals
Then you should be extremely uncomfortable with vaccine mandates, because this is exactly what mass vaccination is doing. Since none of the vaccines prevent people from getting COVID or passing it on to others, the vaccines are creating an evolutionary environment where there is high selection pressure for the virus to evolve variants that resist the vaccines. Mandating vaccines just makes that worse.
the vast majority of viral replications take place in susceptible infected bodies, i.e. predominantly those of unvaccinated individuals. variants, therefore, mostly arise among unvaccinated. sometimes, by chance, a variant then may emerge that is able to evade some of the vaccine induced immunity. unvaccinated individuals therefore represent a source of escape variants, and therefore jeopardize the success of vaccine campaigns.
> the vast majority of viral replications take place in susceptible infected bodies, i.e. predominantly those of unvaccinated individuals.
I'm not sure this is true, but even if it is, this...
> variants, therefore, mostly arise among unvaccinated.
...does not follow from it. The key thing driving evolution of variants is not number of replications but selective pressure. Selective pressure is much larger in a vaccinated individual than an unvaccinated individual (or at least an unvaccinated individual that has not had COVID and does not have natural immunity).
Selection can drive evolution, and in a vaccinated body there exist other selection pressures than in an unvaccinated body. Variants which may by chance be suited well to strive in a new environment need to arise first. This will happen only when replication occurs. The unvaccinated population is the major breeding ground for variants, not the other way around.
> The concept of "individual rights" as you present it here is at odds with best practices learned from epidemiology.
No, it isn't, because science cannot make value judgments. Epidemiology can tell you things like: if you do A, B will happen; if you do C, D will happen; etc. That's all "best practices" based on epidemiology or any other science can amount to. But no amount of science can tell you whether doing A to make B happen, or doing C to make D happen, is worth the cost of doing those things or the other side effects they will have. Those are value judgments, and value judgments should not be forced on people.
That's why we start with a value judgement that everyone agrees on, instead of leaving it implicit. Consider the following value judgement:
> The evolution of a novel coronavirus that is both highly infectious and deadly must be avoided at all costs.
Barring any reasonable objection to this (of which I can think of none), the ball is in science's court to prescribe a course of action. If that course of action is mandatory vaccination, then so be it.
> Barring any reasonable objection to this (of which I can think of none),
Then you haven't thought very hard. "At all costs" is way, way, way too strong. We already have viruses that are much more infectious and deadly than SARS-CoV-2, for example Ebola, and we have not taken this "at all costs" attitude towards them. We expend some effort towards fighting and containing them, but only in proportion, since there are so many other things we also need to expend effort towards doing.
> the ball is in science's court to prescribe a course of action
No, it isn't. Choosing a course of action requires attaching value to different possible future states of affairs. Science cannot do that. It requires value judgments, and science cannot make value judgments.
To take your example, science can to some extent tell you what will happen if you impose mandatory vaccination or if you don't--although since much of what needs to be predicted involves second, third, fourth, and higher order effects and includes various aspects of human psychology and free choice that are not at all well understood scientifically, science's ability to make accurate predictions about such outcomes is limited. But science cannot tell you which of those two possible states of affairs is to be preferred, all things considered.
> That doesn't cross a line to me, but saying "you absolutely must take this vaccine or we're going to use the force of government to make you" does.
You're absolutely right about that but there is a cost-benefit analysis here. If we don't want the government to be able to track our every move (to make sure that the unvaccinated don't violate the public interest) then it's simpler and probably more democratic to just mandate vaccination.
Should and must are very different things. One implies I get a choice to opt out. One implies some sort of coercion.
I don't buy this phrasing, or the rule. Even if read with best intentions. I can't even imagine how ridiculously bad US would be if it was actually ruled based on what 70% of the population wants.
I am not even joking. I think you may want to rethink your argument.
Yes… Democracy isn’t two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.
That being said, if you declare any consideration of the actual policies to be off limits for supposedly being subjective, you won’t ever be able to make any decision.
Specifically, in this case, vaccinations are safe & beneficial. And even if governments are subject to elections, and their powers are subject to frustration even by minorities opposing them, reality is not. A principled argument cannot be made in the abstract, leaving the wisdom of vaccinations open. Opponents pretend that it is possible because they do not stand a chance on those merits, and seek to instead shift the debate to “freedom vs. safety” or whatever safe in the knowledge that it is impossible to argue for either of those conflicting values to ever ‘win’.
It's not exactly hypocritical because we know that the Covid vaccines were both rushed and lied about. We still don't have full transparency about them, and the companies that made them are trying to make it as opaque as possible.
What most people expect is a vaccine that works as it was said it would, and isn't in a quagmire of censorship and profiteering. I think those are very real concerns that have not, and will not be addressed - and so, you will never get everyone on board.
4.29 billion people worldwide have received a vaccine
We've done a huge scale test -- it thankfully has worked -- and I'm not sure what evidence you are looking for at this point.
It mostly feels like the unvaccinated at this point are 1) cowards, 2) selfish, or 3) believe in some sort of voodoo. Not sure which is worse honestly.
Because its a bad deal for anyone under 50. The risk potentially greater than reward. Also how many vaccines? Israel is on the 4th shot now. 30% of drugs get recalled due to safety. Natural immunity is the superior immunity anyway.
Did the antivaxxers lie about how the vaccines would make us reach herd immunity and stop transmission? Or that they would end the crisis? Or that there are no risks involved in taking them?
They may have over-exaggerated and come up with bullshit counter-narratives, but they were right about the core of the issue: we can't trust leaders who lie all the time.
This is applicable to every issue we face as a society, but most people ignore most major issues most of the time. There's something else going on with this pandemic and the vaccines. It's been extremely politicized, in part due to the social/political context it started in. It's sad that we can't all come together to figure out the best course of action. Instead, wearing or not wearing a mask, for example, has become an overtly political act.
Also, let's say everyone in the U.S. had gotten vaccinated as early as possible, by last July or thereabouts, what would the impact of that have been? Things were opening back up, and then the Delta wave hit. Perhaps if 90%+ had been vaccinated we wouldn't have had to shut back down again (although it wasn't really a shutdown this time, since pretty much everything is still open).
I have been getting the sense that this is a continuation of Trumpers vs. Democrats, and their respective apologists throughout the west. Whatever the hell this is, it's getting hot and if we don't figure out a way to cut through the shit it's going to get worse.
I'm all ears for a civilized discussion, but until we can agree on some epistemic framework (or narrative) we're not going anywhere except where the current ruling class pushes us.
Well it seems to follow pretty naturally that if you think that division is a problem, then being aware of how your attitude is the definition of division seems pretty important.
I would hope it might help you with your observation about the division of the country, and with your feeling of irony on another subject, and using both of these skills towards understanding.
So for the situation in general: if enough people are less divisive, perhaps a less divided country can occur.
Cool - We'll save this kind of discussion for when we're choosing ice cream flavours.
Not making decisions that affect the health of not just the nation, but the follow-on global ramifications due to mutations.
As for the "other side" - this is what democracy is about. So if the elected representatives and majority of the nation are for it, then that's the decision made.
No, vaccinations are how we get out and people who are medically able to get them and don’t are hurting each and every human on this planet due to their own hubris.
There is not an “enormous majority”, even in the relatively vaccine-hesitant US, that opposes vaccine mandates; there is, on recent polls, within the MoE of 50% that opposes a general adult mandate, and only a minority that opposes slightly narrower mandates attached to participation in most significant public activities.
In Germany, the subject of the story, support for a general mandate was in the high 50s a month ago and around 70% now. Opposition is a rapidly shrinking minority.
Please don't feed flamewars on HN, no matter how bad another comment is or you feel it is. The site guidelines specifically ask you not to reply like this.
True patriots would say there should be a big reversal at the ballot box instead of threatening violence with your fellow countrymen.
The problem of course is that once one side lost a fairly held election, the vocal minority went right to violence (see Jan 6). And now violence is acceptable political discourse on one side.
And now it seems like one political party is worse than Russia -- who assassinates it's political dissidents.
I'm pretty sure if you ask around, no patriots wanted Steve Scalise, Ronald Reagan, JFK, Malcolm X, Gabbi Giffords, etc to have been shot.
Your post shows very well what the parent meant: you are blaming the other side for a horrible outcome. It is the Virus that creates a horrible situation and the very irrational reaction to it from all sides. We are in this mess together and everyone is spreading the virus, vaccinated or not.
I am in fact blaming "the other side" for a horrible outcome (ERs packed with covid patients when that is unnecessary, leading to worse outcomes for non covid patients). What you've said is misleading.
> It is the Virus that creates a horrible situation
And it is people refusing to get vaccinated that greatly exacerbates this horrible situation. What you've said is misleading.
> We are in this mess together and everyone is spreading the virus, vaccinated or not
Vaccinated people spread the virus less and go to the hospital less. What you've said is misleading.
It is the Virus that creates a horrible situation, and the situation is much worse than it could be. The problem has been compounded by the ailing health care system in Germany. As others have described, the number of ICU beds has declined in the last two years. And this is not only because there is a lack of (badly paid) staff. But also because the hospitals were initially paid for each bed provided (between 150 and 200 € per day) and now get a bonus only if they have over 85% occupancy. To repeat: hospitals are currently financially rewarded for working at the performance limit. This is a factor that is not talked about enough. There is currently no good reason for hospitals in Germany to build additional ICU capacity.
Every year in Germany 127000 people die from smoking. 74000 from alcohol and 25000 people died from the flu in 2017/2018. Our health system has a high burden all the time and Corona contributes to it. But it is far too simplistic to say that the unvaccinated would add to the problem to the point that the health care system is in danger of toppling over. There are many contributing factors and all of them need to be addressed with the right measures. We are thinking about forcibly vaccinating people who don't want it. Is that an appropriate response? I don't think so.
Just one more thought on hospitals: I personally know 4 German, one Dutch and one Belgian staff in intensive care. At times in the last two years, we have had a situation that has never been seen since World War II: the staff went home in the afternoon because there was nothing left to do. The hospitals were simply empty. That's not the case at the moment, of course, but it shows that the actual situation is often different from what's being spread in the media.
I recently learned that viral loads is actually the same between vaccinated and unvaccinated people who test positive for COVID19. That's not technically the same thing as the rate of spread, but it is really first and foremost the severity of the disease that the vaccines help with.
I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct.
But what you describe is majoritarianism. It is a form of democracy but a very weak form. For a lot of people, who are from minority groups, it is indistinguishable from totalitarianism.
Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing them to comply is probably a cure worse than the disease - even a disease like COVID
Vaccinations are too leaky to "make this virus extinct". Within a few months of vaccination, half or more of people can get mild, but still transmissable, cases of Delta. (Omicron is likely worse; there are already multiple reports of mild cases among those with recent 3rd booster shots.)
Honest epidemiologists have been warning about this risk since 2020, and more forcefully when confirmed by early vax results in 2021. But many people are still on the warpath against the unvaxed, as if that can make a difference.
Well, it can for the unvaxed themselves – winning them a less-severe case.
But every vaxed person is going to be exposed to, and have mild cases of, COVID – via waning immunity & multiplying variants. There is no net increase in protection from harassing the last ~15% (a more honest count of hardcore holdouts) into a vax they don't want. (Most of them have probably had COVID already, or soon will, giving them an immunity just as good as vaccination.)
Forget how leaky they are - COVID can also be carried/transmitted by animals. For anyone who thinks all we have to do to vaccinate everyone - "everyone" includes all the animals humans do or could come in contact with. You going to do that too?
The optimal outcome preserving both health and bodily autonomy is an asymptomatic highly contagious variant. That is essentially a communicable vaccine.
First of all, there are many millions in Germany, who are neither vaccinated nor recovered (if you have medical proof of recovery, like a positive PCR test in the past, you are treated like a vaccinated person for 6 months). So there are millions which can still be hit by full force. As a consequence, get sick, require ICU care. In some parts of Germany, all ICU beds are currently occupied, patients moved to other parts of the country as we speak. That is the critical situation at the moment. Also, all data available shows, that unvaccinated people are spreading the virus faster than vaccinated people. Those two parts in combination create a situation, where the unvaccinated part of the population do mainly contribute to the severity of things. That is, why the majority of the population cares about high vaccination counts.
In the executive summary, which lays out how we should interpret the total body of data collected so far:
"The body of evidence for infection-induced immunity is more limited than that for vaccine-induced immunity in terms of the quality of evidence... There are insufficient data to extend the findings related to infection-induced immunity at this time to persons with very mild or asymptomatic infection or children."
