Live data from Hacker News

Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

cbc.ca

141–150 of 163 posts

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#141

Here are some reasons I think this is a very bad idea: 1. The risk/benefit analysis for people under 40 is not as clear as is claimed. "Clot risk to 18-39s from AstraZeneca vaccine is twice as high as Covid death risk, Euro study finds" [0]. That's just clots; not myocarditis, or pericarditis, GBS, CFS, lingering numbness, Bell's palsy, missing periods, and more. Yes, there are some young people who have died with Co…

I'm also personally very unhappy about mandatory vaccination or excessive pressure, but from a different angle: I'm worried that by doing so governments are basically fueling a resistance whose root cause is based on basic sacrosanct human principles such as freedom, dignity, independence, etc, but if human psychology is such that if you're making a stand you also have to provide additional reasons, just to prove that you're still rational.

I don't think many people (if any) would publicly state "I know that vaccines are technically the most rational thing we could do given the information we have, but I'm still not going to accept them because the government is patronizing me, so screw them, I'm going to go against my interest just to stand for my rights". Most people will try to sound more reasonable than that and add that perhaps it's a bad idea in the first place, etc etc

> * Note that Moderna and Pfizer have similar clot profiles to AZ: https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/07/29/astrazeneca-covid-1...

From the linked article:

"Crucially, the study authors found that people who had been infected with COVID-19 developed blood clots at a far higher rate than those who had received either of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines."

From what I understood, the main question is: do you believe that you can avoid catching covid indefinitely.

If you really believe that you can indefinitely do extensive testing, contact tracing, social distancing, remote working (and so your partner and family) then perhaps, the probability of a vaccine complication outweighs the probability of getting covid multiplied by the probability of having some serious consequences of covid.

On the other hand, if you believe that sooner or later covid will just burn through the population, then you have to assume that you'll get it, and whatever are the problems caused by vaccines they have to be compared with covid itself.

And the comparison has to be fair!

Sure most young healthy people go through covid without serious issues. Most such people also get through vaccines without clots. The ones who do have clots induced by vaccines are more likely to have had bigger problems had they caught covid. In other words vaccines are working as intended. It's not my words; it's from the article you cited!

A few years ago I was beginning to believe in the reasonableness of the argument that most vaccines we give to our kids may be no longer necessary. The argument seemed compelling: those diseases right now seem gone and the amount of vaccine induced problems surpass the disease itself (at least until it came back).

However, I expected this logic go change once you have an actual epidemic burning through the population. Instead the same people just changed the spiel, finding new and new arguments, sowing doubt for the sake of it.

Many have lost trust in institutions because of their past misdeeds. In the same vein I also lost trust in the anti-vax rhetoric.

I think we can avoid to be trapped in a binary mindset. It's not just "with us or against us.". You can have a healthy distrust of authorities and still also recognize that there are millions of highly educated medical professionals in the world that understand the tradeoffs and are a support base for the scientific consensus that is guiding the government policies.

Yes, government will execute thinks badly again and again in many things; in particular I think it's most likely that governments will handle badly the human aspect: their inability to understand where dissent comes from and how to effectively address is quintessential politics.

But assuming that you have a smoking gun that proves that vaccines are dangerous in a pre-print study that shows how blood clots also happen in vaccinated people is just fueling FUD in this deeply asymmetric information war we're living through.

I'm personally convinced that if there was overwhelming evidence that vaccines are dangerous no amount of government intervention, or big pharma mafia, can effectively silence that. We're not even talking about one single government? If there was a hidden truth some weak link would have snapped already.

If you have better evidence I'm all ears. But please something solid.

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is actually paying for all of this? America is giving away doses, but for some reason I can’t fathom the drug companies doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. If there’s all this money laying around for COVID doses, ad everybody gets a shot no questions asked, maybe they could put that same energy behind insulin!

Both the US and particularly the EU over-bought. In particular, the EU increased Pfizer/Biontech orders after the AZ delays became apparent, but the committed AZ is still arriving (just late) and is now largely useless.

The EU was always going to over-buy, even without the AstraZeneca fiasco, to give to countries in need: https://apnews.com/article/europe-health-coronavirus-pandemi...

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#143
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These persons still have the right to choose what goes in their body, be it alcohol or vaccine. The choice just has certain consequences on available transportation methods.

Why does exercising your right have consequences? If we go that way, why not just jail them? ("You have a right to choose, but if you do you're going to a quarantine facility")

>Why does exercising your right have consequences?

Exercising your rights is fine until doing so risks the health and safety of others. Other people have rights too.

