OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce
whitehouse.gov
whitehouse.gov
The slippery slope argument doesn't hold water here. I think we can look at the facts - 700,000 people dead, hospitals overwhelmed, countless people injured or disabled from COVID, and no end in sight - and decide that a strong mandate makes sense here, and that a mandate won't make sense in future cases.
The "government is always bad, personal choice should always win" mindset runs deep in this country unfortunately, and from what I can see, it's often based in nothing other than veiled conservatism and a preference for division and anti-cooperativeness.
Above all else, this sentiment holds very little water when it's coming from people who speak out against a vaccine mandate but choose to stay quiet on things like abortion rights.
"Think of the Children!" type arguments aside.
If you want the pandemic, masking, lockdowns etc to end for good, it seems a vaccine mandate is the only way forward (absent some as-yet-to-be-invented technology). What am I missing here? Is there some other way to 'convince' anti-vaxxers to take it? Is 100k+ Americans dead an 'acceptable loss' to maintain some perception of 'medical freedom?'
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/...
Bad smells that make me distrust: Changing definitions of the word vaccine, so that the Covid 19 injections can be considered a vaccine. It becoming impermissible to question the vaccine. If you tell me there isn't room to doubt, then my response to you is bullshit. I've been a skeptic my entire life, and it has served me well. If I'm wrong this time and I die because of it, so be it.
My argument is that by including these injections under the term vaccine, they are getting a halo effect from past vaccines that isn't warranted. Questioning vaccines is the lowest of the low, almost unthinkable, but these "vaccines" aren't like the old ones.
In all cases they make your body respond to proteins, that's all. Given the respective effective rates from mRNA vs. traditional vaccine methods if anything it's the halo effect of the effectiveness of the mRNA that are boosting the success rates.
I checked 2 dictionaries from before 2020. Neither said a vaccine had to be made from certain things.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20190118214500/https://www.merria...
If your idea of “trust the science” starts and ends with “who’s in the White House?” you have a different definition of “science” than I do.
Covid is here to stay. What is the long term plan? 'Boost' every 6 months with an ever changing cocktail that has not passed any clinical trials? In perpetuity? This is insanity.
I do not see any long term way out of covid pandemic other than natural immunity. Some studies have shown it is much stronger than vaccine protection. I hope they are right, or else the future is grim. Personally I really really hope that vax + mild infection works.
WE DO have a population for which natural immunity can be acquired at minimum cost: under 18s. For which the risk of covid death is ~1-2% of the already tiny risk of death from all other causes. Leave the kids alone.
What doesn't help: Messaging that so incredibly determined to pretend that natural immunity plays no role and that covid risk for a 10 year old is the same as covid risk for an 80 year old (in fact it is 1/1000).
We get annual boosters for many viruses. If you’re really hell bent on getting covid, your likelihood of severe illness is 10x less with at least one dose of the vaccine, and your immunity will be higher than infection alone. The messaging that natural immunity is the only way out, and that getting the virus is somehow ‘better’ than the vaccine is ludicrous.
Tired of personalization of the disease. I'm not 'hell bent' to do anything. Covid is endemic, there is no herd immunity. The only question is how to manage the severity of the disease, for all the infection events to occur in the long run. I'm vaccinated and keep an eye on https://www.novavax.com/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-candida.... Or do I need to tattoo 'Pfizer' on my forehead to be allowed to participate in society?
And to be clear, this vaccine denial is a uniquely American problem. In Denmark over 80% of the eligible population is voluntarily vaccinated. They are now able to do away with virtually all Covid restrictions.
Not sure what to do about it, I caught myself doing it and I like to believe I am on-guard for this kind of behavior. I substantively edit my messages to remove first draft inflammatory words. Perhaps the old email advice: put it in drafts and send it tomorrow morning.
I've been thinking lately that even on HN having a 'parent upvoted your reply' signal might be an interesting experiment for promoting civil discourse.
Also existence of Denmark with high vax rates does not imply that the problem is uniquely American. To wit, Russia is even farther ahead in that regard. So no, it’s not uniquely American.
this is untrue
japan has far lower vaccination rates than the US
I think a whole lot of this angst boils down to society running well, due to this work in the past. Then people forget, believe it all works differently than it really does.
Now we are faced with a global problem, shared risks, shared resources and a whole lot of relearning to do.
Aren't unvaccinated individuals the ones who made this decision? You may disagree with the conclusion of their dubious risk analyses, but if you choose not to get vaccinated then all bets are off.
Or is it that the risk that the unvaccinated pose to the vaccinated are so high that they warrant strong arm solutions?
Now socialization of medical expenses is being used to rationalize institutionalized discrimination against the unvaccinated, because it aligns with a particular political tribe's agenda. A tribe that also advocates the socialization of medical expenses.
Correct, these things are not contagious to others.
>>This puts tremendous strain on the hospital system, and if they’re uninsured it means the taxpayers are covering the cost of their treatment.
Given the vaccines can't provide herd immunity, the contagion argument for mandates is shaky too.
>>We have never used this justification to institute invasive laws to prohibit habits that lead to obesity, or to prohibit drug-use or alcohol consumption for that matter
The question is when we have a right to infringe upon another party's bodily autonomy. None of these vaccine mandate advocates would be calling for any type of infringement if it related to refraining from irresponsible behavior like over-eating, alcohol consumption, drug use, or high-risk sexual activity.
It’s a false equivalency. Addiction cannot, today, be cured with a shot.
But for the vaccine mandate supporters, who oppose laws to hold accountable people who burden the healthcare system through over-eating, drug and alcohol abuse or high-risk sexual activity, virtue signalling is more important than saving lives, or punishing MAGA types is more important than respecting rights. Hence the inconsistency.
So yes, the motivations are suspect.
This thread, and the OP are discussions of a vaccine mandate for workplace safety. OSHA has wide authority to regulate workplace safety and implement standards.
look at the total ICU numbers before COVID (obesity still existed then), versus over the past year, to see the difference in strain
also, your unsubstantiated claim that "the contagion argument for mandates is shaky too" seems to be itself shaky, as herd immunity is not required to make a nonzero positive impact
which is good, because a nonzero percent of the population has tried their hardest to screw up every single covid preventative countermeasure, just so they can say 'oh, guess we didn't/can't achieve herd immunity, so now we should do nothing like we said and did all along'
And the costs of treating obesity related illnesses, like many heart disease, cancer and diabetes cases, are enormous, and dwarf the costs relating to COVID.
Even in COVID's first year in the human population, when it spread like wildfire, heart disease and cancer killed far more people, and obesity is a contributing factor in a significant fraction of cases of these illnesses, particularly heart disease.
>>as herd immunity is not required to make a nonzero positive impact
Without herd immunity, the virus continues to circulate, until every one has contracted it. After they have contracted a COVID infection, they acquire far stronger immunity than provided by vaccination.
Yes. And personally, as callous as this is, I give zero shits about COVID deaths of people who choose to not vaccinate, though I feel terrible for their family members that got vaccinated and couldn't convince them to vaccinate because right-wing media has poisoned their minds.
> Or is it that the risk that the unvaccinated pose to the vaccinated are so high that they warrant strong arm solutions?
This question is highly subjective.
The vaccines are very effective at preventing spread, hospitalization, and death, but not 100%. Look at the statistics coming from any major hospital, and you'll see the trend that around 95% of the people hospitalized with COVID are unvaccinated.
The more people are vaccinated, the slower the spread, and the lower total number of breakthrough infections and breakthrough disease (Note: There's a difference between the two!).
Back to your question of if the risk is so high to warrant strong-arm solutions...Currently, I'd say no. But how long until Delta evolves into an even worse form that the current vaccines do nothing for?
This is the crux of it. They've made the decision, but when they fill up ICU beds and prevent sick or injured people from getting the quality of care that hospitals can provide, then their decision affects others (and this is not a hypothetical, it is happening daily).
If unvaccinated people agree to sit home and not go into a hospital when they can't breathe, that would demonstrate that they're living with the consequences of their decision.
What bothers me is the inconsistency. It's opportunistically seizing on the burden that choosing to not get vaccinated places on medical resources, in a way that the typical vaccine mandate supporter would never dream of doing with other high-risk behavior (e.g. men who engage in extensive high-risk intercourse with other men, making them 100X more likely to contract many STDs, including HIV). The political left's backing of the vaccine mandate is thoroughly unprincipled.
And no, laws against high-risk sexual activity have to do with discriminating against a behavior, not a protected classes. Gay men are perfectly capable of being monogamous, and avoiding high-risk sexual activity.
But yes, you are advocating that people have their rights infringed upon, when you advocate for a vaccine mandate. And worse, you're being blatantly inconsistent, based on shallow ideological considerations.
Apparently virtue signalling as a supporter of gay rights, or supporter of the obese, is more important for vaccine mandate supporters than minimizing the costs that irresponsible behavior burdens society with. Or maybe minimizing the costs of irresponsibility isn't the real motivation at all - the real motivation is persecuting anti-vaxxer MAGA types, under the pretense of holding people responsible for the costs they burden society with.
Your hypothetical HIV vaccine example is not relevant to the situation with Covid. As stated in the original post, the current mandate is to ensure workplace safety. It is not possible to contract HIV in an elevator or under normal workplace conditions.
I never posed a hypothetical HIV vaccine example, and your deliberate mischaracterization of my point is another demonstration of the bad faith and manipulative tactics you employ.
Sure it was. You said in reference to 'liberals' who support covid vaccine mandates (but presumably wouldn't support measures to restrict 100% of other risky behaviors): "Their hypocrisy is staggering."
My point, which you continue to ignore, is that the societal cost of other diseases or risky behaviors is irrelevant to the current discussion. The COVID-19 vaccine mandate discussed in the OP is a matter of workplace safety. Cancer, heart disease, HIV etc are not threats to workplace safety. If there are other circulating diseases that present an equivalent scale threat to workplace safety please feel free to present them. Addiction may be, however in the US employers already have wide latitude to test for it and terminate employees in violation.
If our health safety net (hospitals) were not being affected, then yes, covid promiscuity would be treated identically to any of the above. There's principles here that you don't want to acknowledge.
But of course, it goes without saying that the vast majority of vaccine mandate supporters have never considered supporting laws restricting high risk sexual behavior. They would never have even entertained the thought, no matter what the facts. Their hypocrisy is staggering.
Overwhelming the hospitals puts everyone at greater risk.
So any cases means more mutations more quickly. This too is a shared risk.
There just is not any way around all this. The human condition is not an individual affair.
The more cases, the more the variants. Getting everyone infected might bring about herd immunity to one strain, and create a dozen more.
This is by design. We don't want a strong federal government.
> The slippery slope argument doesn't hold water here. I think we can look at the facts - 700,000 people dead, hospitals overwhelmed, countless people injured or disabled from COVID, and no end in sight - and decide that a strong mandate makes sense here, and that a mandate won't make sense in future cases.
here's some more facts that change the landscape significantly. 5% of COVID deaths were without co-morbidities. On average, a person who died of COVID had 4.0 co-morbidities. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Co...) The vast majority of those dying are 65+. We don't have a COVID problem, we have a health problem. Has the government been encouraging people to take vitamin D, get fresh air, exercise, and get to a healthy weight? The rhetoric has been sit down and get the jab.
> The "government is always bad, personal choice should always win" mindset runs deep in this country unfortunately, and from what I can see, it's often based in nothing other than veiled conservatism and a preference for division and anti-cooperativeness.
The government polices are extreme overreactions by any measure of the data, and government doesn't give power back once it has it.
> Above all else, this sentiment holds very little water when it's coming from people who speak out against a vaccine mandate but choose to stay quiet on things like abortion rights.
I can almost agree here, except the pro-choice people seem to overlap heavily with the pro-mandate people. I don't think you can logically hold both of those positions
The government has been advocating for exercise and general health for decades. Despite this, we remain one of the least fit countries in the world. If the government cannot convince someone to take a safe, free shot that might save their lives, how can you reasonably expect them to convince someone to exercise?
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in America, and obesity is the #1 risk factor for it. This message has been clear and emphasized since the 1970s. Despite messaging, obesity has gotten worse, not better. You are wrong and oversimplifying the problem if you think COVID can be solved by telling people to lose weight.
Instead, a huge number of people are laser focused on rationalizing the imposition of mandates, especially on extremely low-risk group, even children.
And if you compare the two, the vaccine is much closer to a magic cure - it's very dependable and takes "1 month" to work (assuming a two shot vaccine). Whereas encouraging people to be less obese is both incredibly hard (as decades of campaigns prove), and even in the best case scenario, would take a long time for most people.
https://twitter.com/eliaseythorsson/status/14240115421950238...
I was arguing that given Iceland, at almost full vaccination, is having its biggest COVID wave yet, means full vaccination does not provide herd immunity, and thus every one will eventually get exposed to COVID irrespective of the vaccination rate.
So you can't make a sound argument that other people's decision to get the vaccine is increasing other people's chance of being exposed to COVID.
By ignoring the denominator you misinterpret your own data. Iceland’s ‘biggest wave yet’ had >2x fewer cases and 4x fewer hospitalizations than the US Delta Wave when adjusted for population. Fewer cases means fewer chances to get infected.
when Iceland (early) vs Iceland (now) seems like a perfectly reasonable and better comparison?
I didn’t, the parent brought up Iceland. What are the confounding factors?
>Iceland(early) vs Iceland (now)
Ok, at its peak Iceland had 2x the number of new daily cases during its delta wave as its prior wave owing to the increased transmissibility of Delta. Despite this, hospitalizations during their delta wave were 1/3 of the prior wave. Unvaccinated Icelanders were also 2x more likely to be infected during their delta wave. It is undeniable that vaccination reduces hospitalization and infection rate.
This is completely irrelevant to my argument, yet you continue to repeat this point in an exercise of bad faith sophistry.
My argument is that vaccination does not provide herd immunity, and that thus the virus will continue to propagate until every one has been exposed to COVID, irrespective of the vaccination rate.
The point I'm making is that the argument that being vaccinated protects others is unsubstantiated. If anything, not being vaccinated leads to infection happening sooner, which leads to immunity much stronger than that conferred by vaccination.
They reduce transmission.
https://twitter.com/eliaseythorsson/status/14240115421950238...
So with or without full vaccination, it's inevitable that eventually every one is exposed to COVID.
The tweet you cite notes that only 18 people are hospitalized in Iceland. Adjusted for population, the US has over 4x as many hospitalizations. This is a huge success and 100% due to the high vaccination rates. Iceland was able to achieve this voluntarily. The US cannot.
That’s not true. According to data YOU provided, unvaccinated people are more than 2x more likely to be infected than vaccinated. Less vaccination leads to more infections and more hospitalizations.
Without herd immunity, the virus will propagate, even if it's at a slower rate, making it inevitable that every one is eventually exposed to the virus.
That's a great idea but if you believe that the government mandating workplace safety standards is massive overreach, then how could it possibly tell people what they can and cannot eat?
be bold enough to advocate for a position here and defend it
Well, not from the "governments are either allowed or not allowed to tell people to do things" angle.
From the "what do medical experts suggest we do to minimize unnecessary death and suffering" point of view it's possible to be consistently on the same side though.
Personally, I think anybody who advocates for abrogation of bodily autonomy is an absolute monster, whether an anti-abortionist, a pro-vaccine-mandateist, or an anti-recreational-druggist.
Our bodies are all we have. This is the most important freedom we hold.
"If you want to keep this job you'll stick this needle in your arm" is no different, morally, from "If you want to keep this job you'll stick my dick in your mouth." And tens of thousands of HR departments tasked with preventing the latter will now rush to enforce the former. Absolutely disgusting.
For example, my body often breathes even when I don't particularly will it. I also cannot stop the process of digestion with my mind. If I were to ask for the 'right' to stop digestion by asking a doctor to sever my intestines, it would be good for the government to then charge such an irreputable doctor with assault and maybe murder.
I'm disabled and it's not my fault. I'm a healthy weight, I have a vegetarian diet high in vegetables, I do my rehab exercises every day and see the doctor frequently. And yet my condition is progressing, because that's the nature of it.
My comorbidities aren't a moral failing.
I'm fine with that.
In fact not getting vaccinated makes it more likely one will acquire natural immunity from an infection, and people with natural immunity are less likely to transmit the virus, so it may actually be more protective for others if a higher percentage of the population doesn't get vaccinated and acquires natural immunity.
If the virus has a fertile easily infectable unvaccinated population to continuously mutate in, herd immunity is unlikely to be achieved.
The comment above yours literally just explained that the vaccine does not stop transmission of the virus! You're repeating catchphrases from 12 months ago when the government was insisting the vaccine stopped the spread of the virus; when they knew perfectly well that wasn't true!
The question is whether there is a what is the greatest cost you are willing to impose on everyone to provide a small benefit to some specific people.
And, no, you don't get to claim children will do just fine going without face to face contact with other children their age for years for some nonquantifiable benefit that might or might not accrue to a person at risk.
It’s about how your personal choices impact other people. To be deliberately shocking to help show why these are different:
You can’t cough on me and give me an abortion. I can’t choose to have an abortion and that creates a super spreader event that gives everyone around me an abortion.
You can choose not to get vaccinated, be an asymptomatic spreader, and pass Covid on to other people. Your choice of taking the vaccine or not taking the vaccine can impact lots of people, and even hasten their death.
Societies have various laws that prohibit certain choices you make that can have a negative impact on others. For example see drunk driving, or someones choice to use speech to inflame a riot. Where those lines are drawn, or should be drawn, can certainly be up for debate. Reasonable people can disgree
Legally speaking, mandating the vaccine is forcing a person to act (get jabbed) through no act of their own. Mandating abortion bans is prohibiting an act (getting an abortion). So the two scenarios aren't comparable.
Banning abortion means de facto forcing someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
you probably have a different threshold, which is okay, but it is likely one you will have to persuade the majority to adopt, if you want to get your way
https://twitter.com/eliaseythorsson/status/14240115421950238...