We literally don't have the evidence needed to say with certainty that infection (of all levels of severity) provides "an immunity just as good as vaccination."
The data only suggests that people that are severely affected by COVID may have higher peak antibody titers. It's a huge gamble to play with yourself and the people around you.
>Immunity from prior-infection was worse than vaccination at protecting people from Delta.[1]
Now you are saying :
>We literally don't have the evidence needed to say with certainty that infection (of all levels of severity) provides "an immunity just as good as vaccination."
Meanwhile, all the data coming out of countries with centralized covid tracking suggests natural immunity is as good or better.
Reviewing health data for 2.5 million Israelis, It found:
>SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021
>Conclusions This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.
"There is laboratory evidence that persons previously infected with the original lineage of SARS-CoV-2 have reduced neutralizing antibody titers against certain variants (i.e., Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants)"
This study has a rather strange design that might be miscategorizing people who’d both been infected & vaxed (counting them only as vaxed), & among other things, misses the risk that more unvaxed people might seek medical care, or receive more aggressive treatment, for the same level of symptoms.
It’s also an outlier result, as larger analyses from Israel suggest longer & stronger protection from infection.
What we can say confidently is that both the vax & prior infection provide some future protection, ut both fade against re-infection fairly fast, while remaining helpful against severity.
Also more generally: the CDC has not, in this pandemic, proven very reliable in its reporting, recommendations, or weighing/updating of evidence, & its choice of what to report & emphasize has been highly compromised by shifting political pressures. I think their highlighting of this result, over evidence suggesting otherwise, is suspect - more a reflection of them wanting to boost the vax campaign than an honest assessment of all relevant scientific evidence.
I have literally only seen people opposed to vaccine mandates bring this up. It's a fake talking point to paint people in favor of mandates as misinformed.
You're saying that a handful of your anecdotes are a perpetual fake talking point? I have seen the exact opposite. People are generally misinformed. In case you need a counterpoint to your anecdotes, read the upthread:
> I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct.
Sure, but we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.
Or just dogmatically stick to the "unvaccinated people are selfish" because it best fits your political world view - damn the science?
Want to make this virus irrelevant? If Omicron is as mild as the doctors in South Africa are reporting then here is our path to herd immunity. Which is going to happen no matter what governments fuss and fume about. Even New Zealand finally gave up on their ridiculous quarantine strategy.
I’m just confused about the argument you are making here - that if our options are:
A) let’s all get a couple of shots to reduce our risk of death, serious illness, and make it less likely that other people get sick, not to mention making it less likely that new variants will emerge by making transmission harder
or
B) let’s have no vaccinations and let the virus sort it out, like we did with, say, the 1918 flu? Or polio, measles, or smallpox?
or
C) let people get vaccinated or not, it’s their business, but putting societal pressure on them is overbearing and eventually pointless
That of those options we should choose either B or C? Because B is how we dealt with illnesses until we had vaccinations to make them harder to get and less deadly. Then we started…vaccinating people. And now measles is still a thing, but no one worries about it, except that cases are going up because people aren’t getting vaccinated. So B seems like a bad plan, because we tried that and it sucked, and then we did A with measles and things got a lot better.
C is certainly a lot more personal liberty-oriented, which I get the appeal of, but society is fundamentally about giving up some amount of individual liberty in exchange for shared and communal benefits. C is actually what is happening in some places with measles vaccinations, where individuals say, “I don’t need to be vaccinated because herd immunity will save me”, which not only means that (despite claiming personal liberty) those people are relying on the vaccinated people to protect them, but that they’re willing to put others at risk (because vaccines aren’t perfect) in exchange for their individual liberty. This seems like C is a pretty raw deal for the liberty and rights of the people who would rather not get infected by, say, measles. Or Covid.
B and C both seem like bad plans. A seems pretty good, but I realize you’re not going to be convinced of that. B is pretty indefensible, I don’t think anyone would argue we should just let Covid run through the world and kill millions and millions more people. Or maybe you do, I don’t know. Seems bad.
But with C, the only way you can argue it’s not selfish to look after your own preferences is if you believe that the outcomes of option A, B, and C are the same. That it doesn’t matter - the same amount of people will die, and the same amount of people will get infected, and the same amount of people will permanently lose their sense of taste or smell, and the same amount of people will end up in the hospital. That fundamentally the outcomes of all three scenarios are identical. But there’s no way that’s the case, right? It just doesn’t make sense.
So if there IS a difference, then A is everyone doing as much as reasonably possible to make things better, B is everyone giving up and accepting whatever happens, and C is valuing your interests above the opportunity to help others. That’s the definition of selfishness.
> but putting societal pressure on them is overbearing and eventually pointless
> ...
> and C is valuing your interests above the opportunity to help others. That’s the definition of selfishness.
This, I think, highlights the fundamental blind spot in reasoning of many who pushes the vax or other measures to 100% "uptake". What do the people think will happen once somebody submits to the pressure? Masked and vaxed and fine and dandy? Quite the opposite, I believe. The resistance in the remaining population is not at the rational level, it is very visceral, primal, fight-or-flight feeling. Even though, I think, it was largely provoked by the initial torrent of equally irrational measures, it is not something that is going to change. Submitting to pressure doesn't mean forgetting or forgiving. The solid foundation is being laid for a very broken society for a generation to come. The internal trust in society is as shaken as never before. Society with 5-10% of people broken, bitter and vengeful is not healthy. The fallout is going to be very bad, in unexpected way. Cruel and unusual.
Sure, you may say it is selfishness. It is not rational selfishness though. As I said, it is a visceral reaction which is very hard to explain, to put into words, therefore all you hear is "we don't want it". It is sort of a mental condition, and pushing through to the end won't cure that condition, only make it worse. Such condition is nothing to be proud of, but punitive correctional measures aren't known to work against diseases, mental included. Even criminals are not prosecuted if suspected to be in acute mental condition.
I would hope the nature of the resistance is properly recognised and not vilified. After all, we've complied with all the past vaccine "soft-mandates" for our children and ourselves, but always thought that generous exemption provisions were very good! Letting people make choices without pushing them into the corner is beneficial for society. I always thought the society's capacity for compassion was bigger than my own. Unfortunately, it is not what transpired.
At this moment I'd be ok with increased insurance premiums, testing regime for travel and high-risk settings, tax surcharge or even mandatory community service as alternative to vax. Something we can rationally discuss. "Bodily autonomy" - face masks included - is simply not something I can engage with rationally.
I’m not arguing that everyone should be forced to get vaccinated - I’m saying that people who choose not to are selfish. And they shouldn’t be immune to some level of personal impact, lots of people make personal choices that have negative impact. I once turned down an incredibly lucrative opportunity because I disagreed with the products I’d be working on. The father of a friend of mine was a professional pilot who never got above flying for a regional airline because his cigarette addiction meant he struggled to go more than three hours between cigarettes. Personal choices have impacts.
The argument that you make is odd, though, which seems to be that people have been so pushed around by these horrible, unreasonable asks that they have a “visceral fight-or-flight” response and hence have a “mental condition” that prevents them from adapting - and not accepting that demonstrates a lack of compassion.
That argument, for what it’s worth, has been trotted out to justify everything from segregation, to fighting gay rights, to objecting to seat belts. Just because people don’t like something they find objectionable doesn’t make them irrational. Saying they are robs them of their agency as humans, and also conveniently obviates them of their responsibility to their community.
“But what is the end game?”
To get to where almost everyone is vaccinated, which is where we are with measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, typhoid, etc. It’s not that complicated.
“ I always thought the society's capacity for compassion was bigger than my own.”
Man, me too. If you had asked me in 2019 if there would be a controversy about adding one more vaccination to the roster of vaccines we give almost everyone (and invest billions in encouraging and distributing), I would have said, “no way - in most of the world, most people see vaccines as something that’s important to help themselves and their community “. In 1947 there was a smallpox outbreak in NYC and millions of people showed up to get vaccinated because it was the right thing to do to protect their community. Their compassion was for others.
To be clear, I don’t think people who don’t want to get vaccinated are monsters or evil. They don’t need to be vilified. No, they’re more in the realm of the person in the community who once in a while has a drink too many and drives home when they shouldnt - probably nothing bad will happen, but it shows a real lack of personal responsibility for their impact on others.
Thank you for the civil answer. I found enough in it to agree with and upvote.
> That argument, for what it’s worth, has been trotted out to justify everything ...
It may be a tired argument, but it doesn't make it false. Sometimes people really do have deep convictions they cannot be rationalized from. Looks like I do, and I'm not happy about it. Only it was never a problem before covid. I was brought up in the spirit of never asking for help or claiming any deficiency until you absolutely, positively, completely unable to handle the situation on your own. Also you must be sure that who you ask is able and willing to provide such help. I thought society progressed enough to tolerate conscientious objection of sorts. Turns out I was wrong. I struggled to keep up and cried for help, first time in my life - and received a good lesson to never ask for compassion again.
> Personal choices have impacts.
They certainly do. I just disagree that it is purely personal. The other side absolves itself from any consequences of the choice pushed upon individual, while being very happy to trump on them if the "natural" impact of "inferior" choice is not bad enough.
> people have been so pushed around by these horrible, unreasonable asks
I haven't said that. Some may very well be reasonable, but it is very hard to see in the pile of punitive-only measures.
Well, at least I have tried to explain how some people, myself included, see and feel in the situation. I'm getting more hints of my inability to communicate this, and nobody in a position to influence the measures gives any consideration to it. This is why I stand with my belief that the side-effect of "where almost everyone is vaccinated" will be not what these people are expecting, in a cruel and unusual way.
“ it is very hard to see in the pile of punitive-only measures.”
Aka unreasonable. Which sort of makes the point. But also - it’s tough for me to be civil when your argument is, “why isn’t anyone taking my feelings into account?”, when that has literally never been the standard for anything related to a common good. I don’t care how you feel about being allowed to drive drunk, because it’s dangerous to others. I don’t care if you don’t want to allow minorities to live in your neighborhood, they have the right to live wherever they want. And I don’t care if you don’t want to get one more vaccination on top of the 5+ we require for work and/or school, it is part of participating in a functional society.
If no one hears you “crying out for help”, think of how the people whose lives have been affected by this disease feel, knowing that there are people who COULD be helping but don’t want to.
Sorry, I seem to have mistook passive-aggressive for civil.
My point is not that anyone should care how I feel, in particular. I only give it out here, on a semi-anonymous forum, never IRL.
The point is, quite the sizeable proportion of people feel like that, and it is a pain for them which they won't forget or forgive, even if they choose to submit to demands. In fact, many voluntarily vaccinated people feel exactly the same, for them cooperation with any future government initiatives is out of question now. It doesn't invalidate the pain of those catching or dying from the disease, it just another pain in it's own right.
"Common good" cannot be built on pain, history is littered with unsuccessful attempts. Governments all around the world are choosing to ignore this (proving them incompetent) for some reason, and in doing so they may find themselves very unpleasantly surprised. Unless this is the end game they are looking for (proving them evil), but that would be too much of a conspiracy to suggest.
We could do that for smoking too, but since smoking is a choice, we let people smoke and die. Why not do the same with the vaccines? As with smoking, the unvaccinated are taking all the risks.
Except that the resources that are going to care for the unvaccinated might block someone who is vaccinated from needed medical care. It also increases the amount of exposure someone who IS vaccinated needs to contend with, and as is mentioned over and over again, vaccines are imperfect. A colleague of mine has an elderly father who is vaccinated and in the ICU with Covid. The odds are much higher that he was infected by an unvaccinated person.
Also smoking is a terrible example - we tax cigarettes highly to discourage smoking because it’s a drag on our medical system. We ban the act of smoking in a wide variety of locations because it has an impact on other peoples health. Some buildings even disallow people to smoke in their private homes, and some cities disallow smoking in offices. We put restrictions on almost every aspect of smoking because it doesn’t only affect the smoker.
Surely you can‘t be comparing administering a vaccine (which has much fewer adverse effects than the disease of which it prevents severe outcomes) to euthanasia?
Aside from the absurdity of comparing recommended vaccination as a responsible social welfare act to the murder of children, the comparison isn’t even apt. My point was about short-term and critical healthcare resources, and the eugenics argument was about long term waste of societal resources. If anything, the smoking comparison is a little more apt because smokers ARE long term drains on societal resources. But still no one is arguing about killing smokers.
It has been happening for smoking, at least in some places. Speaking from experience in the US:
Smoking sections in restaurants have all but disappeared, taxes have increased on cigarettes dramatically, warning labels have been placed on boxes/cartons, and so on.
