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Comment by Klinky | Hacker News Reader

Should I blame old people for inevitably getting old? No. We all get old, and the health system normally handles this load okay.

Should I blame someone unvaxed getting severe COVID-19, a well known and highly contagious disease with a free vax that greatly reduces the chance of severe infection? Absolutely.

COVID is particularly unique in its long ICU stays. Even for other conditions which could be blamed on poor patient decisions, 4 - 6 weeks in the ICU, and needing vents or ECMO, is not typical or widespread.

In the car analogy, we still have perfect biomarker tracking to determine exactly who, when and how long someone was infected and who exactly they infected. Perfect information. Obviously we don't have perfect information to hold people accountable, so we end up with tragedy of the commons. We need to protect the commons and the best option we have is through vaccination and limited access to the commons for those who refuse it.

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No, you’re still not getting it. My example of old people with a pre-existing condition is just a placeholder for anyone who develops symptoms (of any kind or origin) enough to warrant a hospital visit, through which I point out the inconsistency of your moral positioning by contrasting it with your supposed belief that unvaccinated people are to blame for a hospital’s lack of capacity.

Feel free to blame whomever you choose, it’s not my problem. However, I will point out that the flaw in your car analogy comes when you realize that choosing to drive whilst inebriated (or without paying full attention to the road for whatever reason) is a conscious choice, whereas a carrier of the virus is an unwitting participant.

Are old people with pre-existing conditions consuming 90% of ICU resources in some areas? When comparing resource utilization of getting a preventative vaccine with the resource utilization required from a 4 - 6 week stay in the hospital, and that the health system does not typically need to run at overcapacity except when overrun by unvaccinated patients, we can confidently blame the unvaccinated for straining healthcare resources by ending up in the hospital for a completely preventable disease. It would not be an issue if more people were vaccinated, and we only needed to treat breakthrough cases. The hospitals should not need to grow larger when there is a highly effective preventative available right now for free.

When in a time of a pandemic, with a deadly and highly contagious disease, refusing the vaccine is like refusing the uber or taxi offered to you for free, and insisting on taking your car instead. They are absolutely not unwitting. They are absolutely making a conscious choice to purposefully increase their risk, and the risk of others around them. You like to talk about their personal liberties, but not about their personal responsibilities for the choices they've made.

It doesn't matter whether any distinguishable group of people consume 90% of ICU resources. It is the job of the hospital to treat them regardless. Otherwise, that is discrimination. Nor is Covid a preventable disease, as even the vaccine very clearly does not prevent all hospitalizations or transmission. This is of course, not even mentioning the various mutations that are arising which I bet will no doubt cause the vaccine to be a yearly one like that for the flu. It is very clear right now that there are multiple vaccines available right now, but the fact that hospitals are not capable of handling this is a logistical joke.

You're right, it is a conscious choice to increase risk. I didn't say it wasn't. Just like it is a conscious choice to smoke, or to carry a gun in America. And in each case, there is indeed a fine line that needs to be drawn between their personal freedoms and those of the collective. But as far as I am aware, in none of these cases is the widespread systematic elimination of choice (of taking the vaccine, of opting to smoke, or owning a gun) the logical conclusion.

No, it's not discrimination, it's triage and rationing of care. You act as if hospital resources are infinite and there aren't difficult logistical issues with expanding hospital capacity. Hospitals have already gone to extraordinary lengths to accept more unvaccinated patients. The problem lies squarely on the individuals choosing to not take a preventative vaccine, and opting for the most resource intensive treatment option, when their poor decision catches up with them.

The vaccines are still extremely effective at preventing severe COVID. Hospitalization is extremely preventable with vaccination. Please do not spread misinformation about vaccine effectiveness.

Tons of people are unhappy about guns and are asking for harder limits and controls. Shooting and killing someone is generally still frowned upon. Cigarettes are taxed at an extreme rate, smokers pay higher insurance rates, you can't smoke in buildings anymore and are asked to stay away from buildings when smoking outside in the rain. The world is a better place now that we no longer prioritize smokers damaging "liberties" and "freedoms" over the rest of the population's health.

I would hope that it continues to be a choice that one can opt to make, now and into the future.

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