The Oxford Vaccine Group says herd immunity through vaccination is infeasible now:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/delta-variant-...
Pneumonia, respiratory failure and cardiac arrest are symptoms of COVID. They aren't pre-existing conditions that make COVID worse. They are just more specific explanations about the exact mechanism by which COVID killed the person.
At any given time, someone the population is weak in some way.
Had there not been covid, most of those people would be alive.
Cause of death is covid. That covid killed them more easily is a different matter.
Today, those same people can get a vaccine and are extremely likely to avoid the hospital and death.
I am consistently shocked at just how willing so many of us are to blame others. And that is all.
Arguments around hypocrisy cut both ways! Consider how weak pro-choice arguments sound right now to people who don't want to be forced to take a vaccine. I'm assuming we will never ever hear "My body, my choice" as a pro-choice argument ever again, it would be absurd at this point.
Also, I wonder how much of this is a left vs right political debate. Most of the conservatives I personally know are vaccinated. It's possible that there are silent dissenters among the progressives that can't really speak up because they will be ostracized.
I wonder how long there won't be a legal penalty? Biden was visibly and audibly angry when talking about the unvaccinated. I caught a clip of a late night talk show host laughing about denying healthcare to the unvaccinated. The audience laughed. There is some serious demonizing going on right now.
edit: I realize now that I drifted from the original comparison with abortion rights. Although, I don't think the person seeking the abortion is prosecuted either (in most cases).
Comply or be fined. That's what happens.
Does this mandate incorporate the Sept 2021 CDC definition of vaccine, https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article25...
> Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.” The term “vaccine” also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to the current “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”
Why would employers need legal immunity? Their lawyers may want to look closely at the legal immunity protections of the PREP act, which extend to healthcare professionals who recommend "countermeasures".
My fundamental question is that schools already have tons of vaccine requirements, so why should this one be considered special?
1. https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/09/07/covid-19-vaccines-preve...
Fortunately, the CDC's Sept. 2021 updated definition makes it clear that non-sterilizing Covid vaccines should not be conflated with the transmission-stopping track record of sterilizing vaccines (e.g. MMR) mandated for school & travel.
There are intranasal (e.g. inhaler) vaccines under development, which may provide nasal/mucosal antibodies. Until those are available, recovery from natural infection will provide both nasal/mucosal and blood/serum antibodies. This path is available to both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
All you have to do is get the growth factor below 1.0 and the virus will die out as it can't infect enough people to stay alive.
> Israel was the first country on Earth to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens against COVID-19. Now it has one of the world's highest daily infection rates — an average of nearly 7,500 confirmed cases a day, double what it was two weeks ago. Nearly one in every 150 people in Israel today has the virus.
Not a great advertisement for non-sterilizing vaccines.
tbh the concept of herd immunity doesn't care about who the law says can get vaccinated
> Evidence from studies primarily done before vaccine approval for those 12 years of age and older suggests that staff-to-staff transmission is more common than transmission from students to staff, staff to student, or student to student.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...
if they're vaccinated, they count towards the numerator
if they are a person, and thus have a nonzero chance of getting infected, and a nonzero chance of infecting others if infected, they count towards the denominator
that's how you determine vaccination rate
https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
We may need further short tactical lockdowns, and are considering booster shots for the elderly, but the situation here is night and day compared to the US and many other countries thanks to an effective vaccination programme with broad popular support.
It's amazing to me how the political culture of the right has diverged between the US and Europe, and here in the UK particularly. For us responsible behaviour in public and prompt vaccination are conservative touchstones, not exclusively conservative of course but very much seen as not just compatible with conservatism but flowing directly from it's basic principles. What's happened to Republicanism in the US is confusing, and rather horrifying from that perspective.
Early this year we were seeing similar rates of new infections per day, but about a thousand people were dying every day. Nowadays the death rate is about a tenth of that, concentrated among the remaining unvaccinated population.
Israel seems to be having a similar experience, people are catching the virus but those that are vaccinated aren't dying as a result. They're introducing mask mandates and considering tactical lockdowns to try and protect the unvaccinated population. We may need to do the same, nevertheless the best way to protect people who can't be vaccinated is to vaccinate everyone who can be.
whether or not society must continue to pay an ongoing price for mitigations is irrelevant to whether or not the vaccine provides a societal benefit, which it does
whether or not society can move on after a one-time vaccine cost is irrelevant to whether or not the vaccine provides a societal benefit, which it does
the goalposts were set at "provides a societal benefit", which it does
https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
The actual study the article claims the summarize:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
Find the word 'delta' in the text of the actual study. It ain't there. And look at the dates of the study. Most of the data is pre-delta.
Your linked ACSH article simply fabricates a conclusion based on no evidence.
The scientific establishment sickens me here. The goal is to get people to vaccinate, which is reasonable enough. The outcome is the opposite, though. The lies are common enough and transparent enough that the whole establishment loses credibility, and a huge swath of the world doesn't believe it about vaccines, climate change, and a slew of other issues.
And unfortunately right now science is playing catch-up.
There simply isn't any evidence on breakthrough transmission with delta testing humans yet because it is recent. The headlines and public health messages are assuming worst case in order to scare vaccinated people into masking up again, while there's actually indications that vaccinated breakthrough infections almost certainly transmit less.
What we know is that while early in the infection viral loads in delta are much higher, but Alpha, delta, and non-VOI/VOC infections feature similar viral trajectories[1], in vaccinated breakthrough infections RNA load declines faster[2] and the ability to culture virus in breakthrough infections is lower[3], we know that vaccines reduced transmission with alpha[4] and apart from scary headlines we still expect that vaccines reduce transmission with delta. While there's documented cases of delta breakthrough infections transmitting to one or two other people, there's not been any studies of how common that is, or how common it is for breakthrough infections to become superspreaders to >10 people, or if that is even possible. Since viral loads are correlated with transmissibility and symptomology/virulence the very high protection against severe disease with vaccination may also protect against severe transmission.
[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.16.21251535v...
[2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v...
[3] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v...
[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/80-of-vaccinated-covid-carrier...
That is not the case.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1
"“The bottom line is, this can happen — it can be true that vaccinated people can spread the virus. But we do not yet know what their relative role in overall community spread is,” says co-author Thomas Friedrich, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison."
Vaccinations may (or may not) reduce the propensity of vaccinated people to spread Delta but it's very clear at this point vaccinated people can spread Delta to some degree.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/12/21-1792_article
It is 100% certain that some breakthrough transmissions can transmit onwards.
If I know that, it should be very apparent that wasn't what I meant.
There are people claiming that vaccines do not prevent any forwards transmission and that vaccination is 100% worthless for ending pandemic spread. Arguing that is wrong does not imply arguing for the exact inverse and that vaccines are perfect. I'm pretty sure that hell is the world where everyone argues in absolutes all the time and that I'm unfortunately living in it.
As a footnote, we do have data. My best estimate was that the vaccine reduced the transmission of delta by about 50%. That's based on data in the community I live (and this is context-dependent -- for example, vaccines do a lot more for casual interactions than for close/long ones).
I saw that same estimate replicated by two data scientists I trust, using different data from different places, and different methodologies, so it's somewhat robust. On the other hand, all three were susceptible to Simpson's Paradox and demographic bias, so there is one possible source of correlated error (specifically, more at-risk populations have higher vaccination rates). However, even if we assume a best-case there, though, transmission is reduced by <90%.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases
And testing rates are probably even lower now that many people have been vaccinated.
This argument is not going to convince the unvaccinated, who are tired of incoherent "scientific" information that changes every month. The field of virology is apparently in its infancy.
but much lower hospitalisation rates [0]. Which is the key point of "flattening the curve" if you remember. We're not going to get out of lockdown measures until the hospitals can cope with the load, and the vaccinations are reducing the load on hospitals. Get vaccinated now.
There were no accurate spread models in 2020, no studies how masks would affect the spread of the common cold.
There was ridiculous advice that the famous droplets would sink to the ground before covering a distance > 1.5 meters, that masks would not help at all and much more.
Now they admit that the virus is airborne!
Sorry, #FollowTheScience slogans and calling others fools does not help.
This was based on experience with the original SARS virus.
Take this 2003 paper for example: "Effectiveness of precautions against droplets and contact in prevention of nosocomial transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)" [1]
It was a case control study in a Hong Kong hospital that concluded: "Practice of droplets precaution and contact precaution is adequate in significantly reducing the risk of infection …. The protective role of the mask suggests … infection is transmitted by droplets."
Following the science really, really does help. You just need to do it; fools of course don't.
>the more my arm is twisted, the more I will resist
I don't know where you get your information but I saw absolutely zero change in the info on any of the major vaccines since the very same day they've been announced. From day 1 the message was always that these vaccines trained the immune system to lower the severity of Covid symptoms, but otherwise we could still catch it and spread it.
Then only significant change that popped up since last year was due to the inception of the so called Delta variant, which is an entirely new development and had just enough mutations to lower vaccine effectiveness. However, the mRNA vaccines were, from the very start, described as custom tailored to the existing variants, and we're expected to show a drop in effectiveness if the wrong kind of variant occurred.
Personally, when I received my jabs, in both occasions I received a small flier making it quite clear that the current Covid vaccines only trained the immune system to have a fighting chance against Covid, but we were still vulnerable to catch and spread Covid and thus we should continue to practice basic health and safety precautions.
So I really wonder where you got your info, because none of what you said correlates with reality.
That's a pretty big difference for most people.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-dur...
maybe your source says that 99 is "much higher" than 95, and I just missed it?
I'm a bit confused by the term "infection" here.
Let me split some hairs:
Vaccines work by teaching the immune system how to fight an intruding virus, so it doesn't have to spend days or weeks figuring it out while the virus destroys your body.
That means vaccinated people get viruses as often as unvaccinated, but defeat it much faster, usually before you notice any symptoms.
My confusion is that I would call the time my immune system spends fighting a virus in my body an "infection", but apparently that is not the established use.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
Not quite:
> The term “covered person”, when used with respect to the administration or use of a covered countermeasure, means— (A) the United States; or (B) a person or entity that is— [...] (iv) a qualified person who prescribed, administered, or dispensed such countermeasure;
Prescribing, administering, and dispensing are very different from “recommending”.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...
Are we really going to bother digging up the copious video evidence this is a lie? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xcur3kwCyg
It seems you're either a bit confused or you didn't bothered to even watch the very same video you posted.
I watched the video and nowhere in it does anyone promise anything about infections magically go away.
In fact, the infection disease specialist in the video says quite clearly that the observed reduction in spread was around 60%, and this statement is repeated in multiple occasions throughout the video.
The video was also posted over 7 months ago, prior to some of the major vaccines having been approved and made available to the public.
Please do not throw baseless accusations of anyone lying when the best proof you can come up with just refutes your accusation entirely.
Headline: The Science is in: Elephants are White
Pushback: No, elephants are not white.
Twitter: NO ONE EVER CLAIMED ELEPHANTS ARE WHITE. or STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION THAT ELEPHANTS ARE BLACK.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
Last I knew, COVID-19 vaccines weren’t covered, but apparently I missed some news, since it’s the first thing listed on https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp .
Nitpick, but really it is a fund to pay for anyone who suffered a side effect that it cannot be proven wasnt a vaccine. In this case vaccines are guilty until proven innocent.
>approximately 70 percent of its payments are the result of a negotiated settlement “in which HHS has not concluded, based upon review of the evidence, that the alleged vaccine caused the alleged injury.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/vaccine-s...
2) No company should have their liability removed for any reason, especially by the government. This thinking was partly why the 2008 recession happened. I don't want the government taking on the liability of a multi-billion dollar industry because if the company messes up, we're paying more in taxes - guaranteed - to pay for all the settlements.
3) This mandate by the government violates every part of a right to personal autonomy when it comes to your health - there is a MONUMENTAL difference when the mandate comes from government as opposed to private business. This sets (further) precedence for future governments to give them carte blanche as to peoples' health.
Side note - Just a reminder that government-ran health systems like the NHS makes decisions about your health based on the status of the current system - meaning that people who are too costly to fix/repair/KEEP ALIVE will receive palliative care. That's disgusting to me. (The US healthcare system is a whole other topic entirely, this is just an example of government making bad decisions regarding your health)
> $217,890,161.54 -- 2021
how much the vaccine injury program has paid out to claimants in the respective FY [1] -- subsidized by our tax dollars on behalf of big pharma, of-course.
Since 1989, it seems the US govt program has paid out $4,667,496,451 to individuals and attorneys who have sued based on side-effects of vaccines
[1] https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vaccine-compen...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/23/lawsuit-o...
Sovereign immunity doesn’t prevent the filing of a suit.
The suit was dismissed. https://www.foodprocessing.com/industrynews/2021/meat-worker...
> But, he added, courts have no jurisdiction to force OSHA to take action and “the remedy lies with the Legislature and not the courts.”
yep, turns out lawyers will find stuff to sue folks for, no matter what
so, companies might as well do the right thing and be protected by the federal government than do the wrong thing and have to fight those lawyers all on their own
They already did for COVID countermeasures in general. In the first declaration that did that for pharmaceutical companies, public entities managing countermeasure planning and distribution, and others in March of last year.
If the vax had worked to sterilize or mostly sterilize the virus as originally it was sold to us as, then this would be okay.
Instead it did not really work, thus spreading covid more.
So in the end, we locked down and destroyed the economy in hopes of a vaccine, but the vaz didn't fully work and now we're going to have to open anyway to avert major economic and social disaster.
It lowers your chance of getting it and thus spreading it significantly and it severely lowers your chance of having a severe reaction in the case of a breakthrough infection.
The only reason it hasn't worked at a societal level is that not enough people have taken it.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
The definition change is simply to more accurately include this vaccine method.
> OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary
> Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement
Well, I guess one should never let a good crisis go to waste...
For the COVID ETS from this June, OSHA has been coordinating with the CDC monthly to determine if it is still necessary. See https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets#:~:text=to%20assess%20t...
Although, just like Afghanistan, there's no clear end to COVID afaik ... although I disagree with the implication that there's some great benefit the government / other interests are getting out of this ETS, of the same scale that the military-industrial complex/the executive branch got out of the PATRIOT act/Afghanistan.
Pharma is gonna be making some good money out of COVID, no? The amount of tests that have been produced, plus the amount of vaccines being used are certainly not free.
2x sweet.
For pharmaceutical companies? In comparison to a liability-free, recurring subscription, mandated by the federal government for hundreds of millions? Not so much.
Given that covid and the subsequent reaction realized one of the largest wealth transfers from poor to rich in modern history and led to great market returns for those in power, how can you honestly say this?
Look.. like most people on hacker news I am in the top 1% of earners and due to my industry benefitted greatly from covid lockdowns. But just because we benefited, we cannot be blind to the mass robbery that has taken place. We've literally robbed the poor to pay the wealthy.
Low hanging fruit.
One is easy to order, cheap to implement, and cheap to verify, the other would be expensive to implement and even more expensive to verify.
Not sure if you're aware, but it expired in 2020
To call 20 years 'temporary' is a big stretch.
Just because they can't sneak it back in now doesn't mean they don't want to. The new administration has already made bogeyman out of 'domestic terrorism' that it's own fbi cannot find evidence for.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution:_A_Manifesto
Oddly enough, a couple of weeks ago at the local thrift store I picked up "The Secret History of the American Empire" by John Perkins. Even if only half of it is accurate, there's also plenty of reason to believe there are less than noble forces at work given the current changes and the opportunities they create.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-secret-history-of-the-amer...
So it'll only be around for 20 years?
Waiting for retailers to announce this as well at some point.
OSHA is America-based, yes?
In all three countries, the pushback is primarily from populist/right-wing political movements. This is not a strictly American phenomenon.
This article says, at least in the US, the poor and young are the least likely to get a vaccine. You have any data for your political assertion that it's primarily right wingers? Keep in mind, politicizing COVID is what got us where we are today.
https://www.vox.com/22587443/covid-19-vaccine-refusal-hesita...
You’re sure as hell right that it was going to take something catastrophic for me to walk through those doors again.
Edit: I have a job that offers decent insurance now, but my immediate emotional reaction to healthcare in the United States is very negative (even though I quite like my doctor, dentist, etc). I believe our system is corrupted and abusive towards the poor.
You can't turn on the TV, Facebook, YouTube, etc. without a class action lawsuit message in the form of: "Have you used baby powder in the past 2 years? If so, you may be eligible for compensation under the Talcum Powder Class Action Lawsuit, call us at..."
The seemingly "safe" things in America that we take for granted, like baby powder, or Round-Up weed killer, or even tap water in Michigan has turned out to be not so safe.
Breakdown by age
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...
Here is a breakdown by race in each state
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...
In our office, we have a number of people I know aren't vaccinated.
A “food desert” doesn’t account for the person who consistently orders two flavors in their tall iced coffee (usually equates to 6+ oz of simple syrup); that’s a choice — and a severe negative externality.
Risk pooling in insurance is simply an added benefit, but a less clear moral approach when the disease is not necessarily controllable by the person. Metabolic disorders exist. Tobacco disorders, not as much except conditioning and addiction.
But, it should be a focus for wellness programs so that metabolic disorders are destigmatized.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2225433/
Now, if you wish to reduce obesity because you're more interested in a person's quality adjusted life years, you absolutely do want to treat obesity (and addiction) like a disorder, because compassion and empathy is the only way you're ever going to get someone to make the long term life choices they need to get better.
Fun fact, obese people actually have lower lifetime healthcare costs than healthy people.
Edit: oh life insurance, thanks.
As far as I know, life insurance policies of significant amounts still do medical exams. And care about drug use, tobacco use, high blood pressure, disclosure about things like past cancer diagnosis, lifestyle stuff (skydiving, climbing, and so on) etc.
The effects of smoking OTOH are extremely clear.