The process has been to try and remove second-hand smoke from those areas where it might affect non-smokers. Traveling abroad to China and Hong Kong a couple years ago it was almost unbearable dealing with people smoking everywhere.
Similar to how as a non-smoker my health risk is non-negligible being exposed to second-hand smoke, so too is my health at risk by unvaccinated individuals running around with higher viral loads increasing the chance and rate of breakthrough infections, and also increased risk of future mutations that could potentially bring about another pandemic.
Very clearly with smoking we've been moving towards a system where you can make whatever health choices you want as long as you aren't impacting the health of others - why should it be any different for vaccines of any kind?
<<Very clearly with smoking we've been moving towards a system where you can make whatever health choices you want as long as you aren't impacting the health of others - why should it be any different for vaccines of any kind?
I think we have long established that just me existing is not something people are willing to tolerate. Hell, just my presence impacts the life of others; sometimes even in a negative way. There is even a system to deal with issues like that. It is called civil law.
But why do we stop at smoking? Why aren't we going after farts and methane. After all, did you know that methane gas poisoning can cause death? Surely, if we researched it a little more, we would maybe find out that it causes cancer of something.
In Louisiana we don't let people smoke in lots of places.
No smoking in schools, no smoking in restaurants, no smoking in workplaces, no smoking in public buildings.
Is that not similar to Germany disallowing unvaccinated (and not naturally immune) from non-essential indoor shopping/leisure activities? Or requiring testing for employees who are not vaccinated/naturally immune?
Aside from the dangers of secondhand smoke (which we have laws to limit the impact of), you can't "catch" smoking from someone else. Unless they force-feed you cigarettes until you get addicted, anyway.
I guess the main difference is that covid patients can clog UIT very quickly and there isn't a lot that can be done beforehand. Smokers come in a more predictable and easier to manage way.
This is only true, because we've built enough rooms and trained and hired enough teams of people to take care of fat people. In my country, nurses are still paid more working as store clerks than in hospitals, so yeah...
And if many countries can mandate curfews, lockdowns, mandatory quarantenes etc., why not ban sugary foods, sugary drinks, fast food, etc.?
I mean.. I'm against any sort of bans, but generally, more people die from being fat than from covid itself.... if every life matters, why no theirs?
My best guess is that the power law governing covid epidemics growth poses a greater threat (in terms of costs and casualties) than slow evolving obesity crisis.
I guess we are pretty lucky that we don’t all have heart attacks simultaneously or it could be a real drag on the hospitals. But yes, the risks and concerns are absolutely equal between those two scenarios.
That's because you apparently can't read. The only thing I said was that treating sick people is why we have the healthcare system. If you think treating COVID patients is too much just triage differently and lower the priority, treat more important things instead. Don't force me to get a medical procedure against my will for the sake of the government healthcare infrastructure.
I can read words, but not minds. You asked a rhethorical question that didn't illustrate your position in the slightest. If you wanted to say "let people with COVID die on the streets so I can remain unvaccinated" then please just say that.
I do think it is important to use the correct terminology here. This disease and the vaccines are already a huge spread of misinformation, so lets expand on the “sure” bit from this sentence a little. It is saying quite a lot:
I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind. So we should acknowledge the fact that these vaccines will probably not eradicate COVID. We will have people getting sick from COVID and we will have more COVID variants for the foreseeable future. Even after most people have been thoroughly vaccinated. And given the slow global spread of vaccines we will also probably see more lockdown measures to slow the spread of the virus beyond the current vaccine capabilities.
Now that said, remember that with the vaccines:
> we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.
>I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind
I believe I speak for many when I say, "I have no idea what the experts' have in mind" (and that's not a good thing).
So they're trying hard to get everyone vaccinated - a noble goal, perhaps, as our current roster of vaccines diminish symptoms and greatly reduce hospitalization and fatality rates. But..."Stop the spread, get vaccinated"...what? Like the parent said, all of the currently-approved intramuscular Covid-19 vaccines have proven to have a negligible effect on transmission rate.
Early on, experts probably made an educated guess or wish that these vaccines would be sterilizing and started information campaigns on this premise. When this turned out to be not true, their "Stop the spread, get vaccinated" became "You unvaccinated are the problem, you are holding us back, and you will be locked down immediately". Rather than address their mistake, rather than open up transparently, they doubled down on the lie. Not a good way to build trust.
> Like the parent said, all of the currently-approved intramuscular Covid-19 vaccines have proven to have a negligible effect on transmission rate.
Multiple studies show that vaccinated people have lower transmission than unvaccinated.
> In studies conducted before the emergence of the Delta variant, data from multiple studies in different countries suggested that people vaccinated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines who develop COVID-19 generally have a lower viral load than unvaccinated people.(157, 165-169) This observation may indicate reduced transmissibility, as viral load has been identified as a key driver of transmission.(170) Studies from multiple countries found significantly reduced likelihood of transmission to household contacts from people infected with SARS-CoV-2 who were previously vaccinated for COVID-19.(171-176) For the Delta variant, early data indicate vaccinated and unvaccinated persons infected with Delta have similar levels of viral RNA and culturable virus detected, indicating that some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 may be able to transmit the virus to others.(163, 164, 177-180) However, other studies have shown a more rapid decline in viral RNA and culturable virus in fully vaccinated people (96, 177, 180-182). One study observed that Delta infection in fully vaccinated persons was associated with significantly less transmission to contacts than persons who were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.(181) Together, these studies suggest that vaccinated people who become infected with Delta have potential to be less infectious than infected unvaccinated people.
We have no real studies, but if covid does "irreversible" small damage, even in vaccinated and that accumulates, it could lead to a life-expectancy drop of 30 years.
Obese people don't take up literally the entirety of ICU capacity in heavily-affected areas[1], nor does obesity spread exponentially in a matter of months.
But obese and overweight people are the strain on the system. That's it, to the tune of 78% of hospitalizations as of March '21[1]. I sincerely doubt the numbers have changed much since then and I'm not going to bother to look for a follow-up study. If people in the United States weren't outrageously unhealthy, this pandemic would not have caused the awfully high number of deaths that it did.
You are totally correct that obesity doesn't spread exponentially, but it exponentially increases your risk of having a bad time with this disease. This will sound harsh, but I'm not really a fan of locking down young healthy people and forcing them to put their lives on pause because so much of America can't go for a run or get in the squat rack. The conversation no one wants to have right now, because were so steeped in arguing over what vaccines - mandated or not - can or cannot do, is one about how we actually get Americans to shed some weight and eat better.
Ironically, closing the gyms "because covid" will make this problem worse.
The goal is to keep serious cases to a minimum so they don’t clog the healthcare system thus making people die of all sorts of other things because they couldn’t be treated.
>The goal is to keep serious cases to a minimum so they don’t clog the healthcare system...
Reminds me of 2 weeks to flatten the curve. Yet here we are. Why all the sudden are we at risk of clogging the healthcare system with some areas hitting 70%+ adult vaccination rates? Germany already has given out 124,401,062 doses of the vaccine. All I ever see is the goalposts being moved with this stuff.
I have taken the vaccine, but I am hesitant about mandates and vaccine passports.
I find it exhausting that people such as yourself seem to latch onto missed time frames as a reason to just assume all public health policy is bullshit. Yes, because when I say I'm going to finish some software project in 2 weeks, I absolutely always get it done in 2 weeks.
These are estimates. They are sometimes (often!) wrong. Sometimes they're wrong because the problem was underestimated. Sometimes they are wrong for political reasons.
Yes, "flattening the curve" took more than 2 weeks. Big deal. Doing so did absolutely reduce pressure on ICUs and saved many lives. And hell, if everyone had actually followed all the mandates and guidelines at the time, maybe it would have only taken two weeks. But people don't, and it's always hard to gauge how many people will refuse to cooperate, and in what ways, and exactly what effect that will have.
The reason the goalposts are moving is because this isn't a well-defined game with strictly-set rules. The virus doesn't care about our rules or projections. If it mutates, and the new variant does better against our vaccines, then... yes, the goalposts will move. Our utter failure to get high vaccination rates in poorer countries is likely a big cause of the new variants. It's all well and good to be sitting in a highly-vaccinated city in the first world, but all it takes is one person to fly in from somewhere with a new variant, and you're hosed.
You miss a time frame if you say "2 weeks" and end up having to lockdown for 3 instead. If you say "2 weeks" and end up with lockdowns for years you are either incompetent or lying or both.
If we look at the numbers for Germany they're now getting 60 thousand cases per day, which is three times more than any previous period.
More cases mean more people in hospitals. The situation was bad last winter, it can get worse fast.
Now, of course many are vaccinated, so that drops the likelihood of hospitalization, but unfortunately for them 30% of people are still unvaccinated.
So I can understand why they're nervous.
The thing about the vaccine also is that the effects drop with time unfortunately, so people need boosters. I've already gotten 3 shots and expect there will be more.
If we aren't to keep the world in lockdown, we need people to be out and about, but vaccinated, so this can truly be treated like a few bad flu years in a row.
Until the virus hopefully mutates towards a less severe thing and we can stop talking about it.
The initial estimate was that 70% of population (not only adult) would be sufficient to achieve herd immunity, but the problem is that while the initial virus had R_0 of 2-3, the Delta variant's is about 6.
I'll start by saying I haven't been a supporter of vaccine mandates.
It's best if people can make this up for themselves. Given the right information it's not really a hard choice. And of course there can be personal reasons why it'd be wise to not get vaccinated, but those are rare.
The procedure is benign. Describing it as irreversible is technically true but practically it's scaremongering.
And it's for the sake of the people around you. Your society. So they don't die waiting for their healthcare services to unclog.
Edit: And it's also obviously for the sake of the person getting vaccinated, let's not forget that :)
>...fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory.
Yes I know, it was clear early on. The study also says:
>Although vaccines remain highly effective at preventing severe disease and deaths from COVID-19, our findings suggest that vaccination is not sufficient to prevent transmission of the delta variant in household settings with prolonged exposures.
Which is what we're talking about here, preventing serious cases.
Since we have a global pandemic. This is a completely novel and unusual situation, why wouldn't you think that the solutions will be novel and unusual as well?
Because we know that the mRNA vaccines won't effectively end the pandemic and only provide a prophylactic benefit at best.
>...fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory.
That benefit is hardly "at best". That's a fantastic intermediate step. Why is it decried as horrible just because it's not the final solution to the problem?
From listening to nurses and doctors, I get the impression that most people in hospitals with Covid-issues lately are vaccinated; and I trust real people with real experiences over authorities with agendas.
> I get the impression that most people in hospitals with Covid-issues lately are vaccinated
I read some statistics over that the other day. It is correct when looking only at hospital patients.
The explanation is that most who need hospital care come from a risk group. And risk groups are fully vaccinated by over 90% (here). So you end up with high absolute numbers of vaccinated hospital patients.
If you look at a somewhat comparable group of people, chances to need hospital care are manyfold for the unvaccinated. It's true for higher risk groups and for lower risk groups.
Vaccinations are not perfect protection against anything, but they reduce risk by a high factor.
You can look up all the statistics on vaccine effectiveness against serious cases. They work really well for that. They don’t work as well as first hoped against infection but data on third booster suggests better results on that front.
Look it up instead of asking me for proof, while you yourself are restating hearsay originating from who knows where.
I asked if you can prove that they stop hospitals from being overwhelmed, not whether they were effective. So far it's not looking very good, is that why you support the decision to mandate the shots?
I'm not sure I support a vaccine mandate.
I'm just saying that the vaccines work and it's foolish to claim otherwise.
I can understand hesitation to get vaccinated, but I'd like to ask those same people if they take any other medicine at all and if they have read the pamphlet that comes with those.
Also I'd like to ask if they are fine with getting a completely alien and known harmful substance into their body, the substance we call Coronavirus.
However, they do accomplish the goal of stopping it from being a pandemic. With enough people vaccinated to reduce the R-value below 1, reinfections from animal reservoirs will become inherently self-limiting.
The smallpox vaccine is a sterilizing vaccine, meaning you cannot be infected and cannot transmit it once you are vaccinated.
The MRNAs are non-sterilizing, as are many vaccines. They may reduce symptoms, reduce infections, and reduce transmission, but they are not considered a sterilizing vaccine.
Secondly, coronaviruses mutate much faster than smallpox, and have other hard to deal with stuff like asymptomatic transmission.
The only diseases we ever eradicated were polio and smallpox. I think we got rid of the guinea worm too. Out of all the many many diseases we have fought over the years.
