56 ms·

NYC to mandate proof of vaccination for many indoor settings

• mandmandam 5y ago
  Privacy watchdogs, data protection groups, and human rights councils have largely condemned these "vaccine passports". To date, I haven't seen their concerns mentioned - mentioned - in any of these pronouncements. I get that there are enough people willing to go along with this that they'll likely stick around for a bit - but another thing I haven't seen is an end game. Corona is in the deer, it's in pets. Are they all going to get vaccinated too? Are people going to willingly get shot up with Pfizer and Moderna every six months for the rest of their lives; living in a three-tier society?
  • tboyd47 5y ago
    It seems that the endgame is to keep on pushing tighter and tighter restrictions on certain communities of people, strongly discouraging open debate, leaving dissenters no other option but to physically remove themselves, until only the most compliant remain, forming a tight-knit, ideologically homogenous group.
    • Daishiman 5y ago
      That would be the point if it weren't for the fact that the "debate", from the point of view of those who have actually kept up with the medical, epidemiomological, and ethical literature has been settled. Yeah, I'm all for pushing willfully ignorant discussion out of the public eye.
    • guntars 5y ago
      > certain communities of people What communities are being targeted? Everyone who leaves their house is affected. > strongly discouraging open debate We're debating it here just fine. > dissenters [..] physically remove themselves Voluntarily unvaccinated walking COVID vectors? Yes, that's exactly the point.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • ashtonkem 5y ago
      It’s distressing how such paranoid conspiracy theory mongering is just now accepted even here.
  • jayd16 5y ago
    Obviously the end game isn't seen. We're nowhere close to the end game. We don't know about lasting immunity or about variants that don't even exist yet. Maybe we can eradicate it, maybe not. Literally no one knows what the future holds here.
    • analyte123 5y ago
      Eradication is not happening. You might as well be talking about eradicating the flu, which is another contagious respiratory virus that rapidly mutates and is not completely controlled by vaccines. This was obvious even a month ago, when over 10% of a naval ship tested positive for Covid despite every single person being fully vaccinated [1]. I only hope that the "end game" is not permanent restrictions on travel, movement, and trade. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/14/covid-outbreak-aboard-hms-queen-elizabeth-strikes-100-sailors/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/14/covid-outbreak-a...
      • TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
        You're 100% right. This isn't Ebola or SARS where everyone who gets sick has obvious symptoms and becomes gravely ill. Asymptomatic carriers and transference to other animals like birds and cattle will ensure that it will persist in our population permanently. The good news is that viruses tend to get less dangerous over time. Death of the host provides selective pressure against those variants. Syphilis used to be extremely dangerous and rapidly fatal, but it has been around for so long that it has changed. But that process takes years typically.
        • AndrewBissell 5y ago
          > The good news is that viruses tend to get less dangerous over time. One notable exception was Marek's disease in chickens, where the widespread administration of leaky vaccines (which suppressed symptoms and complications but not transmission) led to the breeding of hotter and hotter strains in the vaccinated flocks, which became more lethal to unvaccinated chickens.
  • devit 5y ago
    I don't really see what the problem would be with vaccinating every six months in case it turns out to be necessary to keep up immunity; in fact even vaccinating every month would be fine to avoid the risk of severe COVID. Indications though seems to be for only needing 2 or 3 doses or needing boosters multiple years apart.
• jjgreen 5y ago
  > The program is modeled after the vaccine passport programs rolled out in France ... which resulted in riots https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210731-france-sees-third-weekend-of-protests-against-obligatory-health-pass https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210731-france-sees-thir...
  • jobigoud 5y ago
    Protests, not riots. And there are protests all the time whenever a controversial decision is made, it's our national sport. Another confounding factor is the very aggressive calendar set up, where due to the span between the doses not everyone has a way to be fully vaccinated before the measure is active.
    • jjgreen 5y ago
      And there are protests all the time whenever a controversial decision is made, it's our national sport It is an endearing habit; but to be fair, some of those protests can look a bit "riotey", what with the smoke bombs, water cannon, paramilitary cops with batons etc ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfxVY8ltyso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfxVY8ltyso ... to us in la perfide Albion at least, to Americans this probably all looks a bit tame.
      • krapp 5y ago
        >to Americans this probably all looks a bit tame. Americans talk a good game when it comes to riots but if they took their rhetoric about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants" seriously every election would wind up with the Capitol looking like it did on January 6th.
  • JohnWhigham 5y ago
    I wish Americans had more of a revolutionary tendency like the French do. Instead of rioting and pissing off the government at its doorstep, we head for the hills, hoard guns, and dare the government come get us out there.
• thsbg 5y ago
  It is well past time for a few brave Italian-Americans to go full Khashoggi on DeBlasio, Cuomo and their nazi sympathizers.
  • msie 5y ago
    Words coming from an spoiled child who knows nothing about real tyranny. Take a look at other countries where people are truly oppressed.
    • dang 5y ago
      "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• ragingrobot 5y ago
  Without getting into the whole vaccine thing... People need to start protesting with their wallets. People need to talk less and act more. I work in NYC, in an "essential" service. In the beginning myself and other workers were threatened with discipline if we did not show up for work. We were told to go straight home, and stay inside, and do as little as necessary otherwise. Now, this is easy for me, as I am single with no family, but I continue that policy to this day. I buy the essentials and no more. You want to threaten me? If I don't do this, I can't travel? Fine, I'll keep my money. I can't go to a restaurant? Fine, I'll keep my money, and cook myself. I can't go to the beach? Well fine, I'll keep my money. I'll find something else to do (some of the parks are empty this time of year as everyone's at the beach!). Can't hurt me by telling me I can't spend. I do the same when gas prices jump. I travel less. Not because I'm hurt more financially, but as a middle finger to the corporations behind the price increase. Yeah, it doesn't make a dent in the grand scheme, but at least I don't feel the fool. Honestly with all of this spending less and the way even essentials are jumping in cost, I haven't been able to save much more, and that's a shame. There are so many ways Americans could make this work, to send a message, if they didn't spend as the corporate overloads told them they have to do.