I thought it was pretty clear that we do. Go talk to any physician and they will tell you the 3 things you control to increase your chances of a long & healthy life are:
1. Limit alcohol/tobacco 2. exercise frequently 3. eat a healthy diet
Are you suggesting for #3 they have no data to back that recommendation up?
Please don't misread, I agree with you in principle. I am simply pointing out there are nuances.
Thanks. Very succinct, and helps me frame my medical interactions a bit more clearly now.
Were I to argue, I would have included source references.
What is your level of education? I need to know so I can give you sources I am sure you can use.
A lay explanation at https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-find.... This is simply the first I found.
If you are able to understand this literature I am quite confused as to how you can't find it yourself -- the associations go far deeper, with increased fat intake causing plaque buildup that eventually leads to heart problems. Obesity under class III also shortens life expectancy.
Realize also that per what is laid out in that review someone who is 6" ~180lbs is obese, even if it mostly muscle. Even if it is obesity caused by muscle instead of fat, you don't live as long.
~10 years ago they still thought eating fat made you fat, and recommended high carb diets.
Perhaps the 2021 recommendations are finally the correct ones. But how do I know that?
There is also a second issue, government agencies have been co-opted by industry to make recommendations not supported by the science. I'm specifically thinking about recommendations around fat&sugar, the same thing you called out that indicates the problem is not the science but rather regulatory capture.
One you qualify though, I don't think they can re-test you.
Few carriers are currently willing to write anyone over 60 which is affecting key person policies more than anything, in my experience.
>> it’s always been odd to me how life insurance tests with vigor for tobacco use but lack that enthusiasm for metabolic health / diet.
This commenter has never had a major individual life insurance policy. While Tobacco effects underwriting, it's not as major of a factor anymore.
As far as I understand, ACA does not allow health insurance companies to require vaccinations to be eligible for coverage, but they can offer lower premiums in exchange for vaccinating.
Seems reasonable to expect people working with many sick and vulnerable patients in a healthcare setting to be vaccinated. That’s one of the highest risk scenarios I can think of for exposure and transmission as well as the most likely place to concentrate vulnerable patients.
Life insurance companies - maybe?
But for most demographics, statistics that would concern an actuary have not changed.
Do you have a source for this comment? One thing is certain, more people are purchasing life insurance so if anything Covid has been a windfall for the carriers, for various reasons not just increased sales.
So life insurance companies are requiring COVID vaccines? Or health insurance companies, or both?
Trucking, food production, Oil & Gas, powerplant workers, linemen, water treatment, etc.
In those essential industries, a small percentage of people walking out may wreck havoc on the whole nation. Those are also the same people that I expect are more anti covid vaccine.
I'm more concerned about 20% of the truckers being fired for not taking the vaccine. Logistics is already stretched thin and it would make it much worse.
Hang in there, you are not alone and we are still in the very early days of this whole operation. Also, you might be able to find a local anti-mask or anti-mandate group on Facebook, I've found having that social support network is really helpful.
Isolating dissenters. Make them feel like lone crazies.
We shouldn't resort to those tactics, but we do need to make our voices heard, support each other, reassure everyone that we're just as numerous if not more so. It's important, this is our freedom and that of our children on the line.
I'd suggest following Rand Paul on twitter, and as he suggests, refusing to comply with these unscientific and unreasonable orders.
(truly, any mandate that fails to take in to account naturally acquired immunity or vaccine risks to individuals as noted in cdc and fda documents is completely lacking in scientific rigor.)
Join the club. You really do need to start speaking out though. This shit has gone on long enough. The idea that it is impossible well intentioned, well reasoned person to object to any part of our current situation is complete rubbish. We are being gaslit and bullied and quite honestly I'm tired of it.
We require vaccinations for schooling and for healthcare already (e.g TB). This is no huge stretch.
Think about it: two people enter a workplace. One is unvaccinated but recently tested, so it can be said with good confidence they are not infected. The other is vaccinated but may well be sick and spreading it, especially as effectiveness wanes quickly. The other is waved through, the first is penalized with constant charges. Who is making other people the safest here? It's not the vaccinated guy.
It's all about risk. Someone who has been vaccinated has a very low likelihood of being sick with Covid. Someone who has recently been tested also has a low likelihood.
IMO, though, if the tests are a week apart, that's a lot of opportunity for Covid to slip through. There's a reason that 72 hours (and sometimes 48 hours, I think) is the time limit for tests for traveling. Even that isn't a guarantee, though.
I can't find the chart now, but Covid progresses pretty rapidly, so if someone gets tested on Friday and was exposed 1-2 days before that, they can pretty much spread it for an entire week before they get tested on the next Friday.
And even if they were tested on Mondays, they could still be spreading it before the weekend.
Tests prevent someone from spreading it for weeks, but not days.
Vaccines are much more likely to prevent the spread at all.
You can go back and look at 10+ years of UK NHS "hospitals desperately overwhelmed" annual articles. Just because you hadn't heard of it before doesn't mean it isn't normal.
In the US, they've relaxed many guidelines and allowed student nurses without gaining licensure yet to practice because of the need [1].
[1] https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200327.71403...
Mumps
Smallpox
SARS1
MERS
Chickenpox
Tuberculosis
To name a few.
Not a fools errand. Important to get vaccinated to prevent worse variants.
I'm against vaccine mandates in principle, but the ultimate cause of the authoritarianism is mass media. Covid has been a fantastic setup for dog and pony shows - political hucksters rail all day about government overreach while inciting their followers to make bad choices. The large scale effects of those bad choices practically demand government intervention. And after the utilitarian system steps in to mitigate the problem, the hucksters take credit for being right about government overreach all along. It's the perfect con for the post-reality media environment - when reality asserts itself and some low level preacher dies of their own kool aid, they just go silent and are replaced by another ignorant voice on the same channel.
If we had a level of societal trust such that you could expect that most everyone would be taking measures to prevent spreading Covid, then coming together in large groups (eg employment) would be less of an issue. But as it stands, why would anybody want to go back into the office when it's likely that at least a third of your coworkers will blithely get you sick? And hence OSHA et al step in, using the same rationale as when preventing operating heavy equipment while drunk - it creates an unsafe work environment.
Camp 1: Pro vaccine, pro mask, pro lockdown, pro doing anything and everything the government says.
Camp 2: Anti vaxx, anti mask, anti lockdown, trump supporter, Jan 7th attendee, etc.
And it seems that now more than ever, if you're not 10000% in Camp 1, you're automatically assumed to be in Camp 2
Luckily that's a bad assumption because the vaccines are so bad that they aren't even protecting people from getting very ill.
If R<1 the number of infected people continually decreases until there are no cases. This is also why it's important for the US to provide other countries with vaccines.
Not if they are vaccinated. I don't understand why vaccinated people give a hoot about the vaccination status of others. Vaccinations protect them from severe covid issues.
Everybody is gonna get covid. We knew this all the way back in march of 2020.
Temporarily. I am assuming you had your second shot more than two weeks ago. Soon, the definition of "fully vaccinated" will change to require the third shot and you will be counted among the unvaccinated as it is currently done for people with a single shot or less than two weeks past their second shot when it comes to death/hospitalization stats.
We are close to living in Arcadia[1].
For all the pretend deference to science, we're in the middle of a rapidly unfolding situation. It seems preposterous, even with clear evidence that the vaccines do work (and ignoring government overreach which is itself absurd and illegal imo) to start mandating something that is not likely to hold 6 months from now, and what, just require that everyone tracks whatever current orthodoxy says? I have my two pfizer shots, and if there is a vaccine later that actually cures covid, maybe I'll go back and get it. But I'm giving up on trying to track the flavor of the week and trying to match whatever the new York times wants me to do, I'll wait until there is actually a reasonable consensus
We really need a new frontier. Hopefully space travel happens before human beings become completely domesticated.
I agree. Lots of folks afraid to take a shot that's been well-studied and given to millions and is, in all probability, quite safe. ;)
I chalk it up to the youth, who are selfish and only able to think about themselves and their Friendster ranks and how many YouTubes they have on the FaceSpace.
Some of our ancestors were almost completely wiped out from novel disease brought by those that crossed the oceans. They were probably also terrified.
It also conveniently ignores the known and unknown long-haul effects from Covid, which impacts a significant percentage (20%?). I, for one, like staying in relatively good health.
And no, you can’t read the minds of long dead people either.
Is it really so difficult to consider that we live in a scared, lazy age?
Spengler in his works has a cyclical view of civilizations, which you might also enjoy.
Many “cyclical” ideologies also have similar ideas going back millennia. Hinduism for example sees the world as occurring in cycles. According to some, we are in a materialistic age, which is a consequence of losing spiritual values and a focus on comfort and pleasure.
And yet that is exactly what you are doing throughout multiple comments.
https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19...
How does that make any sense? Don’t you think it’s more reasonable to assume we don’t know either?
And two of the available vaccines don't even give you a dead infection like most vaccines - you can't get COVID from the COVID shot (Moderna or Pfizer)
But it’s not. The question is long term side effects. Unless you have a time machine, I’m gonna say we can’t know those for quite a bit - unlike other vaccines which have decades of testing data.
obviously we can't just wait forever with the worry that in year forever+1 some random side effect completely different from what the evidence currently indicates will manifest itself
Have you heard of DDT?
if you would be so kind as to link it here...
In the past, some substances were thought to be safe, but turned out not to be. The “it’s safe” period of time was longer than a year.
Ergo it is reasonable to assume that we can’t know all of the side effects of current novel vaccines. It doesn’t mean there will be any, but it doesn’t mean there won’t be either.
That’s how science works.
see, in that example, you made up a rule that anything you want will cause Z, but there's no actual scientific basis for the rule
you have to actually prove Y will do Z, you can't just claim something else did Z, therefore anything can do Z
Again, you lack a basic understanding of the scientific method.
to wit, you have not proven there is a good reason to worry about widespread significant long-term side effects of the COVID vaccines -- specifically, DDT is not a past example of a vaccine resembling any of the COVID vaccines
the lack of evidence pointing to widespread, significant, long-term side-effects so far, however, is evidence enough for us to lean in that direction
I do, however, support your right to avoid the vaccine, as well as your right to avoid any place or activity that requires those present to have it, so at least there's that
This is basic medical knowledge. Not a conspiracy.
if I could just offer a piece of friendly advice, for anyone trying to convince the majority that the COVID-19 vaccines show a strong likelihood of negative side effects long-term:
try to show the actual frequency of each long-term side effect you mention, as a proportion of # of those vaccines administered, and explain the physical mechanism by which each of those side effects will manifest in recipients of the COVID-19 vaccines
You seem to have very little understanding of how medicine works.
if you're trying to convince the vast majority of Americans who aren't opposed to vaccine mandates, that they should change their mind, you should probably be able to show that significant side effects occur a significant % of the time in another vaccine,
then explain how that side effect modality would transfer to this vaccine (IE what they have in common which indicates the COVID vaccine will probably have the same long-term side effects)
oh, also, you never answered OP's question: how long do you think is enough?
In 1960, the rhesus monkey kidney cells used to prepare the poliovirus vaccines were determined to be infected with the simian virus-40 (SV40),[36] which was also discovered in 1960 and is a naturally occurring virus that infects monkeys. In 1961, SV40 was found to cause tumors in rodents.[37] More recently, the virus was found in certain forms of cancer in humans, for instance brain and bone tumors, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma, and some types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[38][39] However, SV40 has not been determined to cause these cancers.[40]
SV40 was found to be present in stocks of the injected form of the IPV in use between 1955 and 1963.[36] It is not found in the OPV form.[36] Over 98 million Americans received one or more doses of polio vaccine between 1955 and 1963 when a proportion of vaccine was contaminated with SV40; an estimated 10–30 million Americans may have received a dose of vaccine contaminated with SV40.[36] Later analysis suggested that vaccines produced by the former Soviet bloc countries until 1980, and used in the USSR, China, Japan, and several African countries, may have been contaminated, meaning hundreds of millions more may have been exposed to SV40.[41]
See: side effects section.
"In 1998, the National Cancer Institute undertook a large study, using cancer case information from the institute's SEER database. The published findings from the study revealed no increased incidence of cancer in persons who may have received vaccine containing SV40."
And beyond that, a full discussion requires comparison of negative side effects of the vaccine vs side effects of the original virus, and the rate of such effects. We know, factually, that there are often some side effects from vaccines. We also know, factually, that often the vaccine side effects are either of less severity and/or less frequency than the effects of catching the original virus. In other words, statistically, most of the time you're better off tempting fate with the vaccine than with the virus.
The closest thing was the lingering concern about SV40-contaminated doses (importantly, not the actual vaccine itself) causing increased rates of cancer, although it looks like all major attempts to determine if that was true have so far come back with a null result.
Source? And is it reversible?
https://old.reddit.com/r/vaccinelonghaulers/
So I don't agree the effects of either are well understood.
And until yesterday, that was entirely your choice! Unfortunately, as of today, it isn't any more.
If they fire you, that's a better option if you don't believe the vaccines are safe (they have NOT been fully tested - you are a guinea pig in the safety trials if you got the jab), the vaccines have NOT been approved (the lie of the claim otherwise is that no currently available vaccine has been approved - they are all still in EUA - they are still experimental while the "approved" Pfizer vaccine has never been made yet, has never been tested either and is NOT available to anyone because it's never been made yet).
If you're not willing to give up certain things that are required to maintain that society, you're welcome to go away. You have that choice.
then you should avoid any and all cars as you have a 1 in 100 lifetime chance of dying in a car accident. or birth, as babies have 0.6% chance of dying around birth.
covid suffers severely from availability and recency bias because our lives are so exceedingly safe already. it’s hard to die on accident, even via covid.
Although I feel you were trying to make the opposite case, I think events like COVID should illuminate the dangers and inadequacies of other elements of our lives. If you've read "The Maniac of New York" comic, it makes a similar point: a murderer that can't be stopped eventually just becomes accepted by society. Perhaps we have recency bias with COVID, but we have a more worrying complacency bias with other elements of our lives, like cars. Dramatic life extensions and quality of life improvements come when people stop accepting that "meh, people get sick and die," and instead get curious and start pushing for "burdensome" things like public sanitation.
Perhaps more importantly though, the ICU is getting filled up and causing other unrelated ailments to become worse. This isn't the case with most the other things you listed.
> babies have 0.6% chance of dying around birth
This one is hard to avoid unfortunately, unless you believe in Pixar's "pre life" world from "Soul". Also, arguably avoiding it leads to 100% mortality depending on how you count "not living". Neither here nor there, but I wasn't really a fan of that movie.
the “hospitals filling up” narrative is mediopolitically-motivated justification, not grounded in deductive reasoning nor meant to drive effective mitigative policy.
I think you may have a recency bias towards the mitigation techniques. The reason it seems like there's no hysteria around cars is because we've already gone through that phase and implemented the best safeguards we could come up with: the right analogy here is to see what a stickler our society is for having car insurance, which is the closest thing to a "car accident vaccine" we could come up with. Given the reality of the frequency of car accidents, and how they can potentially affect others just as much as yourself, we've implemented a system where it is a requirement to have a way to compensate the other person if an accident happens (not to mention the various laws we have around driving, the big deal that was Mothers Against Drunk Driving, breathalyzer checkpoints which could be seen quite analogously to covid testing, the fact that we need a license to drive and are tested for driving proficiency, the penalties for driving unsafely, laws requiring you to buckle your safety belt, laws around safety belts and airbags needing to be included in cars, etc. etc.). If we had an actual hypothetical "car accident vaccine," we'd probably just require you to have that instead of this tremendously complicated and expensive infrastructure around driving.
So I'd argue that what we actually don't see is heightened emotion around this onerous car infrastructure, to the point where you are essentially presenting cars as some sort of model for c'est-la-vie attitudes both from the general population and the government, which couldn't be farther from the truth. The reality is you've just gotten used to the burdens we've taken on to make our activities livable with respect to cars. Go watch the "Not Just Bikes" YouTube channel and you'll see just how much of your life is actually completely governed around accommodating cars (and a big part of that is in making their presence safer).
> the “hospitals filling up” narrative is mediopolitically-motivated justification, not grounded in deductive reasoning nor meant to drive effective mitigative policy.
Source?
no, we've just collectively decided that we're willing to put up with the small risk. it's nowehere near all that we could come up with. we could be much more stringent (stricter licensing & testing, tougher and more diverse training, more danger-apparent roads, better segregating roads from streets, fewer in-car and out-of-car distractions, more rigorous enforcement, higher carbon/fuel taxes, congestion pricing, stricter pollution standards, dense mixed-use neighborhoods, greater transit investment, etc.) and further reduce that risk, but we've collectively decided that the imposition and cost are not worth it (though i personally disagree). cars are a visible and imminent threat every day, in much the same way that covid is perceived to be, as a new member of the constellation of endemic infectious diseases we now live with.
as for the rest, torturing analogies that way merely to coerce them into fitting a desired explication is cruel and unusual punishment imho. i can't partake in good conscience.
It’s OK to just admit you chose a really bad comparison point, there are others that would probably support your case better, you just happened to choose one of the most heavily regulated areas that has had plenty of constitutional challenges (see everything around breathalyzer checkpoints and the 5th amendment), as well as one of the ones that went through the most hysteria: Ralph Nader built an entire career after publishing “Unsafe at Any Speed” and then testifying to Congress which rocked the automotive world and lead to a ton of regulations. This was all in the 60s though, so easy to forget. But for a more recent example, MADD became a huge “hysteria” to the point of the ACLU fighting against them over the constitutionality of roadblocks. Whether you think it’s justified or not (and to be clear, I’m not arguing either side in this instance), it’s undeniable that car safety was on people’s mind in a big way, and not just in one specific moment in time, but on several separate occasions, over many different issues. I mean, hell, the driver’s license is the closest thing we have to the feared “government ID,” so even the expansion of scope arguments apply.