The vaccines we have are non-sterilizing - and my understanding is that the reason is mostly because we needed at least something very quickly and sterilizing vaccines for respiratory virus are harder to research. It is not inherent property of the technology as far as I know.
Sterilizing vaccines for COVID seem to be theoretically possible. "Natural" infection generates stronger immune response on mucus membranes as well as deep inside the body and that provides higher protection against infection. There's no reason why that wouldn't be possible to replicate using a vaccine. But nobody succeeded at making one yet, so we'll have to see if it's practical.
Because unfortunately the current generation of vaccines doesn't completely stop the spread - they certainly slow the spread in the weeks after the second shot, but then antibodies start to wane over the next months (which is why booster shots are being administered). Vaccines still protect from hospitalisation and death, though.
If you believe most virologists the only realistic scenario is that the virus becomes endemic, similar to most flu strains or other human corona viruses (which makes vaccination even more important!).
There are many treatments other than just the vaccine that can prevent hospitalization and death too. Some countries like India rely on them daily since the vaccines aren't widely available to them.
If you get infected with COVID there are far more options than "Sit around with a thumb up your ass until you have to be hospitalized and put on a ventilator".
Yes the vaccine doesn't kill it, but what would kill it is a REAL lock down.
Give everyone 2 months of salary, and 2 months of food. Nationalize food production for a month, give everyone shelf stable terrible food, the same crap that the majority of the anti-vaxxers have been hoarding for decades.
Its like a pretend apocalypse. They should LOVE it.
You can't send everybody home for two months, even if you give everybody two months of shelf stable food. Somebody needs to keep the utilities running. People still need fresh water to bath with, to wash their shit away. You might expect people to buy enough bottled water to drink for two months, but not enough to stay sanitary. And it's not just water; the power companies still need manpower to stay on, garbage still needs to be collected, plumbers still need to clear clogs and fix broken pipes. You clearly haven't given this idea of yours much serious consideration, so why should anybody else take it seriously?
COVID fear creates that sort of warped fantasy. But few nations are totalitarian enough to carry that out.
And large reservoirs of COVID would remain in wild animals, and other countries, and groups (like the elites & their children, or remote communities) that can't practically be forced to comply.
There are numerous reasons why we are incapable of a perfect lockdown of a region of any reasonable scale even before economic concerns. So it's use as a solution is more of a whataboutism for not considering reasonable actions.
I don't think this is true. The virus can survive in some for a long time. Same as with the flu. I think the endemic phase is absolutely inevitable. The only question is how long does it take, and how many people will be killed in the process. Both can only be reduced with vaxxination.
>> Yes the vaccine doesn't kill it, but what would kill it is a REAL lock down.
>>> Give everyone 2 months of salary, and 2 months of food. Nationalize food production for a month, give everyone shelf stable terrible food, the same crap that the majority of the anti-vaxxers have been hoarding for decades.
> Utter insanity. Who told you a "real" lockdown would stop the virus? Where did you get this "fact" from?
It stands to reason. An extreme lockdown as described will cause a virus to go extinct provided: 1) animal reservoirs are insignificant, 2) the immune system can clear the virus within the lockdown time, and 3) people actually comply.
Exceptions to 2 & 3 can likely be dealt if the lockdown is paired with and intensive testing and contact tracing program.
All of these things are likely true, because China and other countries have actually been successful at maintaining a Covid-zero policy (at great cost).
I agree that is the only way but it better be my day off when the lockdown happens. How would nursing home staff stay locked down? Or other people critical to ensuring we have power or that our water treatment plants keep running. But I do agree a more aggressive lock down could work but we will never be able again to do something like that. Not unless it starts killing people like Ebola and everyone in those jobs says screw it I quit and walks away.
How do you keep things like "power plants" and "water systems" running in this proposal? Either you allow so many exceptions that it's worthless, or you literally shut down modern civilization. It's far from clear that it can be blackstarted.
Unfortunately, that wouldn't really help long term, because the disease has spread through animal populations by now.
The only way to reliably stop this from being an ongoing pandemic is measures that reduce the R-value below 1 in a long-term manner, like mass vaccinations.
True. Thank you for acknowledging the point and adding further qualifications. Public discourse is rather disheartening. The options are either 100% vaccination or 0% vaccination, either strict house confinement or nightly clubbing, either masking while hiking in the woods or no masks ever. Life is a rich tradeoff of a myriad factors, somehow we reduced it to a handful of black/white binaries.
Yep, shut down energy production as well, these key workers will also stay at home. Just 2 months without electricity and internet, I am sure you will manage cowboy.
In Germany we have a constitution that protects all human's right equally. If there's good reasons why you can't receive a vaccination, I'm pretty sure nobody can force you. Not even the state. Go to your doctor to get an attest that exempts you from the mandatory vaccination. Nothing easier than that in Germany.
And again: You are just speculating. Nobody knows if a vaccine mandate leaves people behind it tropes. You cannot know it, because it hasn't happened.
I'd rather make decisions based on facts than just speculating about hypotheticals.
> In Germany we have a constitution that protects all human's right equally.
If Germany's constitution allows vaccine mandates, then your insistence that it protects all human's rights will be of little comfort to the people who are forced to take the vaccination without their consent and in violation of their conscience.
At best you are saying "Having control over what medical treatments are done to you is not a human right", and at worst you are saying "Antivaxers aren't human". Either way, you are putting too much trust in a system that claims to protect human rights, and totalitarians generally manage to find a way to twist the law to justify what they are doing, whether the excuse is "military necessity", "medical necessity", or something else.
In fact, germany had a vaccine mandate against smallpox until 1975 https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impfpflicht and we have one against measles, though the mandate only requires children and people in certain fields of work to be vaccinated (teachers,caregivers etc.) The German constitutional court ruled in 1959 that the vaccine mandate against smallpox is constitutional.
> the people who are forced to take the vaccination without their consent and in violation of their conscience.
Your imagination got the better of you here - nobody will be forced to vaccinate, especially not without their consent. Similar to how nobody comes to your car and forces you to wear a seatbelt.
Germany's constitution is quite clear about this, for apparent, historic reasons.
So, how is paying a fine (as in eg. greece) not a form of "force"? In one way, if you're rich, you can pay for your right not to wear a seatbelt.. i mean, get the vaccine, but for normal people, the current measures are basically them being forced to do something that they don't want to do.
You won't be physically forced to, but you also won't be allowed to do most of the things we normally consider that people have a right to do unless you comply. That's really a non physical way of forcing compliance (like saying I'll fire you from your job unless you agree).
The article says that Germany is planning to make the shot compulsory, literally this article that these comments are ostensibly discussing, in the second paragraph, so I'm not sure where you got the idea nobody is going to be forced to get vaccinated, but the gaslighting isn't appreciated
You won’t be forcefully vaccinated. But you can be fined for not taking the vaccine and you can be restricted in what jobs you work in. That’s how it works with the current limited vaccine mandate for measles.
I'm going to stand in front of you and not let you into your home until you give me $100.
I'm not _forcing_ you give me $100, not at all. It's just that if you _choose_ not to give me $100 I will continue to stand in your way and prevent you front getting inside.
It's really disgusting. Some politician invented that "obligation is not enforcement" talking point and now all those tag-alongs just repeat it without thinking about it for a second.
An obligation that is not enforced is not an obligation. A decision that only stays voluntarily as long as everybody complies was never voluntarily in the first place.
I'm usually a very phlegmatic, law-abiding citizen but man, where does this love for newspeak and doublethink come from, all of the sudden?
But it is. All laws are "enforced" in some way, just because sometimes it's not physical force doesn't change that. As soon as there are artificially created "consequences" and penalties, you are forced.
That’s an odd statement there. The mandatory vaccination against smallpox stems from the Kaiserreich (1874) and was loosened at the time of the Third Reich, to be reestablished after the 2nd world war, until it started phasing out in 1975. The state radio fees are a construct that was established after the Second World War, precisely because it was considered imperative to have a public radio/television that was not under government control.
> If Germany's constitution allows vaccine mandates, then your insistence that it protects all human's rights will be of little comfort to the people who are forced to take the vaccination without their consent and in violation of their conscience.
There is no rational reason not be be vaccinated. Anyone who refuses deliberately chooses to endanger themselves and everyone around them, and ultimately the majority is paying the price for the reckless behaviour of a minority in more than one way.
Mandatory vaccinations are an instrument that has been used effectively and repeatedly throughout history. It has also held up in courts including in the US where SCOTUS has argued that individual liberty is not absolute and finds its limits where its exercise can harm the health and safety of others.
It seems you're not understanding the German situation. But also: consider that your theoretical argument made out of anxiety for some imaginary totaliarism makes, in today's context, no sense:
Triage is happening and people with better chances of survival (e.g. everyone vaccinated) are getting the beds. So already "antivaxers are treated less like humans".
I think I'd rather some people be vaccinated without their consent with a safe vaccine than have some people be infected without their consent with a deadly illness.
We know mask mandates, vaccines, and other medical interventions save lives, reduce transmission, reduce hospitalizations, reduce long term symptoms and long covid rates, and reduce deaths, and they may even reduce mutation rates. So the choice to vaccinate, that you paint as one of conscience and consent don't just affect the individual making the choice, but all the people around them.
I mean... we let people smoke and die due to that... why not due to covid too?
The vaccines are too weak to actually achieve herd immunity, so pretty much everyone will get in contact with covid, sooner or later,... some will beat it by themselves and some will, sadly, die.
If people want to take the risk of covid, why force them? I got vaccinated and I don't care if some people don't want to do it.
We no longer let people smoke in places where others are affected. If COVID would only affect the unvaccinated person, I’d agree with you. But vaccination reduces the risk of catching the disease and thus the risk of passing it on to others. If unvaccinated people would all stay home and enter voluntary lockdown, this wouldn’t be a discussion. But they do not. They get infected. They pass it on. In Berlin, there’s a recommendation to not engage in dangerous activities, because there might not be an ICU bed if you have an accident. Planned surgery for cancer patients is postponed, because there’s no bed for aftercare. They’re all taken by mostly unvaccinated COVID patients. If the unvaccinated would all voluntarily stay home and suffer there, I’d agree with you. But they don’t. They’re taking the bed that I’ll need if I get run over by a car in the street.
But they are far less likely to get infected in the first place and even less likely to block an ICU bed. If you look at the statistics for Germany, the regions with the lowest vaccination rates have the highest COVID rates and are transferring patient out because all ICU beds are occupied.
I have been unable to find an official/authoritative source on vaccination rates among ICU patients with cursory search. Help for clearing this aspect up is appreciated!
Yeah, tag-alongs are always okay with other people being forced to something they themselves don't mind. Often they're even okay with other people being forced to somehting they themselves would hate. That's why they're tag-alongs.
The vaccine does not reduce transmission; heck it doesn't even prevent infection!
This is really bad since vaccinated people can be infected and shed the virus without showing symptoms! You are far more likely to be unknowingly exposed to the virus from a vaccinated person.
The rest of your assertions are rather baseless and unfounded propaganda not backed up by science in the least.
If the Omicron variant is indeed as mild as the doctors in South Africa are reporting, Omicron is the path to herd immunity. Especially since COVID is carried by animals. You going to vaccinate every animal any human could come in contact with too?
This whole "you are affecting all the people around them" is the biggest lie of all and the biggest pile of utter bull $h!t in this whole fiasco.
> I think I'd rather some people be vaccinated without their consent
Read the book "Ordinary men" (by Christopher R. Browning). Normal people, like you and me, had "very good" reason to do what they did when they did it.
> In Germany we have a constitution that protects all human's right equally. If there's good reasons why you can't receive a vaccination, I'm pretty sure nobody can force you.
I've received lots of vaccinations in my lifetime, but I ask the question, who decides what the "good reason" is for vaccinating every eligible human?
We know the Covid vaccines aren't 100% effective in stopping spread, or getting ill, but for the sake of argument, let's assume the vaccines are 100% safe and effective.
The reason I don't think it should be mandated is because it sets a precedent for future mandates where the political climate may be different.
Everyone should have the right to choose what happens to their body. Unfortunately that may mean people make stupid decisions (forgoing life-saving treatment, or possibly even making others sick), it's infuriating at times, but the alternative is far worse.
The same argument applies to free speech and personal privacy. Taking away those rights, for what most would say is "obviously the right thing to do" may be all well and good in today's political climate. But it sets a precedent for the future, in which the political climate may be a lot different.
> Nobody knows if a vaccine mandate leaves people behind it tropes. You cannot know it, because it hasn't happened.
An immigrant friend went homeless after Berlin required places like hotels & accommodation houses to be 2g (tested or recovered) only.