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#144

This needs to be legally challenged. No way does this not violate charter of rights and freedoms and probably Nuremberg codes. If you let a government force or punitively coerce its people to put a drug in their body for a disease with less than 1% mortality, same magnitude as a flue. You no longer have bodily autonomy. You're a slave to the state. They can do anything they want in the future, under any nebulas threa…

Your rights end when exercising them puts the health and safety of others at risk. Other people have rights, remember.

It's always been that way. It's the reason gun ownership, driving, drinking, smoking and countless other activities all have restrictions.

I'm not opposed to the idea of testing (within 24 hours of travel) as an alternative requirement though.

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#145

Here are some reasons I think this is a very bad idea: 1. The risk/benefit analysis for people under 40 is not as clear as is claimed. "Clot risk to 18-39s from AstraZeneca vaccine is twice as high as Covid death risk, Euro study finds" [0]. That's just clots; not myocarditis, or pericarditis, GBS, CFS, lingering numbness, Bell's palsy, missing periods, and more. Yes, there are some young people who have died with Co…

I'm also personally very unhappy about mandatory vaccination or excessive pressure, but from a different angle: I'm worried that by doing so governments are basically fueling a resistance whose root cause is based on basic sacrosanct human principles such as freedom, dignity, independence, etc, but if human psychology is such that if you're making a stand you also have to provide additional reasons, just to prove tha…

First off, being "patronized" is not the same thing as having an experimental vaccine shot directly into your muscle against your will, lest you lose the right to travel or keep your job.

Second, wrt the mortality rates, you're missing the time variable; as are the researchers in the study which compares AZ to Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines. Yes, if everyone caught Corona in a six month period, the mortality rate comparison would skew toward vaccines being better - but that's not the case; and there are signs that the mRNA vaccine's effectiveness "seems to "drop off a cliff" after six months.

The first study I cited factored that time variable in; to measure the mortality risk in a large population (France) over a period of time.

And importantly, I didn't claim either link as a holy grail. I said may; to show that there is room for doubt. Because there is. If there wasn't, then the vaccine companies wouldn't need full legal indemnity, would they?

Remember when there was no doubt whatsoever that the virus came from nature, and definitely not the novel coronavirus lab a few miles from the initial outbreak, where they'd been putting corona into humanised mice, and failing safety standards? I remember. I remember the memes mocking it in the name of science, and the censorship of any doctor or journalist who dared try to question that narrative.

You talk a lot about trusting doctors and institutions, and not trusting the dirty anti-vaxers who pulled the wool over your eyes in the past - that's you stuff.

You seem to imply I have a "with us or against us" attitude. I don't; I'm for whatever works.

If the system you're trying to sell belief in worked in a healthy way, there would be accountability for the governments who brought the forever wars, the media who sold them to us, the doctors who prescribed all the opium which just appeared suddenly after we went into Afghanistan. Remember what W said back then, to get us into Afghanistan in the first place? "You're either with us or against us".

But there was none. There is none. The guy who helped cheerlead Dems into that horror under W, then expanded it under Obama, is now President; and making deals with the Taliban begging them not to burn the Embassy in Kabul.

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#146
post #144

This needs to be legally challenged. No way does this not violate charter of rights and freedoms and probably Nuremberg codes. If you let a government force or punitively coerce its people to put a drug in their body for a disease with less than 1% mortality, same magnitude as a flue. You no longer have bodily autonomy. You're a slave to the state. They can do anything they want in the future, under any nebulas threa…

Your rights end when exercising them puts the health and safety of others at risk. Other people have rights, remember. It's always been that way. It's the reason gun ownership, driving, drinking, smoking and countless other activities all have restrictions. I'm not opposed to the idea of testing (within 24 hours of travel) as an alternative requirement though.

1. Vaccinated people transmit COVID as well. In fact, they're more likely not to show symptoms, so probably more likely to travel and unknowingly infect others.

2. People have covid over a period of two weeks to a month, and in some portion of that they transmit the disease. Of those that haven't had covid yet, most that will get it, will self isolate. The probability that you are transmitting disease at any moment is very small, and is tiny fraction of one's life. This ban is for years to come, life affecting. More likely to cause poverty and real misery that effects life outcomes much more than COVID.

3. This policy is also vindictive and punitive to people that have had the disease already, who are more protected against COVID than those with vaccine that only recognize the virus by a spike protein.