With regard to “how much we could do” — sure, same can be said with COVID. There’s way more we could do than forcing employees of companies with over 100 people to take a free vaccine or be tested. There’s tremendously more drastic measures that could be taken. As such, the investment is at best comparable (and in reality much smaller) than what we’ve done for cars.
these current pronouncements require some significant portion (perhaps 40+%) of 100 million people to give in to political aims or face unemployment and potentially destitution, to slow down a virus that is going to burn through the whole population eventually (and do so again and again). presumably by now everyone who's risk-averse or at elevated risk has gotten vaccinated. so now that those folks are vaccinated, why force others to do so, other than for political reasons (and for no other seasonal maladies killing tens to hundreds of thousands)? it won't stop spread, mutation, illness, or even death, but rather will only prolong the pandemic while shoveling federal dollars at pharma, making it a purely political gambit.
on top of the vaccination levels we have now, we can get the same epidemiological slowdown without the socioeconomic costs via some modest distancing indoors and mask wearing by public-facing workers (like cashiers) and in social settings (like at home, not generally out in public where it does practically nothing), but that doesn't have nearly the same political punch.
Maybe if people were willing to wear masks and socially distance, but even this has caused tremendous pushback, with for example DeSantis and Abbott trying to ban mask mandates in their states. So sure, if you could get people to mask up and socially distance, perhaps it would achieve the same goal (not sure if this is actually the case, but just taking that at face value), but that’s currently a harder task given that it’s a thing people need to keep doing, dat after day, as opposed to convincing them to get the vaccine once (well, twice, but you know what I mean).
also, no one of any political persuasion is masking or distancing at home or at private social gatherings, which is where a large portion of transmission happens, so it's not just a certain group of selfish bad people prolonging the pandemic. it's all of us who are not following this limited but most mitigative measure (as opposed to the performative ones).
Plus then COMPARE that to other probabilities of death such as car accidents, medical mistakes, etc. which are FAR HIGHER.
First off, the baseline survival rate is much better than 99%, between 99.8% and 99.9%. That's already an order of magnitude lower, closer to 1/1000 than 1/100. 1% lethality was a bad estimate from early on, before we realized we were undercounting mild cases by a huge multiple.
Second, lethality is highly correlated to comorbidities, including obesity and vitamin D deficiency. 94% of Covid deaths had another condition. If you don't, then your own risk reduces by another factor of 15.
Third, lethality is highly stratified by age. Under age 50 incurs at least 10x fewer deaths than higher age brackets.
Fourth, the vaccines. That also reduces risk by a factor somewhere in the ballpark of 10x again.
Fifth, Delta variant is also less lethal, as seen by the low death rates in India and the UK, although we don't seem to have reliable numbers on that yet.
So if you are young, healthy, not overweight, and vaccinated, multiply all that out and your risk factor really comes to less than one in a million. You take bigger risks every time you drive in your car. You're losing more life-value worrying about Covid than you actually stand to lose from it.
That all said, there is the point to be worried about Covid not for yourself, but for the possibility of spreading it. That's a valid point, but that is a question of politics, of individualism versus collectivism, not of science and statistics.
Consider that perhaps the best way to honor those "fearless" risks is to not waste the world they made possible for us by unnecessarily cutting our own lives short. I certainly hope my descendants have even longer lives than I do! But perhaps that's just my selfish genes talking.
Also my grandmother mentioned that when she was young girl just a 100 years ago old people were absolutely broken. Today a lot of people spend their sixties and seventies in very good health.
Also I remember reading about grave site on a bluff in California that was eroding away. Contained the graves of sailors that died when a ship sank in the 1880's. Before reburying them higher up on the bluff they looked over their bones. They weren't in very good health despite being in their 20-40s.
Additionally, there is evidence that a prior covid infection grants stronger immunity than at least the J&J vaccine, and 40%+ percent of the US population has had COVID. Unless an exemption is made for that 40%, this is unscientific.
It would have been chilling a year ago, now? Meh.
As for giving exemptions for prior infection, there's no real reason to. Prior infection gives decent immunity, but a vaccination on top of it gives great immunity. It's a small net positive, but anything helps.
Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472856 - Sept 2021 (262 comments)
The titles are emphasizing two different things, but it's the same announcement.
The original title of the page is: "Path out of the Pandemic, President Biden's COVID-19 Action Plan", shouldn't that, or a derivative have been used instead?
It's mostly urban vs rural, even on the coasts and in states like CA.
Of course, smaller exist! There are functioning towns in East Texas with less than 500 people in them! My favorite is Caledonia; cherished memories are that upon crossing the border my father would pull his best BB King impression and belt out the eponymous tune.
0. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=38&page...
Back in 1860s, cotton and other plantation heavy industries where very lucrative, the southern states were very wealthy enough to be able to field a big army for years, while they lacked strong industry to support an extended campaign.
Also manifest destiny and especially Monroe doctorine all pre dated the civil war, there was certainly strong idealogoical belief on who the continent was for.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...
Here is a transcript of Arkansas’s Ordinance of Secession: https://digitalheritage.arkansas.gov/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?fil...
Note that there is no mention of slavery.
I have read a ton of contemporary writings by the various politicians who signed Arkansas’s OoS, and with a couple of exceptions the vast majority claimed at the time to have supported secession in response to the military actions of the Union. There were relatively few slaveholders in the state at the time, and they were largely concentrated in the Delta, along the border with Mississippi.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
WWII being an outlier of course. I'd like to have the numbers for the 19th C.
There was a time when a state/county/municipality could largely ignore central government diktat. With centralization there'll be a tendency for a single dominant group to get into everyone's business more and more. This can happen via statute, spending, or even lack of law enforcement in desired behaviors.
..and of course it tends to split urban vs. rural, Anglosphere vs. everyone else. The wish or need for central control varies quite a lot between the groups.
This is a hilariously skewed understanding of the civil war. Do you also believe the south seceded over states rights?
sadly necessary /s
It’s like the folks who are all nostalgic about the 50s. Sure, they were great if you were a straight cis white man. Not so much if you were gay or trans or black.
The Southern strategy was explicitly about creating such a stubbornly supportive majority in the electoral college that they could ignore the rest of the country.
people who talk about succession and splitting off have no idea what they are talking about, it wouldn't be clean at all
70:30 or more than 2x the GDP generated in blue counties should put the right on notice. Maybe there are wealthy folks in the blue counties that put their cash toward the GOP but it will not sustain them.
Thankfully, the “or test” part distinguishes this from a vaccine mandate. We should have been testing most of the population since last March, and if anything we should have stronger testing requirements than this guidance dictates.
I personally had the vaccine because I have very high blood pressure, have pretty high blood sugar (even though I'm fit/in shape) and am almost 40. It was MY CHOICE in the risk vs reward game of numbers it I did it only for myself with a good life insurance already in place that covers death/incapacity from medication too(covers COVID vaccines too).
What if I would of ended up like that BBC presenter? Dead. For me it's down to my family and that is it.
This will be a bit exagerated but (hopefully) shold get the point across: At the end of the day anyone else is disposable as long as my family is safe from harm.
As long as the vaccine is not 100% safe nobody should be allowed to force anyone else to take it.
Edit: One thing that puzzles me though - Why is nobody talking about those that are immune or already have the antibodies and don't need a vaccine? Why force them to have it if those vaccinated are safe?
The mRNA vaccines do appear to reduce risk (of infection and of symptoms) in recovered patients as well. (See e.g. https://theconversation.com/if-ive-already-had-covid-do-i-ne...)
That said, the German "geimpft, getestet, oder genesen" strategy ("vaccinated, tested, or recovered") is explicitly what you suggest.
The tradeoff here, to me, is that:
- If we do not mandate vaccination, people can preserve their individual autonomy and will, nonetheless, probably get infected sooner or later and thus have some immunity. (According to some research, greater than that of vaccinated people against the same strain, but perhaps reduced against other strains.)
- However, that relies upon maintaining sufficient hospital capacity for the additional cases with severe symptoms. So as long as hospital capacity remains an issue, mandatory vaccinations make sense.
I'm assuming you're in Germany/know someone in Germany when asking this and you might of heard something about it: -Is it true that Hungarians are using some sort of medication as treatment? I heard it from a guy at work(hungarian) and was stumped.
Vaccine requirements have been commonplace for decades now, and society has greatly benefited from it.
> The agency now advises that vaccinated people be tested for the virus if they come into contact with someone with Covid-19, even if they have no symptoms... “Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the agency’s director, said in an email to The New York Times. “Testing is widely available.”
As the CDC said above, absence of symptoms is not a sufficient indicator for a vaccinated person. If a vaccinated person is tested regularly, they can self-isolate upon a positive test result, since they can't rely on symptoms as a signal.
Absence of symptoms is not a sufficient indicator for the unvaxed either, so your argument falls apart.
Why isn't 90% reduction in ICU occupation and 70% reduction in chance of infection a sufficient argument for the public benefits? Just because it is not perfect, you'd rather let the country's hospitals overload and shut down?
In any case, vaccines don't really change the equation here. Testing for temperature and symptoms with COVID have proven to be ineffective because asymptomatic transmission in the early stages is a thing with COVID-19 even without vaccination.
I'm not sure that people who have chosen not to get vaccinated by this point are going to be the people who follow self-quarantine rules well.
That leaves the subset of non-immune people who are unvaccinated. If this hypothetical person is reckless (as your comment suggests), should they not have already been infected in the past 18 months? If they were not infected in 18 months, that suggests at least some ability to isolate and self-monitor.
With the delta variant every unvaccinated person will likely end up becoming infected at some point. These unvaccinated pockets are where the large spikes are coming from, especially for severe disease.
There is also the problem of having a sense of security when there is a large vaccinated population which causes the vaccinated population to resume a regular life. Those who are not vaccinated are now exposed to more people in general.
Example, my wife and I prior to being fully vaccinated interacted with less than 10 people in the 1.5 years. We had everything delivered and had someone do our Costco shopping and drop it off at our doorstep. With us both fully vaccinated we go to Costco for our groceries and indirectly come in contact with probably 50 people in a single visit.
If your employer paid you to come in early or stay late to get the vaccine -- why refuse?
Because I make my own decisions and my willingness to do something is inversely proportional to how hard it is being pushed on me.
Blind opposition is just as silly as blindly following the flow.
I think opposition to being pressured regardless of the reasons is quite normal and healthy behavior because in most of the life situations people are being pressured into something that benefits somebody else.
I don't know you but I find this hard to believe. Which side of the road do you drive on? Do you wear a seatbelt? How fast do you drive? Do you throw your trash in the bin or on the ground? Do you wear clothes outside or go out naked? Do you go around threatening to harm people around you or just keep to yourself?
Unless you are going to tell me otherwise, I would assume you don't actually behave according to how hard you've been pushed to follow those rules but instead behave in ways that provide you the most benefit.
Driving on the designated side of the road is something I see merit in, so I do it. It avoids vehicles hitting each other with a massive success rate (unlike the vaccine, or any of the other totalitarian responses to the mind virus COVID-19).
Likewise, I don't litter because it's a destructive habit for the planet and property. It's rude. It makes all of our lives worse. Those reasons are not rooted in "people push not littering", I avoid littering because I find it distasteful and wrong by my own measures.
And on and on.
https://odysee.com/@percep7ioneer:e/Julie-Ponesse-Ethics-Pro...
You have the option of getting tested weekly as long as your employer allows for that option. Getting a vaccine is probably less invasive and less of an annoyance then many things employers already require.
Became it's not about you, it's about everyone around you as a group. Those who are "comfortable catching the disease" are taking up a non-insignificant portion of available hospital beds, for instance, keeping health workers at their limit and preventing other people from getting treatment for diseases for which there is no accessible, free vaccine to take.
Organizations are expected to do what's best for the majority of those they represent. Sure, some people may not want to wear a helmet all day and would be willing to take the risk. But if one of those people gets impaled and dies it ends up putting a burden in everyone around them, from those picking up the skull pieces and the person's family to the investors.
It's this sudden surge of people needing ventilators and ICU beds that overwhelms the healthcare system of an area, causing repercussions on those that are sick for other reasons or get injured in accidents. For instance, in Italy cancer screenings on vulnerable subjects have been postponed for months, if not a year, due to the ongoing pandemic. Who knows how many people have now a higher risk of cancer due to hospitals and clinics being overwhelmed by COVID patients.
COVID vaccines are not sterilizing, but it's getting quite clear that they somewhat reduce the circulation of the virus too by reducing the viral load of symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers. At least they greatly greatly reduce the strain on doctors and avoid disruption of society at large, which is by itself a solid choice for mandating them.
The only possible choices here are to a. neglect the virus, with potentially serious social repercussions and loss of human lives, or b. resort to containment measures, which hamper the economy and are deeply unfair towards vaccinated people which objectively risk much less from the virus, or c. mandate vaccination, which is the only choice that avoids lockdowns and (most) deaths.
Also, vaccine mandates aren't anything new. That's how rubella, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, mumps, .. have become a thing of the past. They've been put in place on for decades, and no-vax movements have always been small and irrelevant before before social media came with droves of dubious content.
Your employment has been terminated. You many apply for unemployment benefits after our records show compliance.
Combating obesity is for the good of society.
Not quite what you posted but it certainty is similar.
The answer was because, healthcare was viewed as a collective good. Doctors did not treat a patient for their own benefit, they treated a patient for society's benefit.
And I see echoes of that here.
[1] - https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/fernande...
Seems like a silly "law". In mathematical terms, the longer the discussion, the more likely literally any comparison becomes. With a long enough discussion, every possible comparison being mentioned is a certainty.
https://www.wktv.com/content/news/These-5-states-have-less-t...
Then why are you smoking, or why are you eating fast food, why are you not exercising? These actions also put a burden on the health system. Why do covid and not tobacco? You know the answer already. This is not about anyone s health
It would have been smarter IMO (though probably not politically possible) to mandate the vaccine for specific age groups. If what they are trying to do avoid hospitalization, they should focus on the groups that are most susceptible. If you're under 40 for example you won't be required to take it but if you're older you would because the risk of a 40 something getting hospitalized is way higher than a 20 something.
Healthy, non obese young people do not get hospitalized by this disease at any significant rate at all, most aren't even aware they got it. If you're a healthy young person you have rationality on your side to object to a vaccine. Especially one that is trying to hit a moving target as covid is probably now another mutating flu that will be around indefinitely. Especially because you still pass on the disease vaccinated or not.
She's the perfect COVID victim. She got it twice, even though it was quite bad never had to be hospitalized and her health is now not worse than before.
As I have explained to several of my children's young friends "you are correct, COVID will probably not make you sick, but how will you feel when you find out you killed your grandmother by giving it to her".
You can also have the vulnerable population take precautions, not the young population. To be frank what kind of sick society pushes the young population to take on risk (novel vaccine incomplete clinical trials, rare heart inflammation issues documented, spike protein membrane break off issue, etc) to protect the elderly population? This is the first time societies have ever called for risking the youth for the elderly and it's not morally right.
And you're comparing a very small risk for the youth (getting a vaccine) versus a very large risk for the elderly.
They're your grandparents though, so I guess that's your decision.
The at-risk can get vaccinated - healthy youth don't get hospitalized - there are antibody and drug therapeutics available - youth don't need to risk novel vaccine adverse affects (they are documented - they are more prevalent in young than old) - you still spread it equally significantly vaccinated or not - the vaccine does not give robust coverage against new strains - natural immunity gives far more robust coverage against new strains than the vaccine (almost suggesting exposure for the low-risk is a better societal outcome).
Hand waving "all youth must get vaccinated" is not a rational course of action.
It's your grandmother. You can choose how to treat her.
Also, the immunization provides more robust immunity than having had Covid.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...
Resisting this surge of authoritarianism is going to take more than just the unvaccinated standing up for each other. We need the vaccinated to say no and to refuse to comply with any orders for certificates or to pay fines.
You know, “resist” – wasn’t that the recent call-to-arms that got the orange fascist out of office?
This type of mandate does the opposite. Probably because, if you look at the actual risks and data from other countries, the difference in sickliness between the vaccinated and unvaccinated is sufficiently small in absolute terms, and the level of staffing at hospitals assuming healthcare workers are not forced out of their jobs sufficiently good, that the relative cost increase wouldn't work as a form of coercion. And it's now all about the coercion, not about health.
However, the vaccine does prevent spread.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...
To put it plainly, problem with COVID-19 is that it makes your own immune system damage your body as it scrambles defenses, confused. With vaccine, much less so.
1. You got sick and now you have antibodies but your internal organs, like lungs are scarred. You'd have likely avoided some if not all of that damage if you were vaccinated.
2. Your immune system might be targeting parts of the virus that are less universal across virus' mutations so it gives you less or little immunity against mutants. mRNA vaccine is specifically targeting the spike protein which so far has been unchanged enough for vaccines to be more or less effective against mutations.
It’s really not something you want in your country or state. See what happened to Italy, India, Brazil, or is currently happening in overseas French territories, it’s a horrible situation to be in.
It's not just about whether you're willing to get hit on the head, it's about an employer's duty of care, and (if you just look at it cynically) the disruption to work caused by an incident that could have been prevented if someone took appropriate measures.
Why do you think it doesn't prevent spread? While breakthrough infections make all the news, the vaccine does lessen the chance of catching COVID if exposed. Less people catching COVID, less spread.
I'm curious about this. I understand "doesn't prevent all spread", but surely it prevents notable amounts of spread by reducing the amount of people walking around with high viral load, reduced hospitalization, herd immunity, and so on.
Citation needed. This contradicts the most recent research and information available, and all one must do is a quick search to turn up dozens of published papers on this topic. The vaccine reduces the transmission of COVID, and that is an important public health goal.
https://archive.is/fCv5F (National Geographic) https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-ri...
That's why states with higher vaccination rates are seeing less spread than states with low vaccination rates.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/highly-vaccinated-states-keep-w...