He got his vaccine as he wasn’t against them in the first place, he was just a wreck less dumb person. I would argue that other measures would have been less catastrophic while still “punishing” the individual.
Isn’t this an example of being left behind on a similar policy? If I misunderstood you, then my apologies.
So I could go to a doctor and ask for exemption on the grounds that I'm a young male and I'm most susceptible to getting Myocarditis from the shots? Or that I've already had Covid and there's good evidence that I don't need a shot?
Vaccination was most strongly associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis (risk ratio, 3.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.55 to 12.44; risk difference, 2.7 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 1.0 to 4.6)
SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a substantially increased risk of myocarditis (risk ratio, 18.28; 95% CI, 3.95 to 25.12; risk difference, 11.0 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 5.6 to 15.8)
Your argument appears to be that people should be forced to be vaxxed but with a bureaucracy that allows them to not get vaxxed (by visiting various doctors until one acquiesces) if they don’t want to. What am I misunderstanding here? And what then is the point of having a mandate, why support it?
Here's the core problem - unrealistic expectations. Even the CDC has backed off from the whole "make the virus extinct" mantra; they haven't spouted it for over a year now. Which is a good thing - it was utterly ridiculous from day one.
This virus isn't going away. It is carried by animals. You going to vaccinate every animal that we all come in contact with? Ha! You are not going to shelter in place or vaccinate away this virus. We had better figure out how to coexist with it in a rational and reasonable manner.
The good news with the Omicron variant there are no reported hospitalizations in South Africa. So it's more virulent, but less bad. Here is the perfect path to herd immunity - a variant that people can get a mild infection from and have stronger natural immunity to than the vax would give, as well as broader protection to variants. Actually any protection to variants would be an improvement over the current vax - there has be zero confirmation from the CDC or vax makers that the vax provides any protection against Delta, let alone Omicron. All they make are vague promises about it reducing the reaction. Big deal! If the reporting by South African doctors is correct and Omicron is as mild as they have seen then what exactly is the vax doing? Nothing - except exposing you needlessly to potential side effects.
BTW that Omicron is more virulent but less bad is totally unsurprising to anyone familiar with viruses and who wasn't politically motivated or shamed to pushing the ridiculous narratives around COVID right now; this is totally expected behavior as viruses mature in the wild and was predicted by many virologists last year. Virologists who were then quickly derided as quacks, truthers and worse since they dared to challenge the widely accepted groupthink. Same crap that happened with the lab leak, changing stances on masks, ignoring of massive spike in reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and more - hot takes that turned out to be VERY wrong later but amazingly the corrections never get the same amount of publicity as the initial propaganda.
There are lots of hospitalisations, they are ramping up drastically. See SA regional hospital data.
> totally unsurprising to anyone familiar with viruses
Actually no human virus has ever evolved through selection pressure to become less virulent. This is just a (convenient to the deniers) myth.
Lab leak is just as fanciful as it has ever been, masking advice was updated as soon as we knew better, vaccines have been proven very safe.
I am going to accept that you are commenting in good faith. I would ask you to consider your sources, your influences, and the ever rising toll of sickness and death caused not least by the kind of misinformation you are propagating.
Hospitalizations with Omicron? Yes, I could have been more precise. If you have actually stats on Omicron hospitalizations, then please share. The more information the better.
Traditional vaccines have been proven to be very safe, mRNA vaccines are entirely different technology that has been in development for over 40 years and not deployed - widely or otherwise - until now. If mRNA vaccines make so much sense than why have none been brought through clinical trials before this "crises"? If it's so safe then why is the approved vaccine nowhere to be found, but all vaccine being pushed still the vax that is only under the EUA? Why did the FDA violate their own protocol and not revoke the EUA as soon as the approved vaccine was approved?
As for misinformation, sickness and death - have you looked at the dramatic spike in reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)?
Since you are so keen on stamping out misinformation - do you think people who already had COVID should still be forced to be vaccinated? If so, under what rational?
Since you want to talk sickness, who's going to apologize to this mom for advocating a perfectly healthy 14 year old get the vaccine when the possibilities of him having a major reaction to COVID are infinitesimal - yet now he will likely face heart problems for the next decade if not the rest of his life: https://imgur.com/a/NeonlLV
Who's going to apologize to all the families for family members killed by secondary effects to the sustained overreaction to COVID in the face of much better information? Sweden would like to enter the chat.
Just curious since you are basically insulting *I'm* causing sickness and death, since it's becoming more and more apparent vax apologists such as yourself are the real ones causing more problems than you are solving.
For the next secondary analysis, aORs for hospitalizations that occurred before and during SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant predominance (June–September 2021) were compared, beginning on the date the Delta variant accounted for >50% of sequenced isolates in each medical facility’s state (2).
...
In this multistate analysis of hospitalizations for COVID-19–like illness among adults aged ≥18 years during January–September 2021 whose previous infection or vaccination occurred 90–179 days earlier, the adjusted odds of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were higher among unvaccinated and previously infected patients than among those who were fully vaccinated with 2 doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine without previous documentation of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Secondary analyses that did not adjust for time since infection or vaccination or adjusted time since infection or vaccination differently as well as before and during Delta variant predominance produced similar results.
...
In this U.S.-based epidemiologic analysis of patients hospitalized with COVID-19–like illness whose previous infection or vaccination occurred 90–179 days earlier, vaccine-induced immunity was more protective than infection-induced immunity against laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, including during a period of Delta variant predominance.
1. The recommendation to take the vaccine goes exactly against anything the doctors said pre-covid. Before covid, nobody would recommend you to take a vaccine against something you are not in a risk group for, and double doses and boosters were unheard of. This makes me suspicious, and I don't think that is unreasonable.
2. You get really sick from the second dose of the vaccine, which also is not normal, you are not supposed to get sick from vaccines, you are supposed to take them to avoid getting sick
So the whole vaccination situation is something that's new and confusing, why do what my doctor always said to not do? Why get sick from vaccines, aren't they supposed to stop you from getting sick? Why double and triple vaccines?
I'm sorry but your post is completely wrong.
>Before covid, nobody would recommend you to take a vaccine against something you are not in a risk group for
How about the Flu vax? I'm a healthy middle aged guy with no risk factors who gets a flu vax every year. Why wouldn't I?
>double doses and boosters were unheard of
Completely wrong. Gardasil, the HPV vaccine is given in two doses. The Chickenpox vaccination is I think three doses? Same with hepatitis B. You need a tetanus booster every 10 or so years.
>You get really sick from the second dose of the vaccine
Uhhhh myself, my partner, my kids and nearly everyone I know and work with has had two doses of the Pfizer covid vax. No-one I know has gotten really sick from either dose. A bit of a headache and sore arm and perhaps feeling a bit blah for half a day after is the worst I've heard of.
I've learned that it's more common to get flu vaccines in the US, so I have to adjust that statement to Europe where I live. And even if you do get the flu vaccine, isn't that purely a nice to have? Did they really recommend you to take it?
Yeah but you didn't have mRNA, which makes you really sick.
And I picked the flu vax just as an example. I should have instead questioned your statement that I wasn't in a risk group. Everyone is at risk from covid, admitedly some much more than others.
According to this data: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mort... I'm at a 0.4% risk of dying of Covid, and a 8% risk of hospitalization. Those aren't small risks, the vaccine reduces that approximately 10x so clearly its a good idea
Actually, I've just thought of another good example - Whooping cough. Adults are actually at no risk whatsoever of this, but small babies are at severe risk so parents are reccommended to get this vaccination to prevent them passing on what is a very mild or unnoticeable disease for them to their babies.
Oh and when I looked up info on this and the vaccine, yes you should get booster shots for this as well https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/whooping-cough-pertu...
And, uhh yes Pfizer, which was the main covid vaccine used in Australia, is a mRNA vaccine.
Exactly. And I'm just not willing to accept that these recommendations change overnight and now politicians are making these recommendations in place of doctors.
Question is, how much are you going to decrease your risk of hospitalization by force-vaccinating the rest of the unvaccinated population, given that the vaccine doesn't really do much to stop the spread with delta?
If the vaccine was sterilizing - i.e. vaccinated people wouldn't be contagious and spread it symptomatically or asymptomatically - then every vaccination would count. But given the current state vaccination is just going to reduce symptoms and ultimately reduce hospital capacity. Anyone who is in danger (or scared) of Covid can get vaccinated. There's little point in vaccinating children (or even non-consenting adults, although this depends on hospital capacity).
Also, that chart is based on averages. Unless you have co-morbidities (you're fat, have diabetes, heart condition, whatever) the risk is way lower.
You're a 48 year old male? If you're healthy the risks are way lower than the chart indicates (off the top of my head maybe 1% hospitalization, <0.1% death?).
> You're a 48 year old male? If you're healthy the risks are way lower than the chart indicates (off the top of my head maybe 1% hospitalization, <0.1% death?).
And if you're healthy and think about what kind of people are included in the remaining 99% you should feel quite safe.
Great. If you want to take that risk, self infect and isolate. You have no right to make this choice for others by willingly being a host that can infect others.
> You get really sick from the second dose of the vaccine
What? That's not a universal truth at all. Anecdotally just a few people I know felt a little run down for a day, but everyone else (myself included) experience felt zero ill effects
What do your anecdotes matter? The original clinical trial for Pfizer mRNA vaccine has 20% of the treated group (younger than 55) reporting moderate or worse side effects. We don't know how long these last because they did not release any data on that. Could be days, could be a year for some people. for all I know.
20% is _not_ the same as the general and extremely broad statement made by GP. Making such a broad statement is either ignorant or disingenuous. I'll let you decide which
Opposite experience for me. I only knew one person who felt a little under the weather, and they have cystic fibrosis meaning they are immunocompromised, so not surprising. For them they felt a little sweaty one night, that's all
So a booster shot would make me feel even worse. I wasn’t gonna take a booster anyway. My heart hurt like hell after both shots. Both times exactly after the same amount of days.
Yeah my heart hurt as well, and it's associated with heart inflammation especially in men and athletic people. I really really don't want to take the booster shot since it's only 100% negative for me with no benefit whatsoever, and an extremely far fetched and vague benefit for society/someone else.
The actual truth is "long term consequences" from a vaccine, besides immunity are just not a thing.
I bet you can't name one vaccine that has had a "long term consequence" that has emerged more than a few months after the vaccine was administered. It just doesn't happen.
Its a bit like saying I've just developed an upset stomach, from that dodgy curry I ate last year.
Ok, find some significant published studies that tracked side effects (like headache or arm ache) of BNT162b2 over time (not just the typical "there was XYZ in first 7 days, and we don't care further") since the first dose. And tell me what % of people still reported the new onset symptoms still present say 3 months later. I'll wait. :)
That's easy. Pandemrix caused brain damage in teenagers and it took five years+lawsuits for the authorities to finally admit it and pay compensation. Obviously, nothing was learned. That was for swine flu which was also subject to a mass hysteria at the time.
Imagine the horrific consequences if Pandemrix had been mandated!
I am aware of Pandemrix, but do you know that the likelyhood of getting narcolepsy was much higher when contracting the swine flue than from getting vaccinated? Of course it was not mandated, as the swine flu didn't become that large as initially feared. But if it had, the number of cases would have been orders of magnitude larger than those caused by the vaccine, as they were based on the same effect.
And yes, a completely new flu is something to be afraid of, it can have very high death tolls.
However, this does prove my point: The people who developed narcolepsy after this vaccine started showing symptoms one to two months after their vaccine.
Depends how you define "sick". The purpose of a vaccine is to create an immune reaction. That can be unpleaseant for a short time, but does not qualify as being "sick" in the deeper sense. Especially it doesn't compare to the effects a Covid-19 infection has, up to long suffering or death.
In the US, it's because a bunch of demagogues have decided that they will make a lot of money (or retain political power) by saying that vaccines don't work and/or are harmful. Fox News regularly spews this kind of nonsense in its programming and a number of Republican politicians are happy to go along with it.
> We should remember that the freedom of the press exists because a well informed population is necessary for a functioning democracy.
The text of the First Amendment does not contain this or any other justification for itself. And rightfully so I think; such a right does not require utilitarian justification.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I simply don't understand why one person needs to undergo a medical procedure to enable someone else to experience the safe conditions they want. These vaccines don't even grant immunity in the traditional sense (see CDC's revision of definitions here) - all the vaccines do is move things from one nonzero probability of risk to another nonzero probability of risk. If people are SO worried about their health, they need to behave honestly and either quarantine themselves or wear a full body protective hazmat suit everywhere. But requiring others to get a vaccine to attain some arbitrary risk ratio just doesn't make sense.