  • throemdiwo 5y ago
    Bless you! I have reached the same conclusion. If the economy is all that matters then only an economical protest will do. Any restriction that prevents me from spending I will gladly follow.
  • nostromo 5y ago
    As a former New Yorker... people should vote with their wallets and their feet. New York has become a pretty miserable place to live. And for the privilege of living in a miserable place you pay an exorbitant amount.
    • maerF0x0 5y ago
      One idea i've been musing for a while is that much American grief (high prices, archaic governments etc) seems to stem from a lack of new cities. Say austin is the new hotness, settled in 1800s. What about building a 2000s friendly city in the middle of nowhere and not limiting ourselves to the decisions made in 1800s like where's the water and walking/horse is the only mode of transport?
• purple_ferret 5y ago
  Awesome. Will be nice to finally enjoy a dinner out without having to worry about anti-vaxxers coviding up my meal.
• alecst 5y ago
  Pretty dismal discussion in here at the time of writing. Largely complaints about tyranny. Makes me sad that we can't have a calm discussion about the merits of the policy. From what I can tell, you might be opposed to this policy if: 1. You have fears about getting a vaccine, moreso than for coronavirus. If this is you, do you prefer a mask mandate? And if so, how do you enforce this in a restaurant, where anyone eating takes off their mask right away? 2. You have fears about the privacy implications. If so, what are those fears? Perhaps your vaccination status can lead people to make inferences about your health? 3. You are not particularly concerned about the community spread of coronavirus (and the implications of that) There aren't a lot of choices. You can 1) avoid high-risk areas and escape infection/spreading disease, in which case, this policy doesn't really directly affect you. Or 2) you can take your chances with coronavirus, which you will get sooner or later, and spread it. Or 3) you can "take your chances" with the vaccine which, statistically and biologically, is safer than getting coronavirus and reduces spread. This policy allows people to choose from 1) and 3) but not 2), which is in all ways the worst decision. Unless, of course, you think that the vaccine is more dangerous than coronavirus. And then I don't really know what to say. (lightly edited for clarification)
  • da_big_ghey 5y ago
    I have strong opposition on this policy. 1. No particular vaccine concern, have mine. 2. Yes. I am not telling my name and birth day for random person in public but now this is required for many public venue. No more being anonymous in public. 3. I have lowered concern, most people with vaccine have lesser time of it even with breakthrough infection. Or maybe better to say I am past caring. 4. All prior vaccine requirement (school, other places) have exemption for religios reason, personal objection, or both (varies by state). Compelling medical procedures is not a good thing ever. Saying that we have no compulsion is disingenuous if vaccine are required for restaurant, job, etc. I am having objections not to vaccine but to compulsion to show government document before any entry to certain places. Public school fine, government worker fine, but government forcing proof before entry to private restaurant very bad from perspective of civil liberties and privacy. Also I have worries over changing requirement: already there are discussion that maybe a booster shot is required. I am fine with taking this booster shot but do not like constant moving goalposts. Maybe later government adds some other requirements for what somebody must do before allowed entry somewhere, the infrastructure for lineing up for getting scanned already will be in place.
• potiuper 5y ago
  Kids cannot get the vaccine. So, are they all banned?
  • afavour 5y ago
    No, the article states they are not.
    • potiuper 5y ago
      The article states, "De Blasio said City Hall is finalizing the regulations, including if children younger than 12 years old with vaccinated parents will be allowed to dine indoors." if does not mean that they are not banned; it also does not provide an expectation from city hall as to their direction on the issue of children.
• drngdds 5y ago
  Vaccine mandates are good in concept* and will probably spur a lot of the "I'll get it if it's required" or "I'm going to wait and see" people to go ahead and get it. But they're kind of weak as implemented here. Considering that a photo of a vaccine card is considered valid proof (and the guy checking cards at the bar or whatever is only going to spend two seconds looking at it), some enterprising scumbag could probably whip up a site that automatically creates fake vaccine pass photos over a weekend or two. *Even with delta, the vaccines are pretty damn effective at preventing infections. A lot of media coverage on this is misleading and is based on not understanding base rates - when a high proportion of people at risk of hospitalization are vaccinated, you're going to see vaccination rates among hospitalized people that are higher than the actual efficacy rate would suggest.
  • lolc 5y ago
    Regarding security: You can get fined over using fake certificates. So most people won't use fakes as long as the incentives are right. There's no need for airtight security here.
    • adamrezich 5y ago
      fines for not having Your Papers to go out and about in public! imagine presenting this idea to people 10 years ago
    • 15155 5y ago
      Incentive to drink under 21 (procuring a fake ID) is somehow greater than the incentive to participate in everyday life? These cards have zero security features.
• chasd00 5y ago
  I’m glad I don’t live in NYC. Impfung macht frei
• recursive4 5y ago
  An alternative, market-powered fix: lift the regulatory statues that prevent insurance companies from raising the cost of coverage of their unvaccinated customers.
  • nickthemagicman 5y ago
    400 people died of Covid...out of 350 million yesterday. How much do you think the actuaries would increase insurance cost for numbers like that? Doesn't seem like that's a huge risk increase. And 90% of those are in the above 75 years old age group with the highest maximum risk calculated in already. I bet there's not a single actuary that is worried about Covid.
    • thehappypm 5y ago
      COVID is still currently a major cause of death, so there's that.
    • dredmorbius 5y ago
      Average cost of hospital care for COVID-19 ranges from $51,000 to $78,000, based on age. https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/average-cost-hospital-care-covid-19-ranges-51000-78000-based-age https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/average-cost-hosp... (Nov 2020) Vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 25x. (CDC data, 29 July 2021, leaked report). I don't have good data on hospitalisations, though for quite some time early in the pandemic it was about 15% of all detected cases. I strongly suspect it's lower than that now (nonsymptomatic / low-severity cases are now detected), but it's still substantial. Just on a per-person basis, that's about 50-65 large you're looking at in excess claims for shunning the vaccine. The actuarial risk is probably on the order of 10% of that, though you'd need to add in other costs and long-term health consequences. Severe cases can of course run far higher --- some patients have had double-lung transplants.