No, it doesn't absolutely prevent spread, but that's a ridiculous standard (often used to assure a certain rhetorical outcome rather than to shed light on the subject).
The very worst estimates of the vaccines efficacy rate against the Delta variant sit at 30-50% for various measures. People on this forum are ecstatic about improving systems by 2-3% on the regular, and here is a free and easy measure that measurably reduces the mortality rate of yourself and those around you and we are _still_ arguing about it.
I used to think much more highly of the quality of discussion on here.
Well, it does reduce spread, right?
That said,
> Join the feedlot if you want but I will not, I have been doing just fine as my own master, I need not the yoke of protection, certainly not from the feds.
One of the other motivations policymakers have in promoting vaccination is that in many places hospital capacity is dangerously reduced due to the influx of covid cases.
ICUs are full, people are dying from stupid preventable shit because they couldn't get care, and from acquaintances' anecdotes staff are burning out at a ridiculous pace
Would you like to have access to healthcare when you need it?
Preventing spread is not the only reason, it also reduces the severity of the illness if you get it, and in any case vaccines do also reduce spread insofar as a vaccinated carrier's viral load is likely to reach a lower maximum for a shorter period of time
If you are in decent health, you will likely be OK. I got it this year, and it was rough for a week at home. I got letter from Dr. which states I have the antibodies and have recovered.
"Why must I go the speed limit if it doesn't prevent an accident? Why wear a seat belt if it doesn't prevent injury? Why have airbags if they don't prevent death?"
There are no guarantees in life (death and taxes, notwithstanding). The bottom line is that vaccines significantly reduce spread.
> I am comfortable catching the disease and even comfortable dying from it (the numbers are vastly on my side)
The argument being that you have a slim chance of having a severe reaction to COVID?
You have an even slimmer chance of a severe reaction to a vaccine. Why not get vaccinated?
Honestly, I'd put my money on it being in the organizations best interests long term if the two older employees did leave them in a rut. A lot of times it's good to purge these types of places of the cruft left behind by legacy.
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 vaccination+boosters soon.
The writing on the wall is that the 'booster' is being repackaged as a 'series' of vaccines. The health authorities and pharma are going to modify and approve vaccines for endless mutations. Will these be independently tested? I don't expect so, despite using the novel mRNA platform. The end game is to treat Covid vaccines like annual (or semi-annual) flu vaccines. Moderna is already packaging both together [2]. Except flu vaccine is not mandated (yet). There is a LOT of money to be made in mandatory vaccine mandates. Think how easy it would be to grow rich if everyone had to use your products, you had no competition, and the government indemnified you against any responsibility for harm. It's hard to see how this stops. The pandemic is a gift for technocratic-authoritarians everywhere.
Here's a prediction. In a few years, if the people don't stand up against this, the pandemic will not be 'over' politically. Nominally 'free' Western governments will have become de facto CCP-style management firms. We will be required to comply with ongoing health directives from the central authorities for vaccination to prevent further restrictions. Our compliance will be monitored via digital passes (or onerous paper-work for the poor). Our employment and freedom of movement will depend on our compliance. Those who disagree and are foolish enough to say something will find themselves censored (for health disinformation) and fined (or imprisoned [3]). Traveling to see grandma without having gotten the latest booster will risk quarantine.
So, if you're pro-mandates, I invite you to come back in a couple of years and ridicule me and this warning if it's wrong (if it hasn't been scrubbed from the internet). I hope you're right! I wonder what you'll say if you're wrong? Maybe post your predictions for posterity.
[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/virus-czar-calls-to-begin-read... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/world/australia/new-zeala..., https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/01/austr... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/01/austr...
Or civil war. Also possible.
What are your reasons to refuse a vaccine? Weren't you vaccinated as a child for polio & chicken pox? Why is this vaccine a hill to die on? Thanks.
There are some other reasons, but those are purely related to political situation in my homeland.
This is not true. They got emergency authorization, but had to go through the same test phases as with normal authorization and will eventually get full authorization. This is not really different than in the USA and does not make it a 'test vaccine'.
Also I was vaccinated in the EU and I did not have to sign any papers or 'take full responsibility for any side effects' in any way, nor did anyone else I know that was vaccinated in the EU. This may be the case in your country (I'd be interested to know which country that is), but it is certainly not a EU wide requirement.
1) If you want to get vaccinated, get vaccinated.
2) If you don’t, don’t.
3) If you go to the hospital with a COVID infection, your care is covered by insurance if you are vaccinated. If you are not, your care is not covered by insurance.
This allows people to make decisions about their bodies, while also fending off the two main arguments I see for why everyone should be vaccinated. Those arguments are:
1) Unvaccinated people are hosts for mutations which can break through vaccines. Since we are already going to be doing yearly updates to this vaccine a la flu vaccines, this is not a concern to those who want to be vaccinated as they will get fresh protection each year.
2) Hospital beds are being filled with COVID patients, thus blocking people with e.g. heart attacks, car crash injuries etc. from getting care. With my plan, the unvaccinated will be disincentivized to go to the hospital to get COVID care, thus freeing these beds up. Again, this respects personal choices.
But forcing people to do something to their body? Not cool with me. Also not logically consistent with being pro-choice, which most of my pro-mandate (anti-choice) friends are.
We need to get back to normal, continuing with our previous approach wasn't working, so we have to do something. This seems like a healthy compromise on personal choice and doing what's right for society. What would be a better balance?
The fact that this sentiment already exists in America (via private insurance and out-of-network costs) is absolutely abhorrent.
Citizenry should never be disincentivized from seeking out healthcare.
I am proposing a more direct penalty, which is only put into effect if:
1) you don’t get vaccinated
2) you get COVID
3) you get treatment at the hospital for COVID
The current penalty proposal (getting fired) happens at step 1. I do not agree with that.
In a socialized healthcare system, my penalty would be the same. Instead of your insurance company doling out the penalty (withholding payment), it would be your government, but the effect is the same.
I do not want to force people to do something they don’t want to do to their bodies, and I do not want others to suffer for the unvaccinated’s choices. Therefore, if you decide not to get vaccinated, you pay for your own healthcare if you go to the hospital for COVID treatment.
Personal choice comes with personal responsibility. But personal choice should still be allowed.
Not every anti-covid-vax person is anti-other-vax. The mRNA vaccine is novel. Many believe its long-term safety profile is TBD. They think comparing vaccines with decades of safety data to ones with months is apples to oranges. They may also believe that Covid is not very dangerous to their demographic and don't like the risk/benefit calculation. They may also not trust the pharmaceutical industry and its influence on global health policy. The indemnifications of liability may give them pause to accept all the risk of side-effects. The censorship of contrary opinions on media may also affect their willingness to believe everything they are being told about the safety, efficacy, and necessity of the vaccines.
"Anti-vax" has become a convenient political weapon. It's important to unpack what it means and who is using it and why.
> some believe mandates are illegal and constitute government tyranny
This isn't a vaccine mandate. You are free to choose to be tested or vaccinated. Do you feel being forced to make this choice is tyranny, if so how bad do things have to get before the good of society becomes more important than your personal choice?
We don’t allow people to make personal choices to commit murder, or to drive drunk, or even to drive at all without licenses.
You can drive without a license.
I feel that forcing an uncomfortable nasal swab test is being used as a means of punishment, and not based on science. If it was just saliva I wouldn't feel that way.
What is the 'good of society' and who decides it? In a pluralistic society there is valid disagreement about which are the goods (plural) of society. It seems you don't agree.
This makes as much sense as a family member I have who wont wear his seat belt. He admits that seat belts save lives and greatly improve safety, but won't wear his out of spite because "the government shouldn't force me to do it". Imagine deliberately choosing to amplify the danger of driving, every time you drive, purely on principle to "Oppose Tyranny."
- I already had long covid (lasted 14 months), and don't want the vaccine to cause a relapse. It did exactly that to a family member who also had long covid, and she's still not better. It's just anecdotal but I've seen on longcovid forums multiple people claiming the vaccine CAUSED their longcovid.
- I don't believe CDC recommendation that increasing antibody titers through vaccination offers better protection against the virus than convalescent immunity through prior infection. Antibody titers are just one aspect of immunity and BCells make antibodies when exposed to a virus again. Actually I'd be worried about training my immune system with only one part of the virus, it's possible that would hurt my robust immunity against variants, not help it.
- CDC is dishonest with numbers by not tracking mild/non-hospitalized breakthrough cases. There is no reason not to track them. From the UK Gov on Page 12... 37 of 73 deaths from Delta variant are vaccinated: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... According to the CDC and media such numbers of deaths among vaccinated would be statistically impossible.
- FDA not approving an inactive virus vaccine is BS. It's a monumental failure of the US government if they want a high % of people vaccinated to only offer DNA/RNA vaccines that are nothing like traditional vaccines people receive as children. China's Sinopharm works at preventing death and is just inactive virus. If required to take a vaccine I'd travel to another country to take that. Actually I'd even pay $10k to have an inactive virus vaccine imported if it prevented me from being discriminated against.
- If there was such a thing as "misinformation" then it should be openly mocked, ridiculed and contested with facts. What's happening now with censorship is unprecedented - we even need a dedicated news site to keep track of it: https://reclaimthenet.org/ . Organizations like the EFF should be presenting legal challenges for many of these things but it seems like everyone has gotten on the "misinformation" bandwagon. Doing that will lead to authoritarianism. Health policy should not be political, but opposing forced medical procedures is a fundamental human right, no exceptions.
Also, since you mentioned Polio and chicken pox, I don't consider those the same because they are not RNA vaccines. All my issues with taking a covid vaxx would be solved if only the FDA approved Sinopharm/Sinovac so I could take an inactive virus vaccine. Instead I'm losing my job soon.
Also, the fda has a perfect track record for only approving safe treatments, so why worry?
I will say, however, you’ve been incredibly dismissive and condescending, at times even insulting throughout this entire thread, up and down the page, even as someone who is pro-vaccine, I wouldn’t consider you “safe”. So your offers comes off as more gaslighting than anything else.
Otherwise, my message is consistent. Vaccination is a civic duty and one that is good for society. We need to be vaccinated. If a person wishes to reach out to me, I do not judge them based on differences of opinions.
I appreciate honest dialogue, and again, I’m vaccinated and believe overall the medical community is a net positive for society, but you are neither being genuine nor non-judgmental. You’re so far in your own ideology and echo chamber that you don’t even realize how far apart you are from those who don’t see everything through the same lenses you do.
Regardless, thanks for the input, and have a good weekend.
Within one year there appears to be myocarditis at a rate of 16 COVID deaths per 1 myocarditis case. To my understanding this rare side effect appears to occur within be first two weeks post shot, while the body metabolizes the mRNA and other components of the vaccine. Myocarditis also occurs with some other viral infections, and is concerning though not as concerning as the effects of COVID.
After that time period, you have immune response to the spike components. If that is associated with long term side effects, one would anticipate similar immune responses after the virus itself.
I am aware there is a claim that everyone with the vaccine dies in two years, based on rodent studies.(rodents live 18 months). Beyond that I'm not sure what information is out there regarding longevity. I would be happy to review sources you may suggest.
Do you have the numbers on the other side effects as well? Also do you have the myocarditis cases and other side effects past 1 year?
Just to be clear, I don't think everyone is going to die in a couple years.
Is that age stratified? E.g. in 18-29y/o males where myo/pericarditis risk is highest? With and w/o commodities would be helpful in the risk benefit calculus as well.
There is broad consensus that covid will turn into a cold/flu like illness once our bodies have built a strong enough immune response.
I agree with the consensus about Covid. I don't agree that means we won't have a permanent 'VaxPass' system in place serving as the camel's nose for a CCP-style social credit system based on health compliance. I wonder what you thought about the Patriot Act after 9/11 or Snowden's leaks? 20 years later would you say that all blew over?
The OSHA requirement will hang around, but people won't be freaking out about it because it will be normal. Within two years there will be a childhood COVID vaccine that is safe and effective and it will be required for school attendance like all the other shots.
All the people freaking out about the vaccine/mask requirements will have matured out of it or will find something else to be outraged about.
If I'm wrong, I will come back and say I was wrong. :-) I may lose an internet point or two.
I've recovered from COVID and stand against vaccine mandates.
Edit: Apparently this is new information to people: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...
>The vaccines offer better protection against variants than having had COVID and recovering.
The cost/benefit overall is much more complicated than this simple statement.
for example: how are you personally, materially harmed by taking the vaccine?
that would be the cost
The benefits:
Unknown increase in immunity against alpha strain
Unknown increase in immunity against variant strains
...
The Costs:
Chance of currently known adverse effects
Chance of unknown adverse effects specific to vaccination of people with prior immunity.
Some recent data [1] suggests that those with prior covid infection 13X lower chances or reinfection with delta than those with 2 vaccine doses. If this is accurate, it begs the question of how much benefit is gained by vaccination on top of existing immunity in comparison to to the rare but known side effects.
https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...
For some with naturally acquired immunity, Both costs and benefits are amazingly small!
If you are a healthy 18 year old (infection fatality 1/100,000)[1] w/o vaccine, plus have previously acquired immunity 13X better[2] than a vaccine 90+% effective, you are talking about about 1/ 10s of millions of chance of death or severe complications IF you are infected. This easily puts it in competition with the more serious vaccine complications.
Looking at just two aspects for this hypothetical individual, you could weigh
1/10 million chance of death with no booster vaccine shot VS 17/100,000 chance of bells palsy[3] and a 60% chance of fever, chills and headache.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0 https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on... https://www.fda.gov/media/144413/download
>Currently available information is insufficient to determine a causal relationship with the vaccine
is all your evidence for a non-negligible cost this flimsy?
Similar nonzero observations have been made in other national studies with sufficiently large samples.[1]
Some countries have added additional content around it to the prescribing info [2].
Scientific consensus is that the risk is clearly is lower than covid.
Another rare but acknowledged side effect is mycarditis.
We can quibble about the rates but they do exist.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-s...
https://www.aappublications.org/news/2021/06/10/covid-vaccin...
An analysis looking at the trial data puts it at 14-18/100k higher than the expected baseline
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
A analsys from the previously linked lancet study had a muck larger sample ~500k, but different collection methods and found smaller but nonzero results
>The age-standardised difference for the incidence compared with the background population was 41·5 (95% CI 11·7 to 71·4) for CoronaVac and 17·0 (−6·6 to 40·6) for BNT162b2, equivalent to an additional 4·8 cases per 100 000 people vaccinated for CoronaVac and 2·0 cases per 100 000 people vaccinated for BNT162b2.
Most if not all the vaccine trials saw small increases <1% in serious adverse events in the treatment arm
Here you go: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915
My only stipulation is that if you say you had it, you need to have an antibody test to prove it, and if the test is negative, you need a vaccine.
Once government gets power, it doesn't give it back.
We're pushing closer to 2 Americas, one with freedom and one with vaccine mandates
And between the left complaining about disenfranchisement and the right complaining about voter fraud the elected representative holds less legitimacy in the eyes of the "I didn't vote for them" minority in any given district.
Look at the crazy things totalitarian governments do to keep marginalized 10-30% religious and ethnic minorities from causing instability. A pissed off group of similar size in a western country that isn't willing to stoop that low is a civil unrest bomb waiting to go off.
And your argument is that by the time the onerous regulation becomes unnecessary everyone will be used to it.
Kind of like how the patriot act was there for so long we all just became numb to the constant surveillance, the nude airport screenings etc.
EDIT: I'm pro seatbelt just in case that needed clarifying
I guess we have Elizabeth Dole to thank in part for near ubiquitous air bags and seatbelts.
I hate to think how many would die every year without them.
In the 1990s, more.
Except in the highest speed crashes frontal airbags are mostly redundant for belted in passengers (the first S in SRS is there for a reason), especially in this age of seatbelt pre-tensioners.
Side curtain airbags are far more helpful these days.
Yes I'm pro motorcycle helmet.
Occupational safety regulation is typically targeted towards employers, not employees. This mandate actually flies in the face of that standard and the OSHA charter.
Maybe think of the healthcare professionals so burnt out and quitting because people are so indignant to get the shot and end up taking valuable hospital space. I’d take forcing these hold outs (and trampling on their fREeDoMs) to get the shot in exchange for a functioning national healthcare system any day.
Keep on goose stepping…
If everyone put themselves above society the world would be a much better place.
And yes, if everyone who was unvaccinated went out today and got the vaccine, the COVID infection rate would drop precipitously.
You clearly don't value your liberty. (Maybe you don't even understand what it means, given your mockery.) Liberty refers to your right to govern yourself. If you would rather be governed by unelected administrative agencies, you'll be just fine in the new normal.
The inconvenient truth may be that as society becomes more interconnected, the less objective freedoms we have because we're trying to scale humanity and reap the collective benefits. Again, I'm completely ok with that because even in software, we have standards that software must abide by in order to interoperate efficiently. You can't just say "I don't want to conform the society's standards" yet reap the benefits the collective has provided.
I'm content with my world view, maybe it's you that needs to look outside of yourself and see what everyone is actually trying to do here (outside of this immediate situation, I mean the species as a whole).
What you're describing sounds like the happy path to techno-totalitarianism. You're only saying what you said before, that you'll be fine ("completely ok") with that outcome. Will you be content when you have to present digitally signed 'papers' to participate in what today we would consider normal functions of life? It sounds like the answer is 'yes', because you see it as the cost of 'scaling humanity', whatever that means.
People who use phrases such as "wearing a mask tramples on my freedom". These "freedoms" aren't actually freedoms. They're made up to mean "things I don't like" and in no codified law both common or contemporary.
I'm not describing anything other than the complete lack of perspective and, frankly, will for these people to operate in a society which needs their cooperation in order to function efficiently. These people are more like a virus than anything.
I already have to show physical "papers": passport, license, social security card, birth certificate, etc. Why should I be worried about "digital" papers? Again, completely delusional conspiracy that has no basis in reality.
