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Comment by failrate | Hacker News Reader

Antimaskers and antivaxxers frequently talk about their "freedoms" in the abstract. Here is an example where I am concretely losing my freedom to travel, because a portion of the populace refuse to take basic precautions.

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You've been duped into blaming an out-group for your problems.

This isn't the case where the actions of the group are harmless to me. Unvaccinated people and antimaskers are creating a more dangerous environment for me through their actions and inactions.

Are they? The vaccine doesn't even stop transmission of covid, and the effectiveness of non-N95 masks is dubious at best.

So really the only variable is whether you yourself are vaccinated or not.

You seem to be just parroting the media and Reddit.

Vaccines reduce transmission rates for the variant for which they are developed.

The wearing of masks for COVID had the unintended side effect of eliminating some strains of influenza.

I don't read Reddit, and I take my media with a healthy grain of salt, but we are talking about the basic function of virii and the immune system.

If you are vaccinated then you have nothing to worry about, right? ;-)

No. I don't know if the winky face is to denote sarcasm, but it seems like it should still be noted that because so many people who could be vaccinated are refusing to get vaccinated, vaccinated people and people who can't get the vaccine still have to worry about a greater chance of catching a variant strain and also hospitals not being able to care for them (for any reason) because they're being bogged down treating preventable disease.

Variant strains are going to happen regardless of what we do, just like with the flu. This is an invalid argument that people keep using in ignorance. It's like people honestly believe the world was going to achieve 100% vaccination rate.

Likelihood of variant strains depends on the infection rate. Reduce the number of infections and you reduce the variants.

Talk to me about how near total vaccination rates are impossible the next time you contract smallpox or polio.

Those vaccines you mentioned actually worked to decrease infection rates though.

If the covid vaccine stopped the spread of the virus I would be agreeing with you.

Can you imagine if the Polio vaccine "wore off" like the Covid vaccine seems to?

You are making an extraordinary claim when you state that the vaccine does not prevent spread. Additionally, the flu vaccine becomes ineffective year after year expressly because of variant strains arising from unvaccinated people failing to take precautions like wearing masks, socially distancing during epidemics, and avoiding school and work while infectious.

The vaccines don't reliably prevent spread. That is hardly an extraordinary claim, it's an established scientific fact. Fortunately the vaccines are still very effective at preventing deaths.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

Are you looking for 100% effectiveness? That's not how anything in the world works. If I can reduce the probability of spreading infection, that is a clear benefit to society. If enough people reduce the probability of spread enough, we can reach a point where for all practical purposes, the virus is gone.

No one is realistically looking for 100% effectiveness. However the vaccines don't reduce spread enough to eliminate the virus. Eventually we'll all be exposed. The main benefit of the vaccines is preventing deaths.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

You're right, comparing Covid to the flu is a much more apt comparison than Polio or Smallpox, which was pretty disingenuous.

Not necessarily. The number of COVID infection cases related to new variants among the vaccinated population is increasing. That's why I'm back to wearing a mask again.

If everyone had been vaccinated as soon as the vaccine was available to them, and were using good mask and hand-washing hygiene, it might not have come to this.

This is a fallacious line of reasoning that is incredibly vulnerable to slippery slope and moving goalposts.

While the saying is true that "your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins," that argument falls apart when you try to apply it beyond one-on-one interactions with direct consequences into group generalities and indirect/indeterminable consequences, such as "creating a more dangerous environment."

It does not allow you to prohibit things, nor compel others, out of a feared or perceived potential for harm. That reasoning leads straight to 1984's "freedom is slavery."

And if they keep doing this even when the vaccination rate is 80%+?

Kinda looks like the cat's out of the bag.

Help Big Brother out, blame each other!

> And if they keep doing this even when the vaccination rate is 80%+?

For the purposes of travel to some EU countries, vaccination has expiry date (270 days after receiving last vaccine). E.g., if you got your second Pfizer dose in March, by December your vaccination status is equivalent to "unvaccinated".

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/08/18...

While I don't mind the regular vaccine (no different than flu), the restrictions are worrying.