Admittedly, it's not a great example, but maybe it can facilitate understanding a bit?
Why do we take away the right to drive a car (free movement) from those who are intoxicated? All that banning of drunk driving does is it slightly decreases a nonzero probability of risk. The risk to be hurt by an intoxicated driver is very low, and the risk to die is even lower. If people are really concerned about street safety, and traffic is inherently dangerous as it is, they should just stay at home.
I think it’s completely unreasonable that people complain about an explosives factory next to a school. The risk of explosion is very low and the economic impact on the company would be devastating. Why do people think their right to be a little more safer trumps the right to manufacture high explosives?
I don't see how that's an accurate comparison at all. It doesn't require people to undergo medical procedures, doesn't violate their right to their own bodies or their basic freedom
It’s about the right to expose others to a risk without their consent.
You don’t have the right to expose others to a deadly disease. If you undergo the “medical procedure” (an injection, not surgery, brain transplant or anything complicated, expensive or risky) you reduce risks for you and others, as well as you avoid the risk of using my taxes to pay for additional medical care you wouldn’t need if you just had the very minor inconvenience of two injections.
Put another way, you have so little faith in the efficacy of the vaccine's ability to protect you from the effects of covid that you want others to take that same vaccine just so that you can feel a little better about your odds. And the other side is the selfish one. That sum it up?
Yeah but I'm not responsible for that deadly disease, and I don't control it. It's everywhere all the time. And it's really unclear if me getting vaccinated actually helps anything. It's a completely different thing if you are in 100% control of where a factory should be placed. The equivalent would be to argue that the factory should be banned because someone somewhere are in fact misusing these explosives for evil purposes, and therefor it should be closed forever.
With that reasoning, you are always exposing others to some indirect risk by any activity you do, everything must be banned. There's a certain limit to what is considered within your direct control and can be considered your personal responsibility.
You are expected to allow yourself to be subjected to whatever injections and suffer whatever loss of human dignity for the purpose of some vague "risk-reduction" that ultimately will contribute little towards the actual goal which is never clearly defined and is subject to eternal revision (only in good faith though :)). You are expected to do this to your children as well.
At least with seatbelts it is the idiot who gets hurt. In the case of vaccines, it’s the others, mostly those who, for valid medical reasons, can’t be vaccinated.
It's 30% of the whole population, including small children who cannot get vaccinated at all.
My younger son (14 years old) is not vaccinated. He will be banned from entering shops, probably from playing tennis, and our family will not be allowed to meet other families this winter.
The reason why he is not vaccinated is that in Germany he would get the same amount of vaccine as a 150kg person. In the UK and Sweden they only give one dose to minors, not so in Germany. He is healthy, and does a lot of sports, so for him I see a higher risk from the vaccine (myocarditis) than from COVID-19.
Also, the federal vaccination commission (Stiko) has explicitly demanded that there should be no social discrimination for minors based on their vaccination status as a condition for recommending the vaccines for 12 to 17 year olds. We trusted this recommendation.
In a democracy nobody has absolute freedom and minorities do not enjoy protections of the rights to threaten others. If 30% of the people do not get vaccinated without valid reason, they violate the right of others to live and stay healthy. It is scientifically established fact that vaccination reduces health risks for the public, so vaccination mandate will be based on the same constitutional grounds as speed limits and other limitations of personal freedoms.
Noteworthy is that it cannot be enforced for the people who just stay at home. Anti-vaxxers can lock themselves up for a few years and be free from vaccine if they want.
How do unvaccinated people violate vaccinated people's rights?
If you have so little faith that the vaccine can protect you, then why did you take it and why are you advocating others should be forced to?
Also even if 100% of all humans were to take it you do realize that vaccinated people can carry and spread it (asymptomatically, no less) and that animals can carry and spread it too?
Thinking that unvaccinated people violate anyone's rights is utterly ridiculous; it's far more selfish than what your ilk love to accuse those who don't want to take the vaccine of.
This virus is NOT going away. So people might as well get that pipe dream out of their heads right now. It's time to stop letting emotion drive these conversations and get rational as well as realistic.
>If you have so little faith that the vaccine can protect you, then why did you take it and why are you advocating others should be forced to?
This question has a really simple and well-known answer, so if you are unaware of the basics, maybe you should educate yourself first? Vaccine does not offer 100% protection to the individual who takes it, but, according to the scientific research, it significantly reduces: a) the risk to get infected, b) the risk of infecting others, c) the risk of complications or death. Only first of those risks is related to the freedom of personal choice, other two impact public health and public is in their right to restrict personal freedom for those, who do not comply - because chances that people may die are increasing.
Yes, vaccine is not the ultimate protection. More lockdowns will be necessary and we will have to wear masks for few years more. Virus will not go away. But 5-10 million people are already dead and we must take all chances to prevent as many deaths as possible, until it mutates to the point where it is no more dangerous than a flu. If this means that some libertarians and anti-vaxxers will be pissed off, well, majority of people in many countries apparently does not care.
> Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing them to comply is probably a cure worse than the disease - even a disease like COVID
Yeah, please please come here and find a way to "unloose" these people, I'm out of clue.
We have a lot of failures here in Germany that surface, everything is too slow, from bad organization to corruption (like most western democracies), behind in digitalization, behind in taking the right measures, slow decisions even after 2 years into this pandemic situation.. true, a big chance to clear up and maybe hopefully do better in the future.
But those people (the last 10-20% radical idiotic percent that drives the rest forward)? I really start hating my country and fellow citizens, so many spoiled brats living in prosperity, complaining about everything, believing in total bullshit, it is unbelievable. If you attempt your best in an open and honest discussion, you are called a liar with the first word that comes out of your mouth....
> Want a war? That’s what you’re going to get if you persist with this paranoid hypochondriac fascism.
That's a perfect description for those people, not the vaccination, phew..if we get a war it will be by further catering to the far right.
And btw, most of these people who go demoing right now (except the few violent far right ones that are under them), I bet most have never been to a real demonstration in their lives - now standing up for their personal party freedom while limiting the freedom of everyone else - again and again.
And btw please.. everyone who gets triggered by the word "lockdown" get your facts right first - there are lockdowns and there are lockdowns. We had very strict lockdowns over the last year in most our neighbors (e.g. France, Italy, Spain) - fines when you went out on the street at the wrong times .. we in Germany were up to that once close, though I believe noone here ever got fined for anything.
What we discuss and have as "lockdown" right now in Germany is actually just the "lockdown of the unvaccinated" - means 2G in shops that are not essential - oh yeah, poor unvaccinated crowd cannot go Christmas shopping, while health personal is crying for help, ERs and intensive cares are filling up, and a newspaper already appealed to stop driving unless totally necessary, because of injury risk.
Yeah sorry, I'm totally fed up :( Read too much on twitter and also here again, and I feel also a little bad and dizzy. Have been waiting 1h in the cold and another hour inside today to get my booster shot - bad organized Germany, again, but not complaining today! I'm happy to see so many people still trying to do their littlest part to relieve the health care workers and try to help get the hospitals some space for people that really need it for reasons that couldn't be avoided. And a little proud to be part of it - In that sense, the dizzyness is appreciated and better than a Feierabendbeer, the injected chip is working, the 5G in my brain is getting activated and well welcomed. gn8
>I really start hating my country and fellow citizens, so many spoiled brats living in prosperity, complaining about everything, believing in total bullshit, it is unbelievable.
So what do you think getting 100% of humans is going to do, especially since the virus is carried and transmitted by animals too? You aren't going to wipe it out.
And for the vast majority of the population - especially those under 60 and without any co-morbidities the chances of COVID requiring hospitalization, let alone ICU admission is negligible. At worst equal to the flu. Yes, for the vulnerable COVID is not good - but that's hardly unique to COVID too.
So not sure where YOU get off casting aspersions that anyone who doesn't get the vax is selfish - there is ZERO to back that up and rhetoric such as this is the yellow star of David crap reborn in modern clothing.
Doesn't need to be 100% - has been well modelled 85% would be enough.
Also the pressure on the health care system would be much lower then - alternatively, if everyone who is unvaccinated would just sign off that he doesn't want hospital treatment and stays home I would be almost fine as well (still annoyed by the innocent victims they maybe infect..).
> especially those under 60 and without any co-morbidities the chances of COVID requiring hospitalization, let alone ICU admission is negligible.
So wrong, please look again at our numbers, small percentage on big numbers is unfortunately still too much.
> anyone who doesn't get the vax is selfish
Here, in this situation, with all we know, it currently 100% is, 110% YES.
>Doesn't need to be 100% - has been well modelled 85% would be enough.
I can't believe anybody seriously believes that. In addition to the fact that different expers have quoted different figures, and prominent health officials have admitted to deliberately lying about the percentage needed, you have to realize that many of the parameters that go into such a model still have huge error bars.
If the quoted figure was '85%, plus or minus 10%, has a 95% chance of granting herd immunity', I _might_ take it seriously. I think that's still overstating the confidence we have.
> Sometimes rights clash, which is why you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater despite having the right to freedom of speech.
The decision about yelling fire in a crowded theater originates from Schenck v. United States, in which the Supreme Court decided it's OK for the US Government to suppress anti-draft protests; consider if you wish to build arguments on this foundation.
True rights never clash. People need to be forced to be vaccinated because nobody has a right to spread a deadly disease, so, even if they think they won’t, vaccines will help preventing people from killing others by not being vaccinated.
Including the vaccinated, who can still spread it, so I guess we must lock them up since they are already vaccinated, and we can't stop them from spreading the virus otherwise.
Saying that people don't have a right to spread the virus is disingenuous. The reality is that people don't have a right to be free from sickness or death. You can only make personal decisions about risk you are willing to take. To force other people to do things to make you safe is not a right.
> Including the vaccinated, who can still spread it
True, but when vaxxeds spread to other people who are vaccinated, nobody dies. It’s the unvaccinated who endanger themselves (their problem) and others (society’s problem) with their unwillingness to help. We should isolate the unvaccinated for their own protection.
> Saying that people don't have a right to spread the virus is disingenuous.
Try to deliberately infect someone with a disease such as AIDS, HPV, or smallpox and let me know what the law says about that.
> You can only make personal decisions about risk you are willing to take.
You can’t, for instance, drink and drive. It’s not your personal decision the moment your decision endangers others.
> To force other people to do things to make you safe is not a right.
Someone who insists in DUI and kills people regularly will end up being forced to live in a prison.
Read it, and I think you missed the irony that the right of "physical integrity" could also be, and is more likely to be, the right to not have the government control your body, such as forcing people to take a vaccination. If you believe that the right to physical integrity in the German constitution is to make it your right to not get sick, how much more is it the right of others to not have you make medical decisions for them?
Wikipedia says there are cases pending in German supreme court regarding a recent measles vaccination mandate; the court has so far refused to issue a preliminary injunction against the mandate and left the question open for decision in the main trial (see paragraph 18).
From a philosophical perspective, you're not wrong, but real life constrains us greatly.
Germany could theoretically disallow unvaccinated people access to their ICUs without trampling any rights. It would get messy.
Germans aren't fond of messy solutions. They are a very practical people, and they've decided to take a more practical approach (vaccine mandates) that might respect individual rights less, but also results in much less death for those very individuals and the rest of society.
You not wrong either, but I seem to remember that the Germans had a mighty neat, i.e., non-messy "solution" (some would say a "final" one) for a "problem" they thought they had.
Throughout history, making people second-class citizens has never resulted in anything good. If you can name one instance in history where making people second-class citizens was a net benefit, I will eat my words.
I'll suppress the obvious Godwin's law call-out to just state that "unvaccinated" is not a protected class, and we probably both agree that carrots tend to work better than sticks.
Oh, it's not a orotected class?! That's fine, then! If we take nonrepentant apostates off the list of protected classes, do we get to lock them up, too? :)
Fewer disease vectors (the teens that avoid infection due to vaccination) and smaller disease vectors (the teens that get less sick) leads to less spread.
So this justifies treating teenagers the same way as 60 year olds who are not willing to get vaccinated and actually have a high risk on ending in the ICU? Even worse, a pensioner can live quite well with the new restrictions while the teenager's family is not even allowed to meet other families anymore. You can twist it all you want, this is absurdly inhumane (and in stark contrast to the federal vaccination commission's recommendation).
You are equating not taking the vaccine to being anti-vax. That makes a nice slogan but that is not true. For instance it makes zero sense for people who already got covid to get vaccinated. By now that must be 20-30% of the population in most western countries. The benefits for a healthy 20-something are also spurious. This is not the population that will flood ICUs. So you can perfectly decline to take that vaccine without being anti-vax in any way.