As far as delusional conspiracy theories, what's your opinion on social credit systems, central bank digital currencies, and intra-national passports? Last I checked those are on the menu in China and coming to a democracy near you.
completely, 100% immunize? no.
Unless you choose to live in the woods disconnected from everything and everyone, you are directly benefitting from the modern and civilized society we live in. If you want to continue participating in and benefitting from it, you'll need to cooperate from time to time. The government is giving you an easy out here - don't want the vaccine? Don't participate in a specific portion of societal life (working at a company with 100+ employees.) It's pretty simple.
Any argument that getting a free vaccine is even a sacrifice is a slap in the face of anyone who has died of a communicable disease or can't access a vaccine today.
I also can't help but recognize that the people who are always railing about any perceived loss of liberty do so very selectively. What have you done, and where have you spoken out about abortion rights being trampled on in Texas? Not saying that you can't choose your issues like everyone else does, but don't pretend that you are defending "liberty".
While the arguments against covid vaccine mandates are similar to pro abortion arguments, the similarities are only superficial. The arguments are slightly different because the circumstances are and this is where the comparison breaks down.
I see a familiar pattern with sentiments like this: showing lots of hand-wringing over civil liberties, but seemingly no concern over all the people who have died and who have been incapacitated. Those people had a right to not be exposed to a deadly virus.
unless you count "not getting your way" as evidence that nobody is concerned
just consider the possibility that, that other people consider other things to be more harmful to individuals and society, and thus more important to prioritize when interests compete
Suicide killed 44,834 Americans in 2020.
Covid killed half a million Americans from March 2020 to March 2021.
Are you sure you're really as concerned about public health as you claim to be?
I guess I would look at what is actually practically limiting you living your best life; avoid too much extrapolation on the rapid societal changes that are certainly not limited to covid vaccine mandates. Our techno-capitalist-oligarchy social structure is changing everything.
Regardless of whatever metric you use to define “freedom” all of those countries rank higher than the US pre-Covid for “freedom”[1][2][3]. If your argument is that those countries are fundamentally “less-free” post-Covid due to public health measures, I don’t see the data to support that. To imply that all those countries will shift from the principles that drive them pre-Covid to a police-state post-Covid is very unlikely given the prior right?
As someone who’s lived in one of those countries and the US, I can say that the tendency of the US to argue over every small issue, even if it is overwhelmingly common sense and beneficial, takes away a lot of focus on the big issues that the country needs to solve.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
[2] https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table
[3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-i...
Linking to pre-Covid sources is a bit like linking to a pre-Hiroshima encyclopedia entry about nuclear energy.
> F**g Somewhere!
You never know what goes through someone's head or whether a previous injury will lead to an accident.
I'm only half joking, this could actually help me :D
I don't look forward to our health-police state we apparently decided was a great idea. Well we didn't decide, because that would have required congress to pass a law. This was just some old man skipping congress, likely knowing this will be overturned by the Supreme Court, but desperately needing to change the national debate away from Afghanistan.
If you eat sugar, you don't endanger others' health. If you don't get vaccinated, you put others at risk. See the difference?
I'm never sure how to take objections like yours, because there are certainly a few different things to discuss. Is your objection to the government's role in this (such that you'd be fine with private employers enforcing whatever mandates they wish)? Or are you objecting to the mandatory vaccination (in which case, what do you have against spitting into a vial once a week)?
Or are you more of a technocrat, concerned that the ROI (in terms of, say, QUALYs, as economists like to put it) gained through these policies isn't worth the cost?
All strike me as viable arguments, but it's always hard to tell which one is being put forward.
One nice benefit of going more remote is that we can hopefully "personalize" the cold/flu experience vs. making it a de facto office-wide experience, and without the bizarre politics around vaccines/masks/sick-days/etc.
There has got to be some genetic component where others have it way worse than I do, and yet still others skate by even better than I do. We know far less about biology than we think we do.
[1] https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/your-cold-wont-go-away
And to be clear, I'm fully Covid vaccinated and get flu shots religiously. But when an impersonal institution is coercing and coaxing people into injecting something into their body that they don't want, I'm out. I won't vote for those politicians, I won't work with those companies, I won't cooperate with those federal agencies.
It's weird, it's creepy, it gives my lizard brain a bad vibe that screams "Get Away From Them FAST!" You can go on all you want about QALYs and ROIs and R0s. But that's about as convincing as a man with a pencil mustache and a windowless van explaining to me why he's qualified to babysit my kids. I'm sorry, I won't do it. I won't eat the bugs.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/school-immunization-exe...
[0] https://calmatters.org/health/2020/09/california-doctor-scho...
When I was in school (both K-12 and college), my schools just accepted a paper document (trivially forgeable) that stated what vaccines I had received and when.
I think your point--which is spot-on--is that a lot of the outraged reactions appear to be from people who are unaware (or unwilling to acknowledge) the very long history of compulsory vaccination (and who probably had such vaccines themselves as children).
That's not to say that any mandatory medical intervention shouldn't be treated with serious consideration, but the unwillingness to acknowledge precedent is bizarre and, I suspect, to some degree dishonest.
For example, should flu vaccines be mandatory to attend school? Historically they have not been in any large degree (to my knowledge). If you look at the IFR for those age groups for flu (varies somewhat by strain) and covid, then you'll see that they are generally very close. So we have to ask what changed, because it doesn't appear to be the value proposition.
There's probably a reasonable debate to be had about requiring people to disclose vaccination status (but, again, significant precedent)--but I do think the hysterical reactions sound a bit funny when viewed as a reaction to being forced to spit into a cup once a week.
I think we agree that the debate is, as is, not very good. I might be making it worse by highlighting the least productive comments instead of engaging more selectively with the actually constructive ones, but, well...this is the Internet, right? :)
Second, two of the three available are still under EUA, and the one that is approved is of a new type of vaccine that became approved through a very unconventional route, which has some folks cautious. Those other vaccines you mention are well-established and have been proven over time and through clinical testing to be safe and effective. COVID vaccines have proven to be only effective at reducing reactions, but not very effective at reducing spread.
Note that a typical clinical trial lasts years[0] - phase II usually takes 2-3 years and phase III takes an additional 2-4 years. We've had these vaccines for less than one year; if this was a typical vaccine, it'd be only part-way through phase II trials.
And now it's mandated by the government; get this shot, some of which are using new technology, that has had shortened clinical trials or lose your livelihood (because, at $14k per infraction, I don't see many large companies bothering to offer testing as an alternative unless it's for the CEO or other executives; it's just too much liability for an easily-replaceable lower-wage employee).
> but the unwillingness to acknowledge precedent is bizarre
That's because your precedent isn't an exact match, and has had easy alternatives and ways to opt-out.
To your other point, the vaccines do reduce transmission, as far as I can tell (e.g. https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/mounting-evidence-suggests...).
Now, to be perfectly serious, I do think that any efforts at compulsory--or, as in this case, incentivized, since testing remains an alternative--medical measures exist in a tension between the utilitarian and the libertarian point of view. We should certainly be cautious about mandating any medical procedure, and do our best to preserve alternatives (like testing, or mask wearing, or by limiting mandates to as narrow a scenario as necessary).
But I don't think the debate is helped by getting the facts wrong.
I think this is a strawman argument as virtually everybody is aware of past childhood vaccine requirements and acknowledges that they existed for a long time.
What might make this Covid vaccination and decision process different from those in many peoples' eyes is that:
* Past vaccines took years of development and testing before being applied to the public and were not rushed through any approval process. Covid vaccines in contrast use a new technology, were rushed through the approval process in a political process, and in fact are still technically in clinical trials. To many people, not enough time has passed to see about any possible long-term health impacts, fertility problems, or other issues. And obviously, discussions of short-term health problems in social media are suppressed or minimized too. Personally, I would argue that trying to vaccinate all people (especially the young) for such a low individual risk is one of the most irresponsible risk-management decisions in human history.
* Dr. Fauci and other health experts have spent much of the last 18 months either lying (remember experts insisting that masks are pointless before doing a 180) or being wrong about many things. Is it a wonder that people don't trust them?
* The media is the boy who cried wolf. They spent the last 5 years hyperventilating about Orange Man to the point that anything they say now is viewed through a partisan lens. Sorry, but if public trust is frittered away on political motives, don't cry now that you're telling the truth this time.
* The medical establishment seemed desperately against even trying alternative medical treatments (HCQ, Ivermectin) due to the vaccines emergency use authorization being tied to no treatments being available. How would a normal person react to the idea that there's a possible alternative treatment from a cheap already tested drug? You'd express some hope and be willing to try it, but express doubts about the treatments due to the limited studies available that don't show good enough results. Instead, we get a pile of propaganda labeling a legitimate medical drug as only a "horse dewormer".
* The focus is not on health and safety (which should be the goal), but only vaccination. Millions of people have had Covid and have natural antibodies: why isn't Covid antibody testing a suitable substitute for vaccination? Has even one health leader recommended steps to lose weight and get some sunshine for instance despite the clear worse Covid health outcomes for fat people with Vitamin D deficiencies? Or take NYC's draconian vaccine requirements to visit a ball game as an example. You're not allowed to attend a game if you're not fully vaccinated, but you can walk from the ballpark to a vaccination clinic, get "the jab (TM)", and immediately go attend the same ballgame even though the science says you're not immune. Everything about public policy is oddly specific about urging vaccines and incredibly creepy right now.
As I noted elsewhere, in many jurisdictions it is, as is testing.
In fact, as the very article upon which you are commenting notes, under the new OSHA rules those who do not want to get vaccinated can simply take a test once a week instead!
I admit, some mornings I have a bit of dry mouth, but after my morning coffee I always have enough spit to hock a loogie into a cup. For science and the greater good.
No, they have always been against use of drugs that have not been shown useful. That is the job of the FDA. It seems you aren’t aware that they did approve some treatments? Didn’t really affect the vaccine development, since the two aren’t really that dependent: their goal is to promote the best option.
> Has even one health leader recommended steps to lose weight and get some sunshine for instance despite the clear worse Covid health outcomes for fat people with Vitamin D deficiencies?
Yes, they are surprising reluctant to engaging in victim-blaming. You aren’t the only person who heard these may be helpful; I think it was pretty widely popularized since the beginning that poor health is a risk factor.
People keep acting surprised that other people would say no and also object to not having a choice.
Then there's the immunocompromised people who react poorly to vaccines and programs such as this are trying to corral them into a one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination program.
They were also more numerically effective at keeping people from turning into a carrier, but they had the benefits of decades of tuning.
650,000 people have died and that's with taking some pretty extreme precautions (for what we consider extreme anyway). It's not just the old or the infirm. Healthy people in their 20s and 30s. Toddlers. We have gone to war over much less.
We have a ton of safety regulations that govern how we build homes and infrastructure, how we plan for fires and natural disasters, how you live your daily life, and pretty much anything else because they are effective and do save lives. This one seems reasonable (mandatory COVID vaccination - influenza vaccines are significantly less effective and in general the people that die from it society seems to be ok with).
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 pondering.
As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates.
But as-is, normal people who took precautions to get vaccinated are being hurt by anti-vaxxers when they get an unrelated illness or injury (car wreck, infection, etc) and then suffer worse outcomes (including death) just because the ICU beds are full of people who could have literally just decided not to be in them (given how effective the vaccine is at preventing hospitalization).
Our society is far too interconnected for almost anything to not at least indirectly affect someone else, even if the first-order effects are well-limited to "just you".
Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
This depends on where you're at. Where I live we currently are not near capacity in hospitals or ICUs. There isn't an issue and we are not near one.
Should so many be mandated or highly pushed to get vaccinated because of a few hot spots that affect a small part of the population? This is a question I've heard.
Note, there is a difference between believing (or knowing) the positive effects of vaccines, being a proponent, and getting one yourself.
This is about forcing others against their will do to something. I fear this will come back to bite our nation in the future. Both in terms of the willingness to force people and the repercussions that will come from it.
Can you extend this logic to other groups beyond "unvaccinated"? For example, imagine the ICU beds that would be unoccupied if people who smoke tobacco and drink alcohol chose to "die at home". As a society, we know both of these behaviors are detrimental to health, and yet there are people occupying ICU beds because of their decision to use those 2 substances. Slippery slope and whatnot.... health insurance premiums would also be a lot cheaper if my group health insurance plan wasn't subsidizing treatment for all my coworkers with lung cancer, emphysema, and liver failure.
This argument falls flat when we do not require mandatory weight loss from other citizens. The point of the vaccine is not to protect oneself from taking up an icu bed, but to protect other people.
In the same way, driving while drunk is tremendously dangerous to yourself but is also a danger to others.
Communicable disease and taking reasonable precaution isn't that different. This one is interesting because its virality and fatality rates are apparently on the cusp of what society as a whole agrees are worth doing something about.
Helmet laws for motorcycles? I'm generally against them for the reason that it doesn't affect others (except in really weird edge cases) and I don't think we should mandate people risking their own lives (Except in situations where people don't realize the danger they are in)
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.
Somewhere. One one side, we don't allow you to shoot anyone you see to protect yourself against COVID. On the other we don't allow people with COVID to intentionally infect people (even sneezing on them in an obviously purposeful way implying you have COVID is getting punished.) So we draw it somewhere.
> Just that we slow down, think about it, and understand the tradeoff.
No. I have no desire to slow down. It's killing people now. It's delaying cancer treatments now. It's causing people to die of burst appendixes because they cannot get treatment now. If we need to revisit, fine. But it has to be after taking action.
So we draw the line somewhere between 40k and the number of deaths from covid? Note, it's not 650K in the US, those are deaths after all the social distancing, mask wearing, etc and more recently vaccinations. The true number would have been in the millions just in the US if these precautions weren't taken. Actually the IFR/CFR would be at a higher rate than now because hospitals would have been completely pummeled so people who now survive due to hospital care would die at home or in an ambulance waiting for a bed. Not to mention long covid, organ damage etc. The economy would suffer even with everything open.
Are you saying that you would draw the line at more than millions dead in a year in the US for covid because we draw the line higher than 40k per year for the flu?
If anything can be learnt from this, I think the argument can be that we can do more to combat flu every year, make it socially necessary for sick people to stay at home or mask up in subways etc.(like in Japan), increase testing, increase uptake of vaccines, new better MRNA vaccines etc.
Why do we need to draw the line there? Why not at 10k or 1m? It seems like you are advocating we arbitrarily pick the number to not include the flu but to include covid without providing a good reason.
Also, society has not really drawn the line. Politicians and unelected bureaucrats have chosen for us.
Which itself is an epidemic. There are multiple levels of cellular automata at work here, riding on each other like layers of foam.
The Meme of COVID being all of the AJ talking points. The antivaxxers are a surrogate host, they act in symbiosis. The mind virus and the cellular virus reinforce each other.
Sometimes?
Where we draw that line is very important, for sure.
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.
We aren't going to wipe out COVID. It's here to stay. From people to animals. At some point most of us will likely get it. There has been a fair amount written on this.
If we look at past times we had pandemics (e.g., pandemic of 1889-90) we can see patterns. There the virus hit people and was bad the first year and gradually was less and less until they stopped tracking it. When we get hit the first time we get some immunity. For the virus from that pandemic it happens today as kids. Antibodies fade over time (while T cells remain). That means our nose and throat can easily get reinfected but after the first time we usually just get a simple cold (and first time is usually a simple cold, too).
That situation moved from pandemic to endemic. The same will happen here.
Yet, every year ~40k people in the US die from cold/flu.
We can't stop it. How we treat people along the way will say a lot about us and impact our relationships once we hit the endemic stage.
We'll get to endemic without or without the vaccine. The vaccine will help. Forcing people is going to create enemies and the side effect will live beyond the pandemic.
Just a thought to ponder.
Associating public health mandates with (EDIT correcting typo) "forcing people is going to create enemies" is the opposite of being respectful of people.
Best wishes to you.
The idea that enemies are made by enforcement of a public health mandate, and that that enemy creation is evidence of poor example of how to treat people and will redound....elides the rather obvious point that those who refuse to volunteer for vaccination in this context are exhibiting...poor treatment of others. In any kind of social context it is grotesque sociopathy. To accede to this notion of "enemy creation" is irrational and cowardly.
Cheers.
What we are witnessing in a distrust of non-demogogic power that has been instilled into the Republican base over the last 40 years. The multigrade attack on intellectualism, science, logic. That is like your opinion man. The same qualities of Fascism, the hero worship, the sacrifice of the individual, emotionally charged thinking, all of that is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the tools of the enlightenment.
If folks had better understanding of how vaccines work from a mathematical/statistical level their internal framing of "should I get it or not" would be altered. It isn't whether this is a benefit to me directly, but is it good for the heard. For society as a whole.
Thinking of the heard is socialist. Self-centered, me vs the world is another Republican strategy. All of them actually weaken the individual vs the state and the corporation.
Choice, responsibility, individualism are great concepts, but they have been perverted into a form of control that divides and distracts.
Ironically, because COVID vaccinated individuals still transmit the virus, the individualistic argument now favors the vaccine. Since anyone vaccinated is going to reduce social distancing and try to “return to normal,” they will spread the virus. So now the individualistic argument is that you should get the vaccine because the virus will become endemic and on a long enough timeline you will become infected.
Obesity is not highly contagious. Obesity can't mutate easily.
But if the vaccine protects you, and you have it, why do you care if I get it or not? By definition, the only people I could hurt are myself or other unvaccinated people.
Because every infection is a chance to evolve a new variant that my (and my family's) vaccination does not protect against.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
Given that 10% of the population has been exposed at this point that makes likelihood of dying in the young age ranges extremely low. So many commonplace things people do in these age ranges have a vastly higher chance of causing death.
I wonder how many lives we could save if we required every car to have a breathalyzer that has to be used to start the car, and maybe a second test once 2 miles have been driven.
Also, if you want to get technical, most of those car laws only apply to public roads. On a private road you can get away with far far more.