4. At any moment, anyone could have some transmittable disease that puts your health at risk. We can't make the world safe for everyone at all times. There are inherent risks with being a human, and disease is one of them. Dividing society and isolating people based on a minuscule probability that they are spreading disease is wrong headed. Especially a disease that is curable for 99%+ of people. And who can reduce that risk by getting vaccinated for their own protection.

5. Based on the trends in Israel, (early high vaccination rate)the virus just mutated, and evolved, and is happily reinfecting the vaccinated. This happened in a span of months. The further back someone has been vaccinated the more likely they are to get sick.

6. Anyone with a cold or flue can spread disease as well. By this logic anyone with an STD should be barred from having sex. And if we take it the next step. Bars should be closed down because they facilitate the spread of STDs. Groups more likely to carry STDs should be isolated.

This kind of thinking will just lead to more misery than COVID its self. Lockdowns are causing poverty, drug addiction and suicides of young people. Its taking decades off their lives, unlike COVID which mostly is deadly to those in their last year of life.

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#147
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree about the moral hazard problem. And I'll have to research how direct price inflation is going to prevent the fed from being able to continue to lower rates. Thanks!

It's straightforward. One of their chief mandates is to keep the CPI at a specific level of price inflation (2%). But their chief tool of lowering interest rates doesn't directly affect the CPI, as all the new money goes to the financial industry rather than to consumers. The CPI only goes up after that new money gets divvied up and spent on new ventures, and after asset valuations finally make it into the monthly co…

But don't they want the cpi to go down right now? They can only do that by shredding dollars right?

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#148
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your rights end when exercising them puts the health and safety of others at risk. Other people have rights, remember. It's always been that way. It's the reason gun ownership, driving, drinking, smoking and countless other activities all have restrictions. I'm not opposed to the idea of testing (within 24 hours of travel) as an alternative requirement though.

1. Vaccinated people transmit COVID as well. In fact, they're more likely not to show symptoms, so probably more likely to travel and unknowingly infect others. 2. People have covid over a period of two weeks to a month, and in some portion of that they transmit the disease. Of those that haven't had covid yet, most that will get it, will self isolate. The probability that you are transmitting disease at any moment i…

>This kind of thinking will just lead to more misery than COVID its self. Lockdowns are causing poverty, drug addiction and suicides of young people. Its taking decades off their lives, unlike COVID which mostly is deadly to those in their last year of life.

First of all, none of the above misery is exclusive to young people. None. You seem to think young people are suffering more than most and it's not clear why.

I don't want to go through line by line here because I truly feel like you're not thinking this whole thing through. So I have a proposal for how we continue this debate.

Let's imagine a scenario: Covid restrictions and vaccines are halted in Canada... What happens next?

Do we still treat the sick? If so, what happens when the healthcare system reaches its breaking point? Do we cut back on treating other illnesses? What do you think will happen to our taxes, the national debt, the economy? What will happen to international trade and personal travel? Will Canada be blacklisted?

Will being thrown out with the trash by the younger generation be an inevitable part of growing old? What about old people who have devoted their lives to this country (ie. veterans)? And how will ignoring the elderly affect families? How will the millions of Covid deaths affect families? Will there be more misery and depression or less? Will suicides go up or down? Will doctors and scientists just stop caring because we ignored them? Will they stop giving us advice? Will anyone even want to be a doctor (or nurse)?

This is a genuine question. I really want to understand what people such as yourself think will happen if we abolished these things.

Side note: for the record, yes it is (very) illegal for someone with an STD to have unprotected sex with an unknowing partner in Canada.

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#149

This needs to be legally challenged. No way does this not violate charter of rights and freedoms and probably Nuremberg codes. If you let a government force or punitively coerce its people to put a drug in their body for a disease with less than 1% mortality, same magnitude as a flue. You no longer have bodily autonomy. You're a slave to the state. They can do anything they want in the future, under any nebulas threa…

Immigrants to the United States are already subject to being required to have certain vaccines. [1]

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/tools/designated-civil-surgeons/vaccin...

Re: Canada to require vaccinations for air and train passengers

#150

Here are some reasons I think this is a very bad idea: 1. The risk/benefit analysis for people under 40 is not as clear as is claimed. "Clot risk to 18-39s from AstraZeneca vaccine is twice as high as Covid death risk, Euro study finds" [0]. That's just clots; not myocarditis, or pericarditis, GBS, CFS, lingering numbness, Bell's palsy, missing periods, and more. Yes, there are some young people who have died with Co…

Immigrate to the United States and you're required to have the following vaccines: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/designated-civil-surgeons/vaccin...
Post reply on HN