      • nickthemagicman 5y ago
        So 50k a patient times 7,000 patients a day? That 325 million a day... 119 billion a year. I change my mind. You all are correct. We should definitely raise the price of insurance for Covid. It would eliminate people unnecessarily going to the hospital, and getting frivolous treatment...and would give a more accurate number of people who actually need hospitalization. If you go to the hospital for the sniffles and test positive for Covid, the hospital will put you in a bed for two weeks for monitoring... because it's profitable.
• dukeofdoom 5y ago
  Apparently the virus has never been even isolated in a lab. Here is an interview with a guy that challenged his $1k fine, and won in court, because the Canadian government failed to prove that the virus exists. https://rumble.com/vkorz0-freedom-fighter-court-victory-ends-masking-shots-quarantine-in-alberta.html https://rumble.com/vkorz0-freedom-fighter-court-victory-ends... The alternative is that they have a sample, just won't provide it because there's something about the virus they don't want us to know. Alberta has lifted restrictions.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• SirensOfTitan 5y ago
  To preface: I got the vaccine months ago (as soon as I had access), I'm a big believer in vaccines. With that being said, this policy doesn't sit well with me. None of the currently available vaccines in the US are FDA approved. Of course, a lot of people have received those vaccines, but I also don't necessarily fault individuals for feeling hesitant (the nuance here is that I think people ought to get the vaccine). mRNA is a new, unknown technology, and the vaccine was rushed faster to public access than any other vaccine before. We have absolutely no idea if there are any long term side effects of these vaccines. Both candidates Biden and Harris expressed the need for full trials and transparency in regard to the vaccine before they were in office, then changed their tune after (see: https://twitter.com/pbhushan1/status/1416969060890210305 https://twitter.com/pbhushan1/status/1416969060890210305). Biden says: > When we finally do, God willing, get a vaccine, Who’s going to take the shot? Who’s going to take the shot? You going to be the first one to say, “Put me — sign me up, they now say it’s OK”? If the vaccine is as effective as it seems, then this decision feels positively nanny state to me. It takes away an individual's agency to inform themselves of the risks on both sides and make an informed decision.
  • ysavir 5y ago
    >If the vaccine is as effective as it seems, then this decision feels positively nanny state to me. It takes away an individual's agency to inform themselves of the risks on both sides and make an informed decision If this were mandating that every resident of NYC must be vaccinated, I would agree. But it's not doing that. It's only saying that anyone wanting to dine (or possibly shop, too) indoors, that is, in spaces we know to have higher contamination and spread rate, they need to be vaccinated. People that are hesitant can still go unvaccinated and that's fine, but they have to keep to areas where contamination and spread are less prevalent. And I think that's fair.
    • TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
      It's putting a scarlet letter on these people and shaming them for making their own choice about their own bodies. I think we've determined from other issues that "separate but equal" isn't actually equal. That absolutely applies here.
• MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  “Everyone is going to get Corona. Whether you’re vaccinated or not, whether you’re old or young, whether you’re tested or not, whether we lock down or not. This is a fact of life now. The vaccines will protect against severe symptoms only for a time, and Corona is always changing. Slowing the spread will prove counter-productive particularly to those who have sought the protection of vaccines. Your best hope of continued immunity is infection while your vaccine still protects against severe symptoms. The best hope that children have of mild infection in adulthood, is low-risk infection now, while they are at no risk. There is no more point in slowing the spread. That will only make us immunologically naive to this virus for a longer period of time. Many, many viruses infect and reinfect billions of humans throughout their lives, with barely any notice. It is time we made Corona one of these viruses.” End. [0] https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1422789917873262595 https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1422789917873262595 If you doubt this: consider that Israel is nearly fully vaccinated, yet they are, right now, making plans for lockdown in September.
  • titzer 5y ago
    Are other viruses that I can interest you in being infected with? Let's see here, we've got HIV, HPV, Ebola, Rabies, Smallpox, Chickenpox, Polio, Hantavirus. Don't we need some time to...ehm, get "evolutionary familiar" with them, or whatever? I mean, why stop at viruses? Interested in some lovely bacterial infections like Lyme disease, staph, E. coli, Candida auris (oh, I love that one, I had it on my face!)
    • MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
      You ever had the flu? Because this is what covid19 is mutating into, and predictably so. More contagious, less lethal. And vaccination will pressure the virus to mutate further (this too has been predicted, eg by the Imperial College). Should we react to every new variant with a lockdown? For how long, the next 10 years? Whats the endgame here? And calling it a "vaccination" is being generous, considering that after 6 months efficacy is down significantly, like 20% of original levels. Its more like a therapeutic. This too is similar to a flu vaccination. How many shots per year do you want to take? For how many years? Don't forget that every time you increase the risk of an auto-immune reaction. Also keep in mind that vaccination doesn't even seem to protect other people by decreased virus shedding. You are comparing an experimental "vaccine", not approved by the FDA, with no long-term studies, where the companies that make them have immunity from unforeseen consequences, that rapidly declines in usefulness over mere months and which is "preventing" a disease that leaves the vast majority of people unaffected anyway to eg Polio, that can leave people paralyzed for life and where we have an effective vaccine that reliably works for decades and for which we have long-term experience. How are you people thinking you're making a clever & well-informed point. Your reasoning amounts to "infection bad, why you want infection".
• benmmurphy 5y ago
  Surely this is a violation of civil rights law. The law is going to have a disparate impact on minority groups since there is a difference in vaccination rates between different racial groups. The law doesn't seem narrowly scoped to achieve a specific compelling government interest. People from the government seem to be claiming this is being used to incentivise vaccine uptake. If the government made the claim that the vaccine was necessary in an indoor setting in order to reduce the spread then the law might be ok but because they have been caught making these other claims then it could burn them in court.