From June 1 2020 to the present Florida has had 203 deaths per 100k. New York has had 130 deaths per 100k. New Jersey has had 170 deaths per 100k.
From June 1 2021 to the present, Florida has 42 deaths per 100k, New York 7 deaths per 100k, New Jersey 9 deaths per 100k.
For the first ~10% of the pandemic in the US you were statistically safer in Florida than in New York or New Jersey. For the rest of the time you were statistically safer in New York or New Jersey than in Florida.
This is the issue with technocratic government: zero understanding of anything deeper than “if it works, do it!”
Time to roll up sleeves for your civic duty.
Australia is the future of the Western world.
If that exists, it existed before COVID, and vaccinations against COVID certainly haven't changed that.
> Social credit system
Are you referring to mandates? These have been a thing, in the U.S., for many decades
> exclude people from doing simple human things
Vaccine mandates have excluded people from things far more important than restaurants, such as education, for many decades. This is not new to COVID.
You seem to be arguing against a system that has existed for many, many years.
Even if they did, it’s pretty obvious that they have been dramatically increased in the last 18 months.
You seem extremely uninformed.
The only difference is there's a new vaccine that needs to be rolled out to everyone, as quickly as possible.
Most people get their mandatory vaccines as children, in a staggered way.
Because of the current situation, it's happening all at once, and the restrictions that enforce the vaccine are also being changed, based on the age of the people required to get the vaccine. What am I missing here?
If anything the restrictions people are putting in place to enforce the vaccine mandate have been less extreme. As workplace mandates get rolled out, this will become more even, as the right to work is comparable to the right to an education.
As I tried to communicate before, curtailing basic rights in order to enforce vaccinations for everyone is not new. The only difference is that these usually happen based on age, instead of happening to everyone, all at once.
"That was a relatively easy no for the court. In a 7-2 ruling in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, it decided that jurisdictions do have the right to require people to get vaccinated. Back then, the government was much more forceful about it, knocking down people’s doors to get them vaccinated, the New York Times says."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/10/republica...
Denying access to restaurants seems....timid? At least, in comparison.
I’m sure the argument falls apart in many other ways. You can probably find the counter arguments in the same Twitter thread where you found your talking points – just make sure to unhide the tweets containing them.
1. Is OSHA legal?
2. Is the mandate within OSHA's scope?
In terms of state level mandates, the Jacobson vs. Massachusetts ruling clearly applies.
Australia is taking it to the next level and using covid as an excuse. Do you believe that they will end their programs in 5 years when all of this is over?
>Are you referring to mandates? These have been a thing, in the U.S., for many decades
Vaccine passports are starting to be required to go to concerts, grocery stores, ball games, etc. If you do not do what the state wants you to do you will become a second class citizen with restrictions. This is similar to the social credit system in China.
>Vaccine mandates have excluded people from things far more important than restaurants, such as education, for many decades. This is not new to COVID.
No one is restricted from education. You can go to a private school or get an exemption.
since everybody has their own opinion on where that balance is, there will always be individuals unhappy with what decision makers decide
it is, of course, totally okay to have an opinion on that, but an opinion does not necessarily grant decision power, or even veto power, so ultimately you aren't the one who gets to decide what constitutes a right, and you aren't the one who gets to decide what constitutes a violation or an infringement of a right
I'm not trying to slam you here, because I am also not the one who gets to decide that -- I'm just one of hundreds of millions of Americans, the majority of which do not have a problem with this move
now, of course, if someone/you believes this move is an unconstitutional violation of rights, they/you can bring it to SCOTUS, who will let them/you know if they/you are right
and if SCOTUS does ultimately say that this specific mandate is unconstitutional, then of course I agree with you that such a decision should be respected unless and until We The People change the constitution, which would be okay, too
that framing does not reflect reality
if and when a SCOTUS ruling says that this specific mandate is a violation of constitutional rights, you will be correct
until then, you are not correct, by default
otherwise any random dude on the internet could just declare _anything_ a "right" and declare _anything_ an "infringement"
I still respect you as a person, though -- have a great day
I can’t keep repeating the same thing over and over again.
I can't keep repeating the same thing over and over again
Just to be clear, it absolutely does establish such rights in law and thereby grant them as legal rights. It may be that some of authors and ratifiers (and some current constituents) of the Constitution have a (quasi- or literally) religious belief about the metaphysical preexistence of and/or independent ethical universal necessity of exactly such rights (or a super- or subset of them) against any legitimate government, but that's...largely immaterial except in terms of arguments between people sharing such views as to what rights should be established in law, or social science analysis of why the particular rights chosen were established in the Constitution.
I think you'll find that most people who are okay with the laws you are referencing likewise disagree that those laws infringe free speech rights, rather, they view them as operating in a space outside of the proper conception of the right to free speech; the complexity isn't as much in the operation of rights as in the parameters of rights.
an alternate interpretation with the exact same implications might be "that right isn't absolute", which, yeah, I am okay with
ultimately it's just semantics that fails to meaningfully address GP's comment
If, as real property analogy, I have fee simple title to a parcel part of which is subject to utility easement, the utility company’s access within the scope of the easement is not an infringement of my right of exclusive control, it is outside of the scope of that right.
Similarly, most people who support laws that you see as “infringing” on the right of free speech who agree that a right with that name exists view the definition of the scope of that right more narrowly than the people who see the law as an infringement.
yet here I am, one of those people, telling you that yes, I do indeed view it as one
No, I haven't.
In fact, I’ve said nothing in this thread about that analogy (and nothing at all about it, IIRC, on HN except [in summary form] that it has fuck-all to do with the actual law, either now or when it originally appeared as dicta in an abomination of a decision.)
Nor have I said anything about what “most people” view as a “limitation” on a right. What I’ve said is about that most people who support a given law that others characterize as an “infringement” of the right do bot view it as an infringement, but as an act outside the scope of the meaning of the right.
> yet here I am, one of those people
Even if literally everything you said preceding this wasn't false, “one” ≠ “most”, except in a particular degenerate case where it is also “all”.
if I am understanding you correctly, you are saying there is a difference between society viewing something as outside the boundaries of a right, versus society viewing something as an allowed, permitted-by-society infringement on a right
if we assume that is true, then what are the implications to OP's post?
e.g. the vaccination mandate can be presented as either "outside the boundaries of the right" for whatever right those protesting the mandate cite, or an allowed, permitted-by-society infringement on that right
so what's the difference?
The whole idea of rights is that they cannot be violated, period. There's no reason to even have for example a UN Declaration on Human Rights if they can just be violated for Good Reasons™. Rights are absolute or they don't exist.
Rights are things reserved for individuals to hold unilaterally, sovereign over them, no democratic process or other consideration can take them away. That's the whole idea. That's at the core of the definition of the concept. Without that, the concept of rights doesn't exist.
Excessive consumption of soda and beer have negative health consequences, and taxing them could lower consumption.
It also doesn't have the contagious element that viruses do, but if you only care about the individual impact it's still a defensible position.
I can't help but think like your comment is more intended provoke heated responses than encourage constructive discussion.
But the ICU beds never got overwhelmed. In hospital treatment never failed.
The response then was "if you have a flu, call your GP who will just prescribe you the medicine over the phone". The exact same situation that most non-COVID patients have been in for months.
Heart disease kills 650,000 per year, but there is still a McDonalds and Taco Bell on every corner.
And yes, there are a large number of people who sue Cigarette manufacturers for their role in the deaths of these people with the attempt of completely destroying the industry.
A) Typically ban smoking indoors because the state has banned smoking indoors
B) Also typically provide areas for smokers outside the building in compliance with local regulations. Are those places generally outside? No. Is the onus of responsibility on the business should an employee smoke inside? No, the employee is the one that would face the consequences, including possible termination and/or criminal charges. A business doesn't have much in the way to worry about.
There is no such provision for the vaccine. You either need to get the vaccine to continue working there, get tested every week, or find a different job. This is also without taking into account two things:
1) While the testing is offered according to OSHA, with potential fines up to 14k per instance what are the odds that employers are actually going to offer that to their employees? You actually, as a business, face less fines for leaving a piece of paper in plain sight that has someone's SSN, Name, and Address than you do for not potentially following this regulation.
2) That we are also looking at good odds of the testing option going away. It's not an option for federal employees, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that it will be going away for those under this mandate in the near future.
Literal Nazi propaganda.
Strawmen don't need the vaccine either you know.
And federal law, state law, and often employer policies restrict exposing other people to your smoking in the workplace
The IRS can be in charge of making sure every American purchased at least one ADA approved toothbrush, submit your proof with your tax return.
We can give ration books for processed meat products - if you can’t choose wisely then the state will choose for you.
After I lose my job I plan to be a company of 1 working on my SaaS or doing contract work... but I'm not confident that restrictions won't get harsher the more that people get vaxxed. The vaccines will work less and less, and the unvaxxed will be blamed more and more, leading to them being treated as criminals.
At what point does the US government freeze my bank account? At 95%? 98% vaccinated? I'm planning to leave the country before then.
These mandates appear to completely neglect entire aspects of scientific consensus.
- You aren't required to get the vaccine, you can undergo weekly testing instead
Unlike yours, the study linked last in that comment has been peer reviewed.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
Vaccine antibodies bind more broadly to cover new variants, vs. antibodies from previous infection.
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915
So why is "accommodation" necessary?
Likewise, if the goal is to vaccinate the entire country, don't try to beat around the bush and have OSHA do it, actually mandate it.
I'm not in favor of vaccine mandates, I just hate when poeple tell me to my face "Oh well we need to do this because of A, B and C" where everyone knows it's really "We're doing this because it will accomplish X, Y and Z"
Like it or not, that is the system we have in the US.
Exactly. And that's why he shouldn't have tried.
I'm 29 and in good health. I know I'm much more likely to die from activities I enjoy like rock climbing, farm work, skydiving, driving my car, but I don't wan't my employer mandating I can't do those things. I have weighed the risks. I want to get covid eventually if I haven't already for better protection against future variants that could have worse survival rates for my age range (https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...) If I were older, I would choose to get the vaccine.
Also, people will say that I'm going to spread it to others. Well the CDC states that "preliminary evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people who do become infected with the delta variant can spread the virus to others" and recommends they wear masks! (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...) I suspect that if I get covid and quarantine, I'll be less likely to spread the delta variant than someone who is vaccinated after I recover (people who have had been vaccinated are 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with covid according to the science.org article I linked above)
The CDC dataset you cite above only reflects death, not the serious illness and disability ~30% of people end up with.
Yes, vaccinated individuals can spread COVID, but this is dramatically less likely if you are vaccinated.
You assume you’ll be less likely to spread delta because you’ll quarantine, but you ignore the fact that much of the transmission we see is from asymptomatic spread, before people even know they are sick.
All of the mental gymnastics, for what? Getting vaccinated is barely even an inconvenience and we have real proof from hundreds of millions of doses that it’s safe and effective.
The selfishness and unwillingness to cooperate for the greater good is mind blowing.
For anyone who doubts the prevalence of long COVID, it isn’t hard to find the growing pile of credible research -
The University to Arizona study is recent, and while it wasn’t an age specific study they cite 67% of people having symptoms after 30 days - https://news.arizona.edu/story/many-mild-covid-19-infections...
Chest CTs are abnormal in 75% of asymptomatic(!) COVID diagnosed individuals - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846889/
This is a year old, but for 18-34 year olds it cites 1 in 5 hadn’t returned to their usual state of health 2-3 weeks out… https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6930e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
If you get your shot, you are done. Stop worrying about the vaccination status or mask-wearing status of others. You are gonna get covid either way. But at least you won't have a chance of being hospitalized or dying.
Covid is here forever. We need to switch our messaging to learning to live with that and moving on with our lives. All this crap does is keep everybody living in fear and dividing us even more. End it!
People who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons. People for which the vaccine doesn't work. People who care about people who won't vaccinate. People in hospitals who have to take care for infected/sickened people.
Some people care.
Stop thinking with your ego.
>if I get covid and quarantine
will you indeed quarantine yourself per CDC recommendations if you find out you have been exposed?
how will you know you've been INFECTED?
will you indeed ISOLATE yourself per CDC recommendations if you find out you have been infected?
So is this a no-op for people who work from home exclusively? that seems like a pretty major thing to just gloss over
I can completely understand the risk analysis of someone who has already had Covid not wanting to get the vaccine based on the available data.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
I'm assuming it's not that difficult.
edit: besides you can just show a past test that said you were positive for covid
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 may now loose his foot. The nurses on this non-COVID floor are on a skeleton staff to shift resources to care for COVID patients, the majority of which are unvaccinated. Around the country, some hospitals are pausing "elective" treatments, like cancer surgeries due to the flood of unvaccinated critically ill COVID patients.
I almost wish that the anti-vaxxers would just stick to their science-rejecting principles and reject all health care, not just the vaccine. If they were to just die at home instead of clogging up the health care system unnecessarily, the vaccine would not be such a big deal.
Anecdotally I don't know of any physician I've met in person (my SO and most of her family are all physicians) who isn't vaccinated. I've heard of a couple through stories so it might be 1-2% in my 1st and 2nd level of connections? Meanwhile every single physician I've spoken to about it knows at least a handful of nurses who aren't vaccinated and cite pseudoscientific nonsense as the justification.
Nurses are great but the difference in bar to entry and education between a physician and a nurse is staggering.
Edit: Here is a source from a couple months ago citing 96% physician vaccination rate and <50% nurse vaccination rate: https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2021/06/28/covid19-va...
The point I was trying to make is that neither I, nor my roommate (the only other patient I've had a conversation with) realized exactly how bad of shape the hospitals were in until we showed up at the ER and experienced it in person. The relentless media coverage is easy to tune out after a while, but actually experiencing the effects of a COVID surge personally brings it home. I'm not sure how else to suggest someone experience a hospital as a non-patient..
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency...
It may not be the norm, but how unusual was it?
Emergency Rooms were scary and full before Covid!
https://people.com/health/u-s-army-veteran-dies-of-treatable...
https://www.ky3.com/2021/08/27/man-dies-waiting-icu-bed-fami...
Not saying this isn't happening, but the phrasing here is a little disingenuous - there are plenty of beds, just not enough doctors and nurses to staff them. And why is that? In many cases, it's because the doctors and nurses themselves refuse to take an experimental vaccine and are being furloughed or terminated.
There hasn't been a healthcare system that didn't break in the past year (well, assuming a functional one to start with.) Whereas, there have been groups of people who broke the system (the unvaccinated, including groups pre-vaccine) and those who didn't (the vaccinated)
And yes thay are "full" now because operational capacity has been significantly reduced.
>>"I almost wish that the anti-vaxxers would just stick to their science-rejecting principles and reject all health care, not just the vaccine. If they were to just die at home instead of clogging up the health care system unnecessarily, the vaccine would not be such a big deal."
Comments like this are just pure disgraceful and disgusting. What sort of degenerate would wish this upon others blows my mind.
Reread it. They're not wishing death on anyone. But the healthcare system is overloaded primarily due to people rejecting the vaccine that the healthcare system has been begging people to get for quite some time.
It's so easy to reduce this one variable thinking. But the oversimplification is what is dividing us
Hospitals were closed due to inactivity LAST YEAR, before vaccines, because people were AFRAID TO GET COVID and expected to get it when going to a hospital.
I can assure you that the hospital I'm in has no closed floors.
You've been on all of the floors in that hospital? <- Notice Drew cannot say this for sure.
>>because people were AFRAID TO GET COVID and expected to get it when going to a hospital.
Wrong, one of the floors closed was the 7th floor where heart attack and stroke patients go. They closed due to lack of patients having heart attacks and strokes. These floors could be open right now and taking capacity from other full floors and hospitals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7581311/#:~:tex....
I'll add that they laid off a number of staff, many of which have not been added back on. In this hospital and many others, square footage is at a premium because operational capacity has been reduced.
> In the midst of a pandemic, the advice from medical professionals to “stay home, save lives” may be preventing patients from seeking medical care when symptoms of stroke arise due to fear of contracting COVID-19. Anecdotal reports across the United States are highlighting missed care during the current COVID-19 pandemic...
i.e., yes, "people are afraid to get covid and expect to get it when going to a hospital" is an accurate description. The lack of patients having heart attacks and strokes is a lack of people willing to go to a hospital, not a lack of heart attacks and strokes.
Well, most hospitals aren't limited by literal space. They are limited by personnel, or supplies, or even ICU capacity. Not square footage.
> What sort of degenerate would wish this upon others blows my mind.
He's not wishing anything on them. People I know are being turned (well, advised) away from seeking medical care because the unvaccinated are dominating the hospitals. Is it really wrong to request that if they want to use our health care system they take basic care of themselves?
At least in the US, there is no "our" health care system.
My employer and I pay about $500 / month in premiums for just me. My insurance company has made contractual agreements with the vast majority of health care providers (they've become more and more consolidated over the years) to provide service to their CUSTOMERS. On top of that, most Americans now have thousands of dollars in deductibles which are used to directly subsidize Obamacare recipients.
But you're right, we should expect people to "take basic care of themselves" if they want to freeload on MY health care system. So along with those who are unvaccinated, let's toss out:
* homosexual men. The rates of infectious diseases, including HIV which has a 100% fatality rate, are off the charts due to their very promiscuous lifestyles. Do you know the number of sexual partners an average gay man in the US has by middle age? It's shocking...
* Young black men. Lifetime chances of using ER services due to violence are so high, it'd make sense just to deny them outright.
* In fact, just deny all blacks in the US. After gay men, it turns out heterosexual black women are now the biggest carriers of HIV, and that is almost always caused by their choices (i.e. promiscuous lifestyles). On top of that, their obesity rates are so high that along with the fact they disproportionately freeload off the system (Medicaid, Obamacare subsidies, etc), our system would be improved drastically if we could cut that burden off.