Even if I assume that these governments are retaliating against each other in bad faith, the fact that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic would certainly give them the justification for their behavior. Once COVID became irrelevant (instead of endemic, which is beginning to look increasingly likely), then that justification is no longer valid.

You have no formal right to enter another country if they don't want you to.

No you're losing your freedom to travel because these countries are playing political games with each other and your rights. It has absolutely nothing to do with the unvaccinated. They could easily just ask for a vaccine card. Direct your fervor where it belongs.

Not supporting them here (I am vaccinated and wear a mask in public), but their freedom is quite clearly the freedom of bodily autonomy - which I think is a more important freedom than your freedom to go on holiday abroad. I totally disagree with their conclusions, but if we're ranking freedoms then bodily autonomy comes first.

Does "bodily autonomy" also include the right not to wear pants and underwear in public? If not, please explain the difference.

Separately, society made a decision a very long time ago that protecting the public health and welfare prevails over any individual's absolute sense of "bodily autonomy." It's fine to disagree with that choice, but that disagreement ought to be grounded in firm reasoning.

Yeah I agree with you. I'm not defending the choice to go unvaccinated or unmasked; I think it's a poor choice at both the individual and societal level. But the parent claimed that the antivax movement was claiming some kind of ambiguous "muh freedoms" violation, which irked me as it's pretty clear what kind of freedom they think is being violated.

I hear what you are saying, I think the part that is stuck in my craw is how it doesn't appear to be consistent with any other beliefs. Seatbelt and consumption laws are probably the most obvious comparisons, of due to how politicized the issues is we can add abortion. Invoking bodily autonomy for one issue, but ignoring it or actively suppressing it for other issues makes it seem like the real fundamental belief has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.

Yeah I agree; I do think bodily autonomy is pretty fundamental but so is the interest of protection from harm. Ultimately, you can't claim that any specific freedoms are absolute because there are always moral exceptions, and I think that's one of the better counterarguments to the claim of vaccine mandates violating individual rights. Freedoms are ideals to be considered and optimised/traded for collectively, not inviolable absolutes.

>Seatbelt

Highly controversial in the day.

>consumption laws

Pretty universally hated by the non-moralizing types on both sides of the isle.

Drunk driving?

Who said anything about holidays?

Even your freedom to travel for business - bodily autonomy is probably the most important individual freedom there is.

Explain to me even one downside of wearing a protective mask in public situations.

> (I am vaccinated and wear a mask in public)

I've already said this.

Even Objectivists recognize that the freedom to throw a punch ends at someone else's face.

of course that's where the conflict comes in with a disease; by exercising bodily autonomy and therefore increasing the risk of covid, you also risk others' health by spreading it. But that's the benefit of the vaccine right? If you do catch it, you are extremely unlikely to have a severe case, and hopefully at some point a vaccine that prevents catching specific strains will be developed, leading to only antivaxxers getting covid.

I don't know what the right answer is when such conflicts arise, but I don't see the point of pretending that the antivaxxers' claims of freedoms being violated is somehow ambiguous - and to not counter that argument would be intellectually dishonest. I do know that the right answer for me and my family is to take the vaccine and wear a mask.

(Reposting here where it's more relevant.) While the saying is true that "your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins," that argument falls apart when you try to apply it beyond one-on-one interactions with direct consequences into group generalities and indirect/indeterminable consequences, such as "creating a more dangerous environment."

Prohibit things or compelling them, out of a feared or perceived potential for harm, leads down the slippery slope to 1984's "freedom is slavery."

Frankly I think the argument is idiotic even in one-on-one interactions. There’s a reason assault is illegal.

Maybe you misunderstood me? "your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins" is the "reason assault is illegal."

I should have been more explicit. Legally, “assault” does not have to involve contact, hence “assault and battery”.

Assault sans battery is still a crime. Repeatedly threatening to punch someone, e.g., or throwing punches without landing them.

Fair enough. My point was that declining to wear a mask or get a vaccine is very different than punching someone or even threatening to.

In the context of COVID I've seen appeals to an imaginary right to feel safe, and using that to imply obligations onto others.

You don't have right to travel abroad. If you doubt it, show up without a passport.

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