  • dcow 5y ago
    Then close the gaps.
  • cududa 5y ago
    Wrong. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts
    • grammarprofess 5y ago
      Wow that's interesting, sadly immigrants have to cheat the system, cant play by the rules like this, I'm sure he learned his lesson, bullshit till you make it
    • benmmurphy 5y ago
      this is not enforcing vaccination it is denying services based on vaccination status. i think there is a distinction. like what if a state decided to make the franchise dependent on whether your were vaccinated or not in order to 'encourage' people to vaccinate similar to how they are trying to deny people access to indoor dining in order to 'encourage' people to vaccinate. i'm sure that would be challenged under the civil rights act. the key thing here is that if they wanted to increase vaccination rates it could be done in a more direct and narrow way like enforcing people to get vaccinated rather than doing it indirectly. also, this case was not about the whether it was a breach of the civil rights act which is what i contend this law violates. in fact, the civil rights act was established after this case so it couldn't possibly have factored into the decision.
• AndrewBissell 5y ago
  Fond memories of the days this was the sole domain of paranoid conspiracy theorists. Now, at the exact same moment that we are getting evidence of the mRNA vaccines' rapidly waning efficacy[1] and ineffectiveness at reducing transmission of the Delta variant, the screws are being tightened and the unvaccinated are being scapegoated. Never mind that this variant arose in India where there was never any possibility of the entire population being vaccinated all at once. If the vaccines work, why are we talking about vaccine passports and domestic travel bans? If the vaccines don't work, why are we talking about vaccine passports and domestic travel bans? Also worth noting, this is de facto racial segregation, because blacks and Hispanics are by far the highest population of unvaccinated in NYC. Funny how a lifetime of having your health and well-being actively ignored and sabotaged by public officials raises doubts when they suddenly show up with shiny new injections and start pushing them with lotteries, free ice cream and donuts, and all the rest. [1] https://swprs.org/covid-vaccines-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/ https://swprs.org/covid-vaccines-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/
  • grammarprofess 5y ago
    Those are very good points. Totally agree, the vast majority of people are gonna be careful and display caution staying at home etc.. I think covid vaccines should be compelling by their efficacity and safety. This is all so stringent for something so rightly divisive
  • some_hacker33 5y ago
    Got a better source? This website contains misinformation. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ > E) The facemask aerosol issue > In the following video, Dr. Theodore Noel explains the facemask aerosol issue. https://factcheck.afp.com/doctor-expired-license-falsely-claims-masks-dont-work https://factcheck.afp.com/doctor-expired-license-falsely-cla... https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/08/facebook-posts/no-vaping-demo-doesnt-prove-masks-dont-work-agains/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/08/facebook-p... the fact that we have accounts on here with large amounts of reputation reposting facebook-based misinformation does not give me faith that leaving these choices up to allegedly informed individuals is a good idea. as others have pointed out, 99.99% of people are in no way qualified to make such determinations.
• bwship 5y ago
  Glad I left LA last September. I can't believe NYC is going even more extreme than there, but they are. The good news, is my home purchase down here in Charleston is up 10% in only 3 months. This ridiculousness in CCP NYC will only help ensure my home price goes through the roof. So, yes, if you want to live in a place that respects your right to choose what you do with your body and your life, come on down south. Just don't bring your bad policies down here with you is all the locals ask :)
  • asdff 5y ago
    > if you want to live in a place that respects your right to choose what you do with your body and your life, come on down south Unless you are a pregnant woman you mean!
    • bwship 5y ago
      100 out of 100 unaborted babies, when polled, were happy they weren't killed while living in the womb. [Edit] - sorry /s
      • jensensbutton 5y ago
        100 out of 100 vaccinated people were happy they didn't die from covid. See how your argument sounds?
        • bwship 5y ago
          What is the death rate of covid? like .01%. If you don't get the vax, your likelihood of dying is just so low, so why all the fearmongering? Edit - .054% chance of dying. 4.25M deaths worldwide out of 7.8 billion people.
          • deleted 5y ago
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          • malcolmgreaves 5y ago
• janitor61 5y ago
  pragmatically, the mandatory vaccinations seem to be predicated on the following assumptions: 1. Asymptomatic transmission is the primary vector and just as dangerous as being in proximity to a sick individual - has this been confirmed or refuted? Obviously-sick people aren't going to be in restaurants and bars so they can be taken out of the equation entirely. The virus has a normal lifecycle like all others: incubation, infestation and recovery, and during the 2nd phase people should be showing symptoms that our human instincts would urge us to isolate from and ostracize against. 2. The human body cannot become immune to a strain of this virus by recovering from it naturally - most people have had the virus by now, and if the virus is omnipresent, the non-vaccinated should keep becoming re-infected and in a perpetual state of illness - greatly multiplying their chances of death. I don't see the fatality data supporting this hypothesis, so natural recovery immunity is probably serving some protective function.
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    > Obviously-sick people aren't going to be in restaurants and bars so they can be taken out of the equation entirely. I think this is neither obvious nor true. There are an unfortunate number of people in this country who choose to go out and socialize when they have active symptoms.
• sprafa 5y ago
  By not getting vaccinated you are pushing the onus of responsibility to society. When you occupy a bed in a hospital for a preventable disease (like covid post-vaccine) you are a detriment to society. You are occupying precious resources because you were dumb. Just dumb. No ifs or buts - we need to start calling out stupidity again. We already handle people occupying hospital resources with self inflicted diseases, like lung cancer or liver trouble, by taxing the shit out of cigarettes and liquor (in countries where universal healthcare is a thing). We can’t put a covid tax on people I guess, so we might as well mandate vaccinations for everything we can. People who believe vaccines aren’t at least reducing mortality by 10x to 100x can just maintain their stupidity and become pariahs to society. I idgaf anymore. These people are dumb and I won’t waste another breath defending them. It is immediately proven from vaccination campaigns globally that the impact vaccines have is at least 10x reduction in mortality. Vaccines would be worth it even if they killed 1/2 of the numbers of covid, bout they don’t. They are a HUGE reduction.