* Undocumented immigrants. They rarely pay into the system. They tend to not use preventative care due to lack of insurance, thus they disproportionately use ER services which is a disadvantage to those of us like me who pay for the system.
I could go on, though I don't think you'd like who ends up being denied service because they "don't take basic care of themselves" and don't pay into the system.
I'm just going to ignore the rest of your troll comment.
This is the kicker. It affects different areas disproportionately at different times; but on a response level we're pretending "my region!" is all areas in these discussions at all times.
> Comments like this are just pure disgraceful and disgusting. What sort of degenerate would wish this upon others blows my mind.
I want to be clear - he prefaced it with a simple "I almost...", not a "I wish". It's simply a comment on how hard it is that anti-vaxxers are actively killing others currently with forced-ration care; and how frustrating the lack of individual responsibility is.
Why should Alice die from (misc non-covid-related complication) because that care she needed went to John-from-accounting who was afraid of microchips in vaccines; but still went to that football game last week and can't breath now?
That's not to say that's happening everywhere; but it's definitely happening.
Wasn't that because there weren't many cases due to people social distancing and opting out of elective surgeries and healthcare because of fear of infection? Hospitals are private institutions and will reduce staff. I think the proposed CARES act last had funding but wasn't passed during the then administration.
>Comments like this are just pure disgraceful and disgusting. What sort of degenerate would wish this upon others blows my mind
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? People (ab)use freedom they don't want the consequences of doing so? They nod to all the politicians, talking heads, social media posts demonizing medical scientists, healthcare workers, doctors and then run to the hospital once sick? Don't you think there's a problem here with minimizing the dangers of covid and promoting unproven magic cures? Anyway I think unvaccinated people should be deprioritized if hospitals are full, unless they have a proven medical reason to not get vaccinated.
The constraint is, there simply is not enough capacity to treat everyone. If there was, there would be no problem. So should you prioritize care for people who are intentionally making themselves ill, or those who aren't?
You have to choose one, after all. Are you advocating that people with illnesses other than covid should get delayed or denied care? Is that not just as degenerate?
This is a well-explored situation in other cases of shortages. Suppose that there is a severe famine and the government imposes food rationing. The Smiths abide by the rations and eat small but barely sufficient meals for a month. The Joneses refuse (for whatever reason), buy lavish amounts of ingredients, and throw out leftovers. At the end of the month the Joneses have blown through their ration cards and say they will starve the next month unless the Smiths share some of their rations.
The morally defensible answer is no, despite the danger that the Joneses may die, because if you say yes, now both the Joneses and the Smiths will be malnourished, this is an unacceptable harm to the Smiths, and being willing to answer yes will just encourage other people to act like the Joneses.
It's a trolley problem. You always want to just stop the trolley of you can or get people off the tracks. But if you can't, you have to make a choice about who it hits. Being in the position of making that choice doesn't inherently make you a murderer.
You're missing the point, floors closed create the deficit in operational capacity.
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. Arguing that the other side should die is beyond the pale—I realize people on the internet are going there with alacrity, but it's exactly the kind of thing we don't want here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Please don't post like this to HN.
I can certainly understand why you feel strongly under the circumstances and hope you get excellent care and get well soon.
These are all things that everybody should be encouraged to do, but the government has not been putting in almost any concentrated effort to encourage people to do these things at all. Then when Covid starts spreading and mostly killing unhealthy people I should be the one risking my health, taking a vaccine that is way less tested than any other FDA approved vaccine, to help the people who practice unhealthy lives and are the ones most at risk of dying from Covid?
I am 19 years old and had to stay inside for the last 1.5 years for a virus that I am not afraid of and almost certainly would not kill me if I were to contract it. My mental health has been deteriorating for the whole quarantine, years of my youth are being taken away because of something that simply doesn't affect me. Unhealthy old people have screwed my life up and taken years away from me so if they expect me to take a knee to help them then they can go to hell. You lock people in doors for years of their life make them wear masks everywhere in public and now are gonna make me stick a needle up my arm so I can keep my job? Go to hell, I rather die than be yanked around like this to appease people who don't care about me and a government who treats me like shit and insults me. And their is still no timeframe for when this bullshit will be over.
They say it’s 2021 but I ain’t too sure,
it feels like 1984.https://www.dw.com/en/germany-bosses-cant-ask-about-employee...
The same is true for most EU member states.
Get fired from your job? Bad
Can’t go out for a meal? Annoying
We should go into business together. :-)
Given my previous work in digital identity, I was getting inquiries from vaccine passport companies in the summer of last year. This was always about the passport.
A teardown of the tech applied in Quebec was posted on HN several weeks ago.
Please, please, please: I'm the most provax person out there, but limiting the contrary voices won't lead this conversation anywhere constructive.
The comment was saying the the policies against Covid so far were aimed at the distruction of normal.
Here's what I would have replied:
I can see part of your point. But how do we deal with the fact that the resistance to what you call "the destruction of normal" is mostly made by people that refuse science, fall victim to conspiracy theory, and have in general a tendency to apply magical thinking to policy making?
I'm fully vaccinated and highly critical of how the crisis was handled. But here in Germany the no-vaxxers and the anti-maskers are a crowd of strongly individualistic people that span from tree-hugging spiritual healers to neonazis. There is no logical thinking in their thesis, and every critique is based on the rebuttal of statistics, numbers, and data-based decision making.
The worst part is that the data on almost every part of the pandemic is freely available online and updated daily.
For instance, the odds of getting myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine is something like 1:125000. This is significantly less than the risk of child having a seizure from the MMR vaccine at 1:30000.
Citation please, my impression was that whether the vast majority needs a third shot ist still not decided but it's possible which is why governments prepare.
Children generally receive two MMR shots. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html
The connection between data and policy is mostly fictional, other than it is used to support chosen narratives, and not to illuminate truth. I look at the resistance as a human instinct, where some can convert it to articulated objections and clearly, and others have limited tools, but what they have in common is a clear and united desire.
Anyone who knows anything about data (let alone govt) knows that data at very best only loosely informs policy decisions, it does not make them. Leaders may hide behind it, but they ignore it just as often if not moreso, and that these people reject data as censored, cherry picked, fudged, fabricated, is consistent with how policymakers handle it.
This is exactly what every person following the religion of scientism was saying when we were spraying kids with DDT, while those in touch with their intuition and insticts knew better.
I'd be surprised if you've looked much into how they're arriving at these statistical calculations.
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
21+ to buy products should be 18. At some age children become adults.
Study the personal income tax and you will find it is primarily enforced through your employer. If each of us had to save and write a check there would be little compliance.
For non-commercial property, if the property is not cataloged by county assessor, it doesn't get taxed. Dig in on this bit and be amazed.
I and a lot of people do have to save a write a check (I pre-pay estimated actually). You do not want to get on the wrong side of the IRS.
Federal personal income tax does generally apply to federal government employees. When a non-govt employer withholds from your paycheck it does become difficult to then get out of volunteering to pay.
Are you a commercial driver and also federal employee? Or like most people do you shuffle in to the lines to voluntarily contribute?
I am an independent software developer and like most business owners I contribute because it's required by law and failure to do so carries harsh penalties.
Are you telling me that you do not pay federal and or state income taxes? That you do not contribute to FICA? Are you under the impression that because you are not a federal employee that you are not required to pay federal income taxes?
If so, the IRS has plenty to say about it: https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/the-truth-about-frivo...
This initially takes effort.
Still pay sales tax, use tax, TSA groping tax, etc.
So my problem and the problem of many others is not focused on the policies in effect right now, but the direction in which the policies evolve.
If I had thought one or two years ago how the CCP was going to handle the pandemic, it would be pretty much the way the US, Germany and France handle it right now.
In that case, it would be quite an inaccurate prediction on your part given that the CCP/China actually handled their lockdowns and continue to manage quarantining with far more stringency than the US, Germany, and France. You're drawing a comparison between the three western countries and a fictional China that wasn't borne out in reality.
Right now, you have zero recourse if your employer, or your co-workers are creating a dangerous environment. You have no legal standing if your employer's policies are the reason that you catch COVID, which can be financially ruinous - or lethal. Your employer is explicitly protected from any liability their action or inaction creates in this space.
We either need the tools to hold employers liable for creating a dangerous work environment - because they are not taking basic precautions against the spread of a deadly disease...
Or we can shield them from this liability, and mandate that they take those precautions.
It seems we are taking the less litigious option.
I think the same but with a different tack. If you get an infectious disease from another person, and that person didn’t want the disease either and wouldn’t want to spread it, then why are they?
How do people not know they have Covid and are giving it to their friends, coworkers, etc?
Sometimes, it's because they did everything they could, within reason, to prevent it.
Sometimes it's because they were reckless, negligent, and should not have been behind the wheel.
We call the first an accident, and the second (if it kills someone) vehicular manslaughter. We litigate to determine which is which.
We also give people leeway in how negligent they want to be. A BAC between 0 and 0.08 is fine... Unless you hit someone - at which point, it will be used against you. A BAC above 0.08 is immediate grounds for arrest, regardless of whether you hurt anyone.
That is what personal responsibility on one end, and enforced social responsibility on the other end looks like. Right now, nobody can be held personally accountable for reckless behaviour with COVID. Either we lift that protection, or we double down on enforcing social responsibility.
Unless you want to live naked in a tribe on the African savannas, "normalcy" has been changing for tens of thousands of years, and very fast for the couple hundred, and extremely so for the last hundred. It should not be a surprise that it continues to do so, and "you have to get certain vaccines" has been a thing for any kid going through public schools and/or college for decades. This is nothing new.
92% of Americans are vaccinated for polio within 24 months of birth. 90% for MMR. 90% for chickenpox. 80% for DTaP. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/immunize.htm
I hoped the 'stay seated until your row is called' when exiting aircraft would stay in place. The selfish people reverted to rushing the aisles.
There is a large group of people who refuse to move on from covid. We have a vaccine that keeps you out of the hospital. Once you take it, you have a moral right to return to full normal.
Anti-vaccination enthusiasts have had a year to make their case. It's time to roll up sleeves for civic duty.
Herd immunity kicks in when the proportion of folks with sufficient antibodies is high enough, formally modeled as H >= 1 - 1/R_0, where H is the herd immunity level and R_0 is the average rate of cases caused per each case. R_0 (or more appropriately R_t) is dependent both on the intrinsic attributes of the virus as well as behavior of the organisms the virus infects.
So ensuring a large population with strong, effective prevention is in the national interest, is in the evolutionary interest based on all available science, and is in the interests of vulnerable populations.
1) transmissibility 2) patient outcomes
What do you find when we compare recovered vs vaccine for those factors?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-national-surveillance...
These policies are absurd and unfairly punish people like me.
(Especially since such policies often have as an explicit goal to provide protection for people who can't get vaccinated.)
They'll be fighting this out in the courts for years.
/s
(This presumes that the point is to slow the spread of COVID, not to annoy the unvaccinated.)
Historically, mandated vaccines weren't mandated before we knew they were safe longer-term. We're still awaiting FDA approval for a majority of the available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in the US, yet many folks would be mandated to receive one.
Many folks will see this as being mandated to be a test subject, which is why there has been substantial legal pushback against the mandate less than 24 hours after Biden announced it.
Every time I traveled, we had to have "our shots."
These were 100% mandated by the country we were coming to. Since my "home base" was in Africa, we had some fun bugs, and I had to get a whole battery of shots.
I have several vaccination scars on my body, and I developed a lifelong fear of needles, as a result of the giant horse needles they used for the thick sludge they'd jab me with (which left me feeling like I'd lost a fistfight with a gorilla).
When I got my COVID vaccination shots, I didn't even feel it, as the needle was so tiny.
What if, knowing what we do now about it, OSHA required asbestos-lined jackets?
Lots of older buildings have asbestos that's preventing fires and won't cause noticeable harm so long as it's undisturbed. The fibres are a problem, but a sheet of material under a layer of plaster isn't breaking off fibres that can get into your lungs. If your job is to rip out plaster and re-model buildings then that's a huge problem, but if you just live in a building you're getting much more benefit from it not catching fire than you'd get from very minutely reducing your risk of lung damage from asbestos.
In fact even for a brand new building, although it's banned in some places, "Let's use asbestos" makes more sense than "Eh, so what if it burns down and a few dozen people die", so if those are the available choices you should go with asbestos.
So it is with the available COVID-19 vaccines. SARS-CoV-2 is very dangerous and, outside of New Zealand and a handful of Pacific islands, widespread, so you're just way more likely to get very sick or die as a result of not being vaccinated than suffer a serious side effect, known or hypothetical.
I weighed up the options and decided it was by far the lower risk option.
I think people need to be free to make that choice.
Freedom is so valuable.
We're a small population so it's significant.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126225003/...
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaers-9318/fact-ch...
Here is some great information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfFeocgSKvU
(For comparison, 2021 has 31k gun deaths[1] through September and 21.5k road deaths through the first 6 months.)
[1] https://www.gunviolencearchive.org [2] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/prelimina...
Also, on the download page, "However, in general coding terms in VAERS do not change based on the information received during the follow-up process. VAERS data should be used with caution as numbers and conditions do not reflect data collected during follow-up."
Which is just different ways of saying "this data is probably unreliable", no?
The more important point that you ignore is people are horrible at weighing relative risk. You're obviously intelligent and aware of the biases inherent in judging vaccination risk. I'm sure you know crossing the street is far more risky. There is a consistent pattern of unvaccinated, dying covid patients claiming they underestimated the risk of the illness and wish they had gotten vaccinated. People are literally unable to make that choice for themselves. There's proof.
What's the point of "freedom" if we're all stuck in our houses hiding from variant after variant because we refuse to acknowledge that our government needs to make a decision that will save lives [1] when our actual survival is at risk.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-vaccines-sav...
I believe these are coercive tactics and the government should avoid coercion at all costs.
This is certainly the best way to keep workers safe during a pandemic and given the information we have on the Pfizer vaccine — billions of doses given, 1.5 years of watching for adverse long term effects, full FDA approval — this move strikes me as appropriate for OSHA. OSHA requirements are supposed to be aggressively protective of the worker.
While you might not be affected personally, because you've been successful, it's better for the government to have your back than it is to entrust it to the free market. There's a hell of a lot of misery because the gov. doesn't step in enough, doesn't take care of its citizens.
This was learned the hard way in 1929 and, for whatever reason, was quickly forgotten.
That said, I can see why it's undesirable to some.
An authoritarian regime isn't going to spin up a bureaucracy like that to do regulation-without-oversight, it's just going to lower its boot onto the population's collective face. You can hardly call that regulation.
Perhaps we're just debating semantics here, but I think there's a distinction between regulating corporate behaviour (you must do X Y Z if you want to run a business in this country, for reasons A B C) and introducing a totalitarian regime (you must do X Y Z because I said so).
The US legislature has the right to regulate commerce in the US according to the US Constitution. Healthcare of workers and the overall impact of covid are two things directly affecting the economy.
The legislature already has the former of these covered by the creation of OSHA in the 1970s. OSHA is a regulatory agency under the Department of Labor, which is part of the executive cabinet.
The executive is now using these powers granted by the legislature to ensure workers are protected in their work environments.
Italian Fascism promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy.[0]
[0] Andrew Vincent. Modern Political Ideologies. Third edition. Malden, Massaschussetts, USA; Oxford, England, UK; West Sussex, England, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2010. Pp. 160. URL: https://books.google.com/books/about/Modern_Political_Ideolo...
Maybe you can also explain why do you think it is "correct" to ban proper answer?
P.S. I'll take it back. I see that the person was banned for something else rather that for this "proper answer"
Emailing hn@ycombinator.com might help. This topic affects 10's of millions of Americans.
It's also a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472856.
I want to point out this is not a dupe of the "Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers" thread. This thread is talking about private employers with 100 or more employees; not necessarily federal employees.
I understand the need to keep flamewars down, but hiding this thread doesn't feel right to me. Just my 2 cents.
I'd originally commented when it was still pretty new and went back to find it on the frontpage and didn't see it. That's when I originally replied to you. I see it high ranked again.
Here is their BS response:
"The FDA is undergoing a process now to evaluate a vaccine for children under the age of 12, and under the President’s plan, the Administration will do whatever it takes to support those efforts, while continuing to respect and defer to the scientific decision-making of the agency."
I feel like our entire society has been held hostage by the FDA. I think a bold plan to completely get rid of the FDA would have been more appropriate. Just dismantle the whole organization. It's too broken to fix.
Figuring out if the vaccine is safe for children under 12 takes a maximum of 8 weeks (1 week to administer, 6 weeks to watch, 1 week to organize results).
It's been 4 weeks since the association of pediatric doctors reviewed the data and begged the FDA to lift the ban.
It has been well over a year now since phase II safety results were in from adults. It's been many months.
I don't understand why there isn't a wide, bipartisan push to remove the FDA from our lives. Multiple presidents, multiple heads, all a complete and total catastrophe.
Don't understand, or feel contempt based on ideology without understanding? Even if you disagree with how the FDA has handled COVID vaccines - largely in the face of pressure and infiltration by an administration sharply opposed to any regulatory mission - there are many other things that it does. Would you forego all FDA oversight of food, drugs (not just vaccines), medical devices, and radiation-emitting products? Throw that all into the courts, which can never address a harm until after the fact and even in those cases is even less equipped to handle the issues under FDA's mandate?
People who've done at least minimal diligence can certainly disagree with some of the things FDA does. There's plenty of room for that, but "fail to understand" why others don't share your spitting hatred of the agency as a whole? Sorry, but that's not even a position that deserves to be taken seriously.
Also Biden, in the same speech: We're gonna force everyone we can get away with forcing to take a shot still under emergency use authorization that is only supposed to be valid if there is NO other viable treatment.
And no one is being strapped down and vaccinated, some consequences are being imposed for some choices. For instance, for workers at larger companies that don't get vaccinated, there is an expectation that the employer will check weekly for negative test results.