There are many people who decline to be vaccinated who are irrational (and I think anyone over 60 who does is just not looking at their risks right). But you won’t convince them by forcing their hand or making obviously untrue statements.
> The benefits for a healthy 20-something are also spurious.
They can get it and spread it to others who are more vulnerable. Unbelievable that you and others still don't know the most basic facts about diseases, even two years into a pandemic. Please get educated and stop spreading misinformation.
Except that it doesn’t look like the vaccine is doing much to prevent transmissions. The UK has been near 90% vaccinated since this summer, and despite that it experiences a high number of cases, of the same order of magnitude than pre-vaccination. And it seems to be the same in other high vaccination countries.
Also if you are vulnerable and unvaccinated, you own the risk.
The only thing vaccines seem to be efficient at is reducing hospitalisations, which at the end of the day is what matters.
I think it's worth to point out here that since "it's in everyone's best interest to get vaccinated" you can't really call it taking "one for the team".
People getting vaccinated are taking "one for the team" and at the same time "looking out for number one". That's the beauty of it, really: aligned incentives.
Perhaps this is true for covid19, as the vaccines do not seem to stop the vaccinated from getting infected and spreading the virus. But for vaccines that actually stop the majority of vaccinated from becoming infectious the risk reward calculation changes.
All vaccinations have some level of risk. If you are surrounded by unvaccinated, your risk of not getting the vaccine outweighs the risk of catching the disease from the herd. In this instance you have aligned incentives.
However, if you are in a entirely vaccinated population, your risk profile changes, and it is now possible for your incentives to become unaligned with "the team", or at least more blurry.
Unfortunately the average antivaxer's mental model is probably not so well defined that they realise is what they have been doing. I would not be surprised if the majority of them don't realise/agree that they've been selfishly coasting on the coat-tails of the crowd with other vaccines/diseases, and therefore they have trouble realising their currently "successful" strategy is not going to work so well this time round.
Well yeah, but what you said is exactly the problem here... Vaccines were promised to be safe and effective against infections... then astrazeneca killed a few people, Jansenn killed a few people, moderna was stopped in finland, sweden, denmark etc., and of course people lose trust. In slovenia, for girls under 25, we currently have 1 death due to the vaccine (jansenn) and zero deaths due to covid (with a bit over 50% of the population getting covid - around 1mio). Also the changing the definition, from "preventing infection" to "preveting hospitalizations" doesn't help.
I got vaccinated to protect myself. I am aware that even with 100% vaccination rates, sooner or later i will get in contact with covid (and/or i probably already have), and the vaccine is protecting only me. I am not afraid of the unvaccinated, and I don't care if they choose a greater risk, it's their life, and their choice.
Not at all and I can turn that argument back: I know non-vaccinated people who stay at home and "evil" fully vaccinated people who go out. It is a fact that vaccinated people can still carry and transmit the virus.
It is also a fact that in the EU 40 to 60% of all ICU beds are filled with fully vaccinated people (40% in Spain atm but the number is going up, 50% in Belgium, 60% in the Netherlands, for example).
So evil, fully vaccinated (like me btw), people going out, spreading the virus, then falling ill and ending up on an ICU bed.
Do you really want to shame people like that? Because if we play that game, then I'll shame the vaccinated people who still have a social life: they do spread the virus.
How did these evil fully vaccinated people who are on ICU bed get the virus? Who did they give it too? Why didn't they stay at home / live less of a social life? They're putting an unnecessary burden on the healthcare system...
Countries like Gibraltar with 100% vaccination rate still just experienced a wave.
Same in Israel, one of the most vaccinated country on earth.
> Besides, it's in everyone's best interest to get vaccinated.
That is not clear at all. Why not lock down hard, very hard, the old and those known at risk why letting the virus circulate among the healthy population: this, and that is a known fact, creates a much better immunity than the one conferred by the "vaccine". The studies published showed 12x less risk to catch the Delta variant if you had had Covid before compared to someone who just had the shots.
If anything: maybe that that "vaccine" which still let people carry and spread the virus is part of the problem.
The problem is the old and those at risk have been sold a lie by politicians and big pharma: that by getting the vaccine they'd be safe. So they let their guards down and now they're fully vaccinated... on ICU beds.
You missed the point of op. The point was that it is not unvaccinated people who fill up icu beds. That's everyone. If you kill all unvaccinated people you have 100% vaccination rate and icu beds will still fill up
Also 40-60% is a big margin. Is that Covid ICU beds, or total ICU beds?
What percentage of ICU beds are treating strictly Covid patients? My understanding is that it's <50% most of the year. I don't have a source. Does anyone?
~73% of people in Netherlands are fully vaccinated.
If this is all ICU beds (and not just Covid ICU patients) - then you would expect 73% of x% (where x is greater than 50%) to be fully vaccinated patients.
Therefore, you're still in a world where unvaccinated patients are 9-10x more likely to be in an ICU bed. But you get this "data point" anti-vax people can spread that "It's actually the vaccinated people clogging up the beds!!"
The point is that if the majority of ICU beds are filled with vaccinated, you cant scapegoat the unvaccinated for your ICU shortage. If they aren't hurting anyone but themselves, who cares!
There are more vaccinated people than not, and people with prior health conditions are more likely to be vaccinated so it's not surprising they would be represented in the ITU population.
You'd think so but it's actually the other way around: the people most likely to die are not given vaccines (because there's no point). This can be seen in the UK data where increasing vaccinations causes an increase in deaths in unvaccinated people from non-COVID causes. Clearly that's not a biological link - rather, what's happening is that as the vaccinated population grows, the really sick and dying people get concentrated in the unvaccinated cohort, which then experiences higher death rates.
Data is tricky, especially with something like this.
This effect may exist, but it's dominated by the wider UK population in which vaccination rates for over 80s are 95% and vaccination rates for under 40s closer to 60%, and care homes and immunosuppressed people were priority targets for vaccination. There are people who are considered too sick to be vaccinated, but I don't think they feature significantly in COVID ICU admissions, not least because ICU isn't likely to save them for the same reason they weren't vaccinated
The UK data also shows that all age groups are proportionately far more likely to be admitted to an ICU bed if unvaccinated. I don't think the majority of under 40 ICU COVID admissions who were unvaccinated were unvaccinated because they were already expected to die soon.
This effect may exist, but it's dominated by the wider UK population in which vaccination rates for over 80s are 95% and vaccination rates for under 40s closer to 60%, and care homes and immunosuppressed people were priority targets for vaccination. There are people who are too sick to be vaccinated, but they don't tend to make it to ICU beds for COVID.
The UK data also shows that all age groups are proportionately far more likely to be admitted to an ICU bed if unvaccinated. I don't think the majority of under 40s admitted to ICUs who were unvaccinated were unvaccinated because they were already expected to die soon.
I don't understand this line of thinking. Voluntarily taking the shot yourself is completely different from making a "majority decision". Off course I got vaccinated, but I'm totally opposed to forcing it on people.
It is absolutely crazy how easy it was for our incompetent politicians to blame people WHO ARE NOT EVEN BREAKING ANY LAWS for their own disastrous communication (just remember those "mask are actually bad for you" talking points when there weren't any) and overall pandemic management.
They constantly lied to us on every step of the way and now they're surprised that some people don't trust them?
> They constantly lied to us on every step of the way and now they're surprised that some people don't trust them?
I’m sorry to say this but that is just plain populist. I do agree that pandemic management surely wasn’t optimal, but insinuating malice is simply misplaced.
The situation was chaotic because a pandemic is chaotic. Lots of federal offices that are known for being low-intensity workplaces - such as public health offices - suddenly had more work due than in the last 40 years combined. Politicians without any experience in managing world-scale catastrophes had to perform, often 80+ hours per week. International supply chains collapsed, decades of ridiculous IT politics started showing. Due to Germany‘s federalism, states had way too much sovereignty for way too long into the crisis. Public health institutions, healthcare professionals, Pharma companies - all had different opinions on what might be the best next step. Masks were not going to be deliverable in the quantities required to provide for the entire population. At some point, a decision had to be made to reserve contingencies for hospitals.
Solutions to all these problems may be obvious in hindsight, but I ask for a little respect to all the people that had to find them in a dynamic, completely unknown environment. Lots of things went smooth as fuck, you just didn’t notice because you took them for granted. We’re talking about humans after all.
Yeah, at this point anyone overdramatizing COVID is doing so for purely political and financial purposes at this point.
If Omicron is indeed as mild as it appears then this is the path to heard immunity - not the vaccine. That would cut off the non-liable money train to big pharma though; in that context the disproportional response to omicron makes a hell of a lot more sense. The real threat it presents is to the perpetual vax/booster gravy train.
I agree that the real reasoning is political - it's all about saving face. But what's wrong with letting "big pharma" earn a dollar or two? They did a really great job, here, they're not selling snake oil and a vaccine is very likely still safer then even a "mild" variant of the disease.
it 's rhetoric based on false equivalence though. I vaccinated myself for purely selfish reasons, to save my ass since the vaccine was the only available preventative pharmaceutical, and at the time i did, it was already becoming clear that herd immunity was not possible. I couldnt care less if others want to save themselves nor do i think everyone should do it.
Your logic is insane. There are countries were a majority agrees with female/male circumcision. I guess you'd be the first to go slashing at people's genitals because the minority is holding everyone back.
You have a strange understanding of democracy...But if we are at it, would like to propose a public citizen petition: Requesting by democratic mandate that we remove the only immunity to come out of this process, the one from vaccine producers....
- You can be against mandatory vaccinations and not be an anti-vaxxer.
- "Herd immunity" is only a secondary desired trait for the vaccine. The primary one should be that the individual that gets the vaccine will have a stronger immune system and less likely to be severely sick. I got it for my own benefit, not because I want to be nice to others.
- The vaccine was sold as a one-shot thing. I think that the vaccine is safe enough for its risks to outweighs the benefits if it was only once. If periodic boosters start getting required, the calculus changes.
- Where does it stop? Let's not forget that the whole thing with lockdowns was to flatten the curve and to avoid the health care system to collapse. These should've been seen as temporary measures so that we could improve the healthcare system so that it could respond properly. Instead, it has become a perma-threat with no end in sight.
> Besides, it's in everyone's best interest to get vaccinated.
No. Some are OK with the risk.
> this is a democracy
If all the possible choices for the vote are supported by all the parties. If there are unacceptable choices, this is just a dictatorship of the majority.
> If all the possible choices for the vote are supported by all the parties. If there are unacceptable choices, this is just a dictatorship of the majority
I noticed that some have an interpretation of democracy as "the majority shall dominate you". They seem to be forgetful of the principle of "costitutionalism": all powers shall be preliminary limited through a social contract.
Do you think the % of unvaccinated would stay the same next year?
My gut feeling is that it will increase, every 6 months when the new booster is needed we will get more and more people not wanting it.
How long until the unvaccinated are more than the vaccinated? 18 months?
What happens when they are the majority and ban all vaccines?
In that fantasy world they'd still need to provide evidence that the ban us justified, otherwise people can challenge it in court. The vaccine people have the "benefit" of a collapsing medical system and am absence of a similar load and collapse in countries with high vaccination rate.
Why? No evidence is needed that vaccine mandates are justified, as if evidence were required it'd fail immediately given the low and falling efficacy, that vaccines are individual protection so it doesn't matter what other people do, and given that hospital capacity is the problem of the hospital providers to solve and not their customers (this is fairly basic).
But hey, if you disagree with that last bit and think hospital staffing is everyone's problem, be aware that this sword cuts in both directions. It actually makes it super easy to argue for banning vaccines. Here's the argument they'll use:
1. Vaccines aren't entirely safe. They can cause blood clots, strokes, heart attacks and many other kinds of injury.
2. The injured end up in hospital, consuming medical system capacity which takes it away from the people who opted out and didn't take the vaccines. Possibly for life, in some cases.
3. This is selfish because many of the people who took vaccines and got injured are young and weren't at any meaningful risk of COVID. They did it to themselves despite knowing there were risks, because they were incorrectly scared, or authoritarian, or whatever, but now society has to take care of them anyway.
4. And in addition the unvaccinated are now almost all recovered, and they have natural immunity for life. The vaccinated on the other hand, are now dependent on endless booster shots which not only injure new people on every round but are also are extremely expensive and taxing on the healthcare provisioning system, meaning less resources available for everyone else. Proof: the UK has just started cancelling operations to free up healthcare resources for booster shots!