  • throwaway842384 5y ago
    Now let's do obesity. From the CDC [1]: > From 1999–2000 through 2017 –2018, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 42.4%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%. > Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. These are among the leading causes of preventable, premature death. > The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was $147 billion in 2008. Medical costs for people who had obesity was $1,429 higher than medical costs for people with healthy weight. Also, if the government really cared about the health of the population, why aren't they mandating exercise or dietary health? [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
    • muttantt 5y ago
      Very true. Sad that you had to open a throwaway account just to speak this truth.
    • sprafa 5y ago
      They are doing that very same thing with sugar taxes in other countries. The USA is not the world and my argument really is focused on countries with free healthcare.
• quaffapint 5y ago
  I feel for the people that had covid and now they are being lumped in with the unvaccinated if they choose not to get the shot on top of that.
  • afavour 5y ago
    I've seen this objection a few times and I'm really not sure why anyone that had COVID would be all that fussed about getting the shot. We don't know how long antibodies from having already contracted it last for, so why not get the vaccine?
    • trident5000 5y ago
      "we dont know how long antibodies from having already contracted it lasts for" 1) You could say the same for the vaccine. We dont know. 2) Almost certainly no shorter than getting the vaccine. Both trigger roughly the same immune response and building of antibodies.
    • thehappypm 5y ago
      If you've had COVID you are more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine, it's just how the immune system reactions. If I knew I'd have 2 bad sick days to take 2 doses of a vaccine that I have already beaten.. meh.
      • barbazoo 5y ago
        > If you've had COVID you are more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine, it's just how the immune system reactions Can you point to anything that backs up that claim?
        • thehappypm 5y ago
          Every single person I know who has had COVID had a bad reaction (I think I misused "adverse" there, apologies) and this seems to be the commonly accepted pattern. Regardless of whether or not it's true that's the perception.
• calltrak 5y ago
  You people can argue all you want. I voted with my feet and I not only left New York City, I left the U.S.S.A . Even a blind man could see whats coming next!
  • symlinkk 5y ago
    Where’d you go?
  • donretag 5y ago
    Countries such as Italy and France have instituted this policy as a national level. Many countries have/had lockdown policies far more strict than the strictest locale in the US. I do not like the government placing the burden of enforcement on businesses. It will lead to a backlash from the anti-vax crowd, waste of employee resources, and lax oversight will give a false sense of security.
  • efficax 5y ago
    imagine i’m metaphorically blind. what’s coming next?
  • grllierg 5y ago
    As much as the US is going down the toilet with these commies both Canada and Australia are draconian as shit right now with their covid "response".
• trident5000 5y ago
  I have the vaccine and still think this is absurd and a slippery slope. If you havent noticed, society tends to run with things they can get away with to the most extreme direction.
• mariodiana 5y ago
  Anyone who thinks that government and Big Tech are going to setup a platform just for this one disease and just for the duration of the pandemic are simply not fit to vote in a free country. This is the beginnings of a social credit system, à la China/Gattaca.
  • muaytimbo 5y ago
    I saw the same connection, moral judgment passed on a citizen's personal, perfectly legal choices, by the government that leads to the restriction of that person's right to engage in society. This is to say nothing of the Orwellian tracking by the (soon to be I'm sure) required NYC or State pass on your phone.
  • moksly 5y ago
    Well, here in the civilised world where we’re about done with the vaccination we’re also almost done with the restrictions and required proof of vaccination/recent test. Of course we can both be right. I mean, if you can’t achieve herd immunity for some reason, then you can never really stop the requirement for proof either. But then, if a country has so many adult babies that it can’t achieve hers immunity through vaccination during a pandemic, maybe it needs to be run like a kindergarten (which you coincidentally can’t attend unless you’re vaccinated).
• saxman001 5y ago
  I don't think that the city should be able to impose this arduous constraint on private businesses. These businesses have already suffered greatly under the capacity restrictions of closures. Now they're being asked to turn away potential customers and enforce unpopular rules without compensation, under threat of substantial penalties. If the city wants to impose this rule, then at the very least they should handle the enforcement. Outsourcing the mandate without compensation is absurd.
  • mapme 5y ago
    Currently it’s actually the opposite in that the best restaurants are thriving because they ~doubled capacity by adding huge outdoor dining structures on the sidewalks that were previously not allowed. Note that it only impacts indoor dining not outdoor and that some restaurants, gyms, and venues has already begun to require of their own volition.
• gr1zzlybe4r 5y ago
  This is the point where we have to stop making trade offs of choice and liberty in the name of "security". Give the public open data about the effectiveness of the vaccine and then let people make their own decisions about what to do. The moralization and judgement about the vaccine has become ludicrous. If you're scared to do things around others even if you're vaccinated, then that's fine. We cannot accept a societal change towards mandating choices for people. It will be very, very hard for us to walk that back.
  • Daishiman 5y ago
    I'm sorry but the whole "let people make their own decisions" is BS. Making epidemiological decisions isn't something that most people are qualified to do. I have seen the takes from random people and 99% of them are abject garbage.
    • gr1zzlybe4r 5y ago
      The science around covid has been fluid this entire time. We aren't even sure if these vaccines will work against other covid variants in the future. What makes anyone qualified to make decisions over someone else's choice of what they should put in their body? If the vaccines are effective, then you can make the choice if you feel comfortable getting them and then being around other people. I don't even think people realize what they're saying when they say "most people aren't qualified to make decisions". I mean, seriously? The death rate of covid for healthy individuals is still very low. Even lower if you're vaccinated. We should _not_ sacrifice personal choice in the name of public safety. Give people the data and let them make their own choices.
