551–560 of 1001 posts
Authoritarianism Incorporated.
Let me guess, seat belt mandates are also “authoritarian”? What about measles vaccine requirements? Have you complained about those recently? Believe it or not, there was a time when measles wasn’t a thing and very few question the need for a measles vaccine now. What about the broad polio vaccine rollout? Vaccine hesitancy has been a thing, but never this strongly along party lines
Whether or not you agree if there is legal authority for mandates for this vaccine or this pandemic, where does it end? The trajectory we're on is for all people to be monitored by the State for compliance with the vaccine programs. Israel is already saying 4 shots (and more) will required [0] to participate in that society. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are quasi-police states [1] and will probably mandate vacc…
In America, I think COVID will fade, everyone will eventually get infected, more deaths and hospitalizations will occur until all the unvaccinated get it, then excess deaths and hospitalizations will return to baseline, and the vaccine will become more of an optional thing, the next GOP president will remove the mandate. Some other unknown crisis will replace COVID as the main story, maybe a huge recession or terrori…
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When this all started and the stats for influenza deaths came out (usually as a poor attempt to downplay the seriousness of COVID) I was shocked at my own ignorance as to the effect of influenza. I'd previously tried to but been inconsistent in getting my flu shot, but now that I understand the human cost that's changed for me. It amazes me that people would be hesitant to get it and that there'd even be need to mand…
I've said this in another thread, but many I've talked to who don't want the vaccine are hesitant because of the accelerated timeline. A typical vaccine goes through 3 phases of clinical trials, with phase 1 lasting 1-10 years, phase 2 lasting 2-3 years, and phase 3 lasting 2-4 years. That means you have anywhere from 5 to 17 years worth of data to look at and determine if there are long-term effects. https://coronav…
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Yeah what's next? Making other behaviors that have a small but established likelihood of endangering the lives of others or their property illegal at little to no cost to the liberty of an individual? Pretty soon I won't be able to drive my car under the influence, or without proper insurance, or while not wearing a seatbelt, or I won't be able to discharge my firearms in my 0.2 acre backyard in a suburban area. 650,…
An interesting element is my choice vs choices put on me. There is another angle people talk about... The building I work in was designed and built by others. Regulations mean they can't cut corners in their impact of me. A vaccine that protects me from getting the virus or getting a serious case. It's a difference between others work impacting my safety and my own choices impacting my safety. This is an area worth p…
The vaccine does not in fact guarantee person X will not be infected or hospitalized. Widespread vaccination does result in systemic reduction in community spread.
Ponder that.
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There are absolutely enormous anti-smoking adversing and education campaigns. Cigarettes are mandated by law to have very specific packaging that loudly lists the risk of death. Large taxes are placed on them. In a great many places you are not allowed to smoke in public. Smokers have higher health insurance premiums and cannot access certain kinds of medical care like various organ transplants. Selling a cigarette t…
Who is trying to get people fired from their jobs because they smoke?
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An interesting element is my choice vs choices put on me. There is another angle people talk about... The building I work in was designed and built by others. Regulations mean they can't cut corners in their impact of me. A vaccine that protects me from getting the virus or getting a serious case. It's a difference between others work impacting my safety and my own choices impacting my safety. This is an area worth p…
Except the vaccine doesn't just protect you, it's also a layer of protection for anyone you might come in contact with. This is the whole concept of herd immunity. There are some people where the vaccine will not work, and others where it works but for whatever reason they are very susceptible to the virus. When you skip the vaccine you are now putting others at risk.
When you skip the flu vaccine you put others at risk. In a normal year 40k people die of the flu in the US.
At what point do we draw what lines?
I'm not suggesting what that point is. Just that we slow down, think about it, and understand the tradeoff. There is no perfect answer.
There is also the element of the co-founding factors. Things like heart disease. Many of the co-founding factors, though not all, are repercussions of lifestyle (e.g., most heart disease is the result of many years of unhealthy eating).
We don't force people to eat healthy which would avoid a significant amount of disease and related factors in COVID deaths.
I realize this is not all cases... and I'm attempting to push thoughts forward rather than state my own ideas. Thinking this stuff through in depth is important. Seeing folks on the other side is important.
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>Lots of folks afraid to take a shot that's been well-studied and given to millions and is, in all probability, quite safe. ;) That's one way to describe it. Another less charitable way to describe it: a novel gene therapy being deployed by organizations with a long history of experimenting on the people they were meant to protect. Pfizer and J&J got the two biggest fines ever handed out by the US government, and mod…
I guess I'm just willing to live dangerously. Lots of folks are just too coddled and unwilling to take a risk, even for the greater good. Back in the good old days, we were really willing to take risks--to cross oceans, even, as the op wrote--to do new things that could benefit our fellow human beings. Now it's all about "Oh no, this is a novel therapy that might infinitesimally increase my personal risk". Really kin…
I'm not sure how you arrived here from my comment. If I was willing to dox myself you'd see that I have probably taken more risks for 'the greater good'™ than you or even most folks on this site. But those days are over, and this whole situation is setting off all of my finely tuned alarm bells.
You should spend less time stereotyping and more time attempting to understand others.
Letting others do as they please is also a risk 'for the greater good', by the way.
For those of you arguing against getting vaccinated, please go volunteer at a local hospital. I'm currently in the hospital in the "red" part of my purple state. I had an acute appendicitis, and had to wait in a temporary, crowded, understaffed holding area in the ER for over 18 hours before getting admitted for treatment. My roommate in the hospital has an infected foot, and waited over 24 hours to be admitted. He m…
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Advised acquaintence in a PR company and reporters at beginning of this that they should "find" stories that the wealthy and celebrities were flying to countries where they could jump the queue for vaccination if they wanted to get more uptake. Response was government had other plans. Given my previous work in digital identity, I was getting inquiries from vaccine passport companies in the summer of last year. This w…
Where are these magic passports then? You keep talking about these high tech passports but my vaccination card is basically a piece of toilet paper with 2 stickers on it (that you can easily buy off Ebay by the way) and the nurse telling me "don't lose that!"
A teardown of the tech applied in Quebec was posted on HN several weeks ago.
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There are many exemptions that apply. Religious exemptions are one example.
Some states (including big ones like California and NY and conservative ones like Mississippi and West Virginia) have no exemptions to school vaccine requirements other than medical exemptions. https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/school-immunization-exe...
[0] https://calmatters.org/health/2020/09/california-doctor-scho...