Thus, the vaccinated are a drain on the healthcare system and should have their freedom to choose endless boosters removed - or at the very least, they should be forced to pay for them themselves (and any subsequent healthcare issues they experience).
You may not like the above argument (I don't!) but it is not fundamentally different to the ones being deployed in this thread. And if the unvaccinated become the majority, as may easily happen given that vaccinated people will constantly be joining them as their status expires, then nothing in theory stops such an argument being made (although in reality the public health establishment would never go along with it).
0. The vaccines are incredibly effective, as evidenced by the almost zero rate of bad progressions. You can look up the studies for exact number, but I think mRNA was something like 80-90% effective against the original COVID-19, that's amazing
1. The risks you describe exist, but they also exist orders of magnitude higher when you catch COVID-19. So the choice isn't vaccine risk or no risk, the choice is vaccine risk or COVID risk. There is no if anymore, we will all get COVID. You can just get it without or with vaccine
2. The unvaccinated have much higher rates of bad progressions and might die before even reaching the hospital (for mistrust as well as medical reasons) and right now we have much more vaccinated than unvaccinated so we have more vaccinated people in the hospital than unvaccinated but look at who dies/gets damaged and which of the unvaccinated cases would have been preventable.
3. This argument is just empirically wrong https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/04/opinion/covid-vaccine-kid...
4. This argument is also wrong even if recovery immunity was for life (which is unsure), since as I said, we'll all get COVID, just that the vaccinated cases will be much milder and much less likely to wind up in the hospital.
These arguments are, fundamentally, not sound. And there are big difference between vaccine mandates, no mandates and bans. For mandates and bans to stand up in courts and democratic review, even as the ruling party you need to show evidence for your position since you'll force it onto other people. For the effectiveness of vaccines, we have that evidence, as well as a collapsing medical system. For a ban, we don't. So unless people with anti-vax beliefs completely abandon democratic principles (which I hope they wouldn't in those numbers) they could not institute a ban. In any case, my comment was aimed at highlighting this distinction: a vaccine mandate, like a lockdown, is/was justified by the conditions, not just dictatorial abuse, no matter how much those that don't like it scream about it. A ban would not. So it's a completely different thing to institute a ban at 60 % anti vax sentiment vs. a mandate at 60% evidence based decision making
Well if they are 30% now, they must have the 'evidence' that convinces them they are right, when they are 60% they would have even more 'evidence'. Why wouldn't they blame it on, the eastern europeans or something?
No,they do no need to have evidence. People don't always act rationally, and if you spend any time talking to a person with anti-vax beliefs you'll notice their belief isn't founded on evidence but on narrative, distrust and emotions. Which does not make them stupid, but it does make them wrong. If they had evidence, they could present it and we'd act on it, as was seen in Germany when there were concerns about a vaccine slightly increasing heart muscle inflammation risk, it was almost immediately halted and they stopped recommending it.
And I'm assuming we still have the same rule of law as now and they don't just make shit up, because I'm modeling my fellow humans as having a different (in this case, empirically and from a risk calculus wrong) perspective, not as evil. So they can't abandon democratic principles. Vaccine mandates are coming as a last resort now due to exactly those principles
Well, there's always civil war. That'd be a bit more divided. We should probably try going in the opposite direction, which usually involves less trying to impose our wills on each other.
Disclaimer: I am fully vaccinated and have had the booster shot.
From US perspective...
What I find ironic is:
President Biden, Anthony Fauci, White House Press Secretary all said they would "never mandate vaccinations" and it's "not the place of the federal government to mandate vaccinations" and that they believe "it doesn't have the authority to do so anyway"...
And since when do we not care about the minority? Also when it comes to medical decisions about my body the government shouldn't have a say in it.
On top of all that the effectiveness of the vaccine and it's longevity leave a lot to be desired. This ain't no polio silver bullet and the virus continues to mutate and break through even the most vaccinated populations.
While I offer no opinion about whether vaccinations should be compulsory, it must be stated that if they should, it certainly isn't because of your argument about pure democracy. In a pure democracy, 90% of the population can choose to oppress the other 10%, and they have, many, many times throughout history.
If vaccinations should be made mandatory in a free society, it is solely due to the externality imposed by the unvaccinated on others (like you mentioned with ICU capacity, as well as general pathogen propagation), and avoiding that violation of the broader public's freedoms.
Not everybody who hasn’t taken the vaccine is an antivaxxer.
I think a distinction needs to be made between anti vaxxers and people who are just naive/“dumb”.
I have seen more of the later group. Which is why I’m surprised when someone here or in mainstream media says this has anything to do with a political side.
This distinction is useful IMO in creating sound policies.
It's terrifying how many things I used to be told in my youth about the "free world" have turned out to be blatant lies in the last few years. It's one thing to be forced by ruthless government but ordinary people demanding to be left without a choice is a sight to behold.
I'm ashamed to admit that for a couple of months early last year I actually believed in the "pandemic". I was really confused because so many countries acted along the same lines. And then I had. It was a basically a flu though my sense of smell has been degraded since then. My parent (70+) had it this last fall, my father ended up in hospital (no ICU or anything drastic). Still, my mother had had a much closer call with a flu a few years ago.
Now the company I work for forces me between undertaking experimental medical procedures and getting much better at leetcode. You know what's funny? They require we get pricked and go back to the office in Jan. But even though everyone will be fully "vaccinated" they still demand masks in the office. You know what's really funny? Of all our offices across the globe (including China of all places) only American ones require "vaccination". Most others at worst recommend masks.
Speaking of "pandemics". You know what you'd see if there were one (aside from bodies lying in the streets)? How about hermetically sealed borders? Including our southern one. With the border patrol shooting anything approaching it with no warning. Last time I checked the news, they were not even demanding "vaccination" papers.
Also I kind of remember "masks are necessary for medical professionals only", "2 weeks to not overload the ICU", "it's just a pinch", ".. or two", " .. and probably a second booster", <you are here>, ".. possibly every 6 months?".
Also, do you recognize that the government peddling all this "pandemic" propaganda is the same we have seen in action for the last couple of years? They have spectacularly failed at their core business of maintaining rule of law and fighting wars. Well, at least not losing one more humiliatingly than the Soviets. Why would you trust your health to them? My body my rules, anyone?
Last weekend I was at a Japanese history museum, and part of the exhibit was on 1600s-1800s medical technology.
In the 1870s, Japan had vaccine passports and kept logs of unvaccinated people in order to track them down. It was deemed a huge step forward in developing the country.
It’s interesting how some people today think mandatory vaccination is some massive, unprecedented destruction of freedom, when it’s historically nothing new and something that was essential to helping your country stay strong.
Given Japan was a nation where a certain class could execute summarily anyone below them, for something as germaine as insulting them, and given what Japan did to Chinese civilians during World War II, you'll forgive me if I don't look to their 1870s ideals as inspiration for living in 2021.
It's actually directly relevant in this context, because Japan does NOT in fact have vaccine passports today (as opposed to the 1870s as you allege). Furthermore, the reason is causally due to the behavior of Japanese authorities during World War II.
> Unlike in Western countries, it is not possible to carry out lockdowns or forcibly isolate patients. Due to unchecked enforcement measures during World War II, there has been a tendency in Japan to strongly discourage the government from having strong coercive power, especially from interfering in ordinary people’s lives, so as not to repeat what happened during that period. The power of the Japanese government to intervene in individuals’ lives, even during an emergency, is constitutionally and legally limited. The Infectious Diseases Control Law, for example, was enacted with the utmost consideration for individuals’ human rights and it limits the public sector’s power to intervene in a person’s life, even for the purpose of infectious disease control. Besides, tracking infected people has many privacy considerations, and it is legally difficult in Japan to use GPS tracking or credit card histories to track activities, as it is being done in other Asian countries. The government’s ability to access individual citizens’ data is minimal, making infectious disease control difficult.
I just became fully vaccinated and each day since I am dealing with dizziness / lightheaded-ness spells.
Everyone should take one for the team you say but do you know what the future holds for the team? You just trust emphatically what the early science says vs. waiting over time to see all of it's effects on a huge population? That and time is the true bellweather but we are forced guinea pigs to join the experiment or lose our livelihoods.
You either believe everything your govt says and the very early science says (time is the bellweather and the large population data that comes with it) or you live life on the fence questioning things before making the best decision for yourself or you go completely agaisnt the ones who just buy, soak up and believe everything their side says.
Are you looking for a reason to discount his comment because it doesn't fit within your worldview but he hasn't provided enough data for you to discount yet?
I reacted fairly strongly to all three of my Moderna jabs, the most recent was the day before Thanksgiving, and I basically slept all the next day and felt like crap the next two. But fortunately ever since alls well.
Thank you and That's cool you got all 3 yet ha two jabs is all they'll do me .. ill find another job if they mandate that crap! His stupid mandates are flailing now anyway even the one in which mandated me to get this crap. The mandates probably have no bite behind them just pushing people to get this crap injected in them and it will be withdrew or defeated when they get the population where they want it. Yet this crap each year LOL.
Not sure if your comment is sarcastic or not but I sit in the middle ...on the fence and there's no better bellweather then time ...long periods of time and it's data to make the best decision for me!
He's being serious. There is so much medical information being suppressed because it doesn't fit certain political narratives - that's the real crime right now.
Luckily there are at least a few doctors who remain dedicated to science and the Hippocratic Oath and who are unbowed by political and social pressure. Some great resources here: https://aapsonline.org/covidpatientguide/
And if you can't find a rational doctor locally, they can arrange for telemedicine visits from doctors who aren't pretending the vax is the end all be all one size fits all solution to the exclusion of anything else.
That's cool I dislike taking medicine in general ...try to avoid any and all of it best I can as one of my organs was damaged from a med I took sometime in my life per my doctor. She advises take a little as possible which I do and really didn't want the vaccine especially cause it's so new. There's so many examples of new meds on the market that are later taken off but no choice with this junk.
Also those who believe everything their side says the early science don't you think it's odd the FDA wants 55 years before releasing the vaccine data they have?
If you truly believe squashing the number of unvaccinated people will result in any significant benefit for the rest of us you are undeserving of the first place in this comment thread.
You could wait a few months for those vaccine laws to go into effect in Europe for proof. Or you could just look at the existing body of data that's staring at you in the face and are deciding to ignore because faulting someone else is one of the most primitive endorphins kicks you can get.
Talking about majority ruling what happens to the bodies of a smaller minority... sounds like a good fascist principle. No matter your good intentions.
1. There's little concern about those with natural immunity who have recovered from COVID. It makes zero sense to induce extra risk of side effects from a "vaccine" if the patient already has natural immunity.
2. Research is indicating that in breakthrough infections to fully vaccinated people, the viral load is the same. [1]
3. The vaccines don't _prevent infection_ unlike the "classic" childhood vaccines. They are merely prophylactics that are incorrectly called vaccines to encourage people to get them and reduce hospitalization rate.
4. Everyone has their own individual level of risk. Healthy, young people have an infinitesimal rate of death from this virus compared to the old and infirm.
The only argument that is viable against vaccination is that one might already have natural immunity. I get that some will try to get infected on purpose, but those will be the minority of the minority. Maybe there is also the argument that higher vaccination rates will not help. I heard that 90% UK's population has antibodies. People say that Spain has low rates now b/c they have a high vaccination rate, but they also had a high number of cases previously, and they were probably underreported. Personally, I gladly increased the average antibodies count of the population by getting vaccinated despite already having some immunity, but people are frightened, and we can't really change their minds. Force will only make them more stubborn.
It's a civic duty to be vaccinated. It's the rational, sane, and most personally and socially beneficial policy. Were this a game theory context we would be saying that getting the vaccine strictly dominates not getting the vaccine.
I’m pro-vax. I’ve taken the shots and the booster. But I fail to see the point of this lockdown. If you are 70% vaccinated as a country and the remainder of the 30% is possibly low risk why lockdown? You’ll never get to 100% vaccinated or even 90%. If the 70% vaccinated isn’t reducing the load on the hospitals we have an issue with vaccinations.
Hello? Have you been awake for the last month? How much more divided can a country already be when the absolute democratic majority has made their decision months ago to take the shot but 30% are holding everyone back. Anyone in my family or from my friends that has taken one for the team (and got vaccinated) could receive worse-than-usual ICU treatment because of some egoistic anti-vaxxers. Hell, even anti-vaxxers benefit from better ICU treatment if vaccination numbers are higher.
Yes, this is a democracy and so it can also be deemed legitimate and representative to govern according to the majority decision. Besides, it's in everyone's best interest to get vaccinated.