      • Daishiman 5y ago
        > The science around covid has been fluid this entire time. We aren't even sure if these vaccines will work against other covid variants in the future. Science _is_ fluid by its very nature because it's a process, not an outcome. But processes can be well-executed or not. Scientists, with all their human and institutional flaws, are still just so, so much more qualified than the lay public to make informed opinions that it's not even funny. It's the same as with doctors: a medical second opinions is obtained from another doctor, not by yourself, because ultimately expert opinions may be challenged by others who have at least a similar amount of training and expertise. Lay opinions have gigantic, brutal knowledge gaps. The gaps are so huge as to make lay opinions essentially useless. I have spent an hour a day, every day, since the beginning of the pandemic, reading up on the scientific literature of COVID. I am overeducated geek with a computer science degree. Do you know how many reasonable assertions I can make about the pandemic? About as much as validating that the calculations behind the p-values of studies are correct, and nothing more. I can, at most, summarize and explain the high-level reasoning behind most epidemiologists' and governments's decisions, with the pros and cons that they themselves have suggested. We are talking about over 600 hours of research as an educated layman and still no novel conclusions. To think that people who have spent at most a fraction of that time, with no university-level knowledge of statistics or basics of germ theory, can make reasonable assumptions, has no relation to reality.
• nickthemagicman 5y ago
  Where does the requirement for the individual to change their behavior to reduce the risk of misfortune for the collective stop? I demand other people to stop driving because increases my chance of being hit as a pedestrian. I demand that other people stop having sex because it increases the spread of HIV which increases my risk with every new sexual partner. I demand that others be allowed to be held down by police and have a blood test forcefully performed on them, for DWIs, because it will reduce my risk of being in an accident with a drunk driver. Merely existing and interacting with the world increases the risk of accidents to others so I demand everyone cease to exist!
• CabSauce 5y ago
  I'm pretty tired of all this. If folks want don't want to get the vaccine, under the argument of personal responsibility, let them do what they want. However, if they willingly or negligently transmit covid, they should be civilly and maybe criminally liable. If they end up needing medical care, make them pay for it out of their pocket. Make them financially responsible for their decisions.
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    > they should be civilly and maybe criminally liable They should. But, how could this be enforced without even-more-draconian measures?
  • j3th9n 5y ago
    People who smoke or live an unhealthy lifestyle should pay medical care out of their own pockets too then.
    • michannne 5y ago
      They don't?
  • silent_cal 5y ago
    Should Pfizer be liable for side effects?
• grllierg 5y ago
  Keep in mind that Fauci murdered thousands of gay men with his "vaccine" for HIV.
• clukic 5y ago
  Vaccine requirements have been in place for decades. For pre-K in NYC kids need shots for PCV and Hib. For kindergarten they need more shots: Hep B, Polio, Chickenpox, and Measles, Mumps and Rubella. Going to middle school? Then you'll need more shots, the TDAP and meningococcal conjugate. These are all vaccine requirements. Is it an invasion or privacy to demand children's records? Is it the nanny state? We could go down that road, but who wants to live in a world where we lose herd immunity to all of those diseases because 30-40% of people choose to opt their children out?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • ashtonkem 5y ago
    Honestly, I think a lot of people here without kids have absolutely no idea that you need to prove immunization in order to attend school. What’s funnier still to me is men (it always seems to be men) outraged that they might need to prove vaccination in order to send their kids back to school, publicly admitting that they’ve been fobbing that work off on their spouse.
    • bingohbangoh 5y ago
      People know. They know, if anything, because you need to be vaccinated to attend colleges. The issue is that this vaccine is not FDA approved. A vaccine that provides for only a year is hardly the same as a booster shot which is good for 10 iirc.
      • karmelapple 5y ago
        Reading this, I wondered what might be keeping it from being fully FDA approved. I found this article explains it well: https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahrosenbaum/2021/07/30/why-hasnt-the-fda-fully-approved-any-covid-19-vaccines-yet/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahrosenbaum/2021/07/30/why-ha... A few quotes I thought were noteworthy: > For emergency authorization, the FDA required two months of safety data versus six months for full approval, he explains. > Pfizer submitted its application on May 7 and was granted special priority review status on July 16. In a press release, the company said the decision whether to fully approve the vaccine should come by January 2022. Other reports suggest Pfizer’s approval will likely be sooner, possibly as early as the start of the school year. > As you might expect, clinical trial data is scrutinized, but the process involves more than just experts reading data. The FDA also inspects manufacturing facilities and meets many times with company executives. > "I think a lot of us are baffled why the FDA is taking so long.” - Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health > To that end, the agency has reportedly expedited the process, even deprioritizing other projects in order to accelerate the timeline. That last sentence struck me strangely, seeming to imply reprioritizing other projects was a big deal. We're still in a global pandemic, people are still dying here in the USA, and the economic realities still actively happening... yeah, I think deprioritizing other things is about the least surprising thing imaginable.
• mrfusion 5y ago
  Imagine showing this article to people pre-pandemic, it'd be near universally reviled. We collectively lost our minds in March 2020.
  • titzer 5y ago
    Don't forget the part where 600,000 people died and literally every single measure to combat that was instantly turned into a political wedge issue, and then when the literal Science miracle cure arrived, people wouldn't take it because they are selfish, confused, afraid of needles, and hate each other.
    • logicchains 5y ago
      The average age of death for those people was 78; if not for the media making such a fuss of it most people wouldn't even have noticed.
• mrfusion 5y ago
  We’ve had nearly two years to expand our hospital resources. Why didn’t we do that instead of taking away bodily autonomy?
• drak0n1c 5y ago
  Louis Rossmann, owner of Rossmann Repair Group, released a video attacking this new policy - and he is pro-vaccination and encourages his family and employees to get it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3roD8cKdJlY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3roD8cKdJlY
• cletus 5y ago
  In 2000, WHO declared measles "eradicated" in the United States [1]. Of course, that's no longer the case thanks to those who have decided their feelings and watching an unverified Youtube video trumps science. Requiring vaccination is not new. As a matter of law in the US the issue was settled by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachussetts in 1905 [2]. Mandatory vaccination has been used to effectively eliminate smallpox and polio, in particular. We've now administered billions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines. The idea that we're somehow missing side effects is quite frankly ridiculous at this point. That idea also shows a basic misunderstanding of what's going on here. Immune system responses to something like a vaccine are actually extremely quick. This is not the same as, say, other drugs or compounds that live in the body for a long time. The body's response is known very quickly, which is why the very slight possibility of a clotting issue with AstraZeneca, for example, was identified extremely quickly. Vaccines just aren't a personal choice. If it was, nobody would care what individuals did. The idea that someone's baseless opinions should trump public good as a matter of principle is sad, false as a matter of law and baseless as a matter of principle. Contrary to the opinion of many (sadly) absolute selfishness isn't a virtue, it's just selfishness. And it's the latest iteration of the underlying anti-intellectualisms in the US. What's especially disappointing, even worrying, is just how much traction these baseless ideas get from those who allegedly have a science education. With NYC's mandate (which I support), it still doesn't mean you have to get vaccinated. It just means there are consequences if you don't. We already have this with schools. While we're at it, it's time to stop this nonsense of vaccines being against one's "personal beliefs" to get an exemption. If you want to live in a society that benefits from mass vaccination you should be prepared to do your part, particularly when that part just means getting an extremely safe needle. If you want to opt out of that, you also opt out of the benefits of that. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_resurgence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_resurgence_in_the_Unit... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts
  • a_conservative 5y ago
    Why people are so quick to blame to blame anti-vaxxers? The United States has millions of immigrants and visitors from other countries. Some go through official channels which require vaccinations, many do not. According to the CDC, Measles is brought into the US by international travel: Measles cases in the U.S. originate from international travel. Make sure you and your loved ones are protected against measles before international travel. [0] [0] https://www.cdc.gov/measles/plan-for-travel.html https://www.cdc.gov/measles/plan-for-travel.html
• mrfusion 5y ago
  A bit off topic but you know what’s really jarring for me? For the past ten years I’ve agreed with the majority on hacker news on almost every issue. Software patents, voting rights, who knows what else. Everyone seemed to just find the right answer and it made sense. Then all of a sudden I’m in tiny minority because I believe people should be able to choose what they put in their own bodies. It really feels like a twilight zone episode.
  • grllierg 5y ago
    This is real. There has been a total invasion of commies to HN over the past decade. I don't know if it's the schools to blame or what but something has definitely flipped. Hackers, as a demographic used to be hard-core libertarian (not necessarily a party member).
    • anigbrowl 5y ago
      You've been here a decade but your account was created today and you've not read the guidelines? A little hard to credit.
      • chana_masala 5y ago
        Probably a throwaway
      • dead-snake 5y ago
        No big explanation is needed there -- many posters including myself get shadowbanned within hours of account creation, for nothing more than having the wrong opinion.
    • dead-snake 5y ago
      This is the truth. People here are overwhelmingly advocating what I think is probably the most dangerous argument I've ever seen seriously advanced, that some medical procedures are not eligible to be decided by the individual, because they're matters of public health. If we go down that road, what government injection proffered in the name of public health could ever be refused? It's not as if you won't still be labelled a selfish anti-science anti-vaxxer if you refuse, say, the tenth injection rather than the first one.
• grllierg 5y ago
  Fuck everyone on this thread that supports this. You all should kill yourselves now. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES. FUCK YOUR VACCINES.
• mrfusion 5y ago
  Covid will be long gone in 100 years. But you know what might not be gone: the precedents we’re creating today. Introducing a show-your-papers culture where we once had a free and open society.
  • ok123456 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts This was 116 years ago.
    • wyager 5y ago
      The US Supreme Court is not the ultimate moral authority. You’re responding to a comment addressing the abstract long-term consequences of a policy with a specific legal determination saying the policy didn’t happen to violate US law.
      • ok123456 5y ago
        At some point, society has to reach a decision so it can function. You can't just throw your hands up in the air waiting for some higher power with a clearer moral standing to show up and do something universally morally unambiguous. We use the court system as a way of resolving conflicts where there are competing interests and arguments to be made. The Supreme Court had a similar situation happen 116 years ago, and they found that the public health interests outweighed the competing arguments.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • pdog 5y ago
          The Supreme Court upheld concentration camps 76 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States
• throwitaway1235 5y ago
  Nice going New York City, banning 60% of Black residents from participating in life.
• dotcommand 5y ago
  Everyone has to be vaccinated and we must all prove it to exist in society ( even people who had covid )? So, it isn't about herd immunity anymore? It isn't about stopping covid, but getting everyone the vaccine and forcing them to carry identification everywhere? "It’s time for people to see vaccination as necessary to living a good and full and healthy life,” de Blasio said during his daily press briefing." That's what people were saying was going to happen more than a year ago and they were attacked for being conspiracy theorists... Whatever happened to needing 60 or 70% of the people vaccinated to gain herd immunity and stop this pandemic? So 100% vaccination, even for those who had covid and you must carry documentation/id at all times? Why now? Why for this disease? Especially considering the mortality rate is far lower than what was originally projected. When the projections were 5%+, I can understand erring on the side of caution, but the mortality rate is lower than 1% last I checked. So odd.
  • psychometry 5y ago
    Delta variant necessitates a higher level of herd immunity because it's so much more transmissible. > Everyone has to be vaccinated and we must all prove it to exist in society ( even people who had covid )? So, it isn't about herd immunity anymore? It isn't about stopping covid, but getting everyone the vaccine and forcing them to carry identification everywhere? No, it's very obviously about stopping covid. Don't be obtuse.
    • dotcommand 5y ago
      > Delta variant necessitates a higher level of herd immunity because it's so much more transmissible. How much higher? 100%? > No, it's very obviously about stopping covid. Then why are those who already got covid told to get the vaccines? Doesn't make much sense does it? > Don't be obtuse. Are you part of the team downvoting anyone who is simple asking basic questions? The covid brigading is rather obvious and hilarious.
      • Spellman 5y ago
        Delta appears to have about a 2x R_o over the original Covid strain. So, yes, that requires a much higher herd immunity to get transmission rates below 1.0
• throwitaway1235 5y ago
  Does anyone believe this will be expanded to grocery stores, pharmacies and other basic services come fall? My job is already close to pushing mandatory vaccination and I'm trying to decide whether I should pack up my things and leave? 30 year resident and heartbroken.
  • throwitaway1235 5y ago
    It's a serious question. Why downvote? Because you think it's coming but don't want to warn people?
  • desine 5y ago
    Getting ready to leave my blue state home. Born and raised in California, but the autoritarian writing is on the wall, and I'm making my preparations.
    • BitwiseFool 5y ago
      Sounds like you're going to vote accordingly when you do, I hope.
      • desine 5y ago
        I've been against the grain here since my second presidential election as voting age
  • ceilingcorner 5y ago
    Probably inevitable, although this fall seems a bit too early. Also probably unenforceable in many areas of the city.
  • chadcmulligan 5y ago
    Do you really believe that mandatory vaccination is the start of some expansion of government checking on everything? I'm seriously asking, like you already need a drivers license to drive, you put in taxes and the government keeps those in a central database, if you have kids in school they need to be vaccinated in most places I read in this thread. Why would covid vaccination suddenly trigger some government panopticon? they already have so much information on you, why would this be the hill you die on?
• bobthechef 5y ago
  "The program is modeled after the vaccine passport programs rolled out in France and other European countries, officials said." Because that's working out well (also in Australia). I suppose de Blasio doesn't mind swarms of people protesting in front of Gracie Mansion, none of which will be wearing masks, mind you. And then you'll hear the same spiel about how the unvaxxed are to blame again for the Zeta variant as the local pride parade marches by in the background. "Additionally, the mayor said the city is examining expanding the vaccine proof requirement to other indoor activities, such as shopping." Of course they are. This is the thin end of the wedge. It always is. "“If we do not take a strong stand and say ‘you have the right to your body, of course; but you do not have to kill other people.”" Will they give it a rest? You have no right to force someone to take an experimental vaccine large segments of the population don't even need. And those living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Even IF I grant you that you can become a transmitter of the disease to someone vulnerable (a possibility that is always with us for any disease), it is not intentional whereas what he has in mind (abortion) is. "“We’ve got to shake people at this point and say, ‘Come on now.’ We tried voluntary. We could not have been more kind and compassionate. Free testing, everywhere you turn, incentives, friendly, warm embrace. The voluntary phase is over,” de Blasio said on MSNBC last week." What an absurd statement. That's like saying "I've tried consent, but since you didn't agree to my request, I'm going to eschew consent and coerce you." Then it wasn't consensual to begin with! "“Given everything we’re learning, all options are on the table,” he said Friday. “I keep saying we’re climbing the ladder in terms of more and more mandates.” "And on Monday, the mayor hinted at the Big Apple moving toward a “reality” in which those who do not get vaccinated are barred from certain settings. "“More and more, there’s going to be a reality where, if you’re vaccinated, a world of opportunity opens up to you. If you’re not vaccinated, there’s going to be more and more things you can’t do,” de Blasio said during his virtual press briefing, when he announced that the city will only hire vaccinated workers and advised all New Yorkers to wear masks in indoor, public settings. "“I say that to say, go get vaccinated, so you can fully participate in the life of this city, because that’s where things are going.” How gracious of him. Again, thin end of the wedge. Why are some people being so credulous? It's all quite simple: 1. The vaccine is not FDA approved. 2. It is an experimental vaccine. 3. COVID is not dangerous for the vast majority of the population, especially those under the age of 30. 4. There is mixed evidence about the safety and efficacy of he vaccine as well as its relation to new variants. 5. The suppression of expert debate is, at the least, suspicious as all hell. Taking all factors into consideration, there is NO REASON to force anyone to take it. None. Especially not those in the cohorts that aren't affected. If you're at risk (e.g., the obese), then it is up to you to make the calculation for yourself. (Also, since this mandate will disproportionately affect black and Latino New Yorkers, wouldn't this make it systemically racist according to the standards of today? Wouldn't you be punishing them for refusing to be vaccinated? Yes, reason has long exited the scene.)
• freewizard 5y ago
  Appreciate NYC finding ways to push up vax% but not sure what to say about the app they are promoting. Just checked this "NYC COVID Safe" app[1] which is claimed to be "Key to NYC". All it does is taking and storing a photo on the phone. It obviously meant to be CDC paper card, but there seems no validation, client side or server side. (update it does phone home for some apparently analytics event like onboard, added card, etc) In contrast the NYS Excelsior Pass app [2] at least did some check on server side on personal information like name/DOB and place/date of vax before generate a QR code. Also there's another app for business side to verify the consumers' generated QR. It may not be 100% perfect but at least did some diligence. [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nyc-covid-safe/id1565213506 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nyc-covid-safe/id1565213506 [2] https://covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov/excelsior-pass https://covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov/excelsior-pass
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• ibejoeb 5y ago
  What is the plan for undocumented workers? Especially in restaurants. Even if they managed to get vaccinated by providing valid "proof of age" documentation[1], they will not appear in the registries. And if anyone was skeptical and thought that the state might be lying about not tracking identity and immigration status, surely that identity information would likely be false. This is a significant, and likely a majority, of back-of-house restaurant workers, but it also cuts across industries. When enforcement comes knocking, are we going to give them a pass? How does one reconcile requiring it for clients who spend and an hour or two, but not for workers spending 15 hours on premises? 1. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccine-eligibility.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccine-eligibi...
  • biztos 5y ago
    In California you can get your shots without showing any ID, and in fact for my first shot nobody checked mine.
    • ibejoeb 5y ago
      That's why you wouldn't be in the registry
• wompwomp2 5y ago
  Since this was flagged I'll post it here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kevin-cramer-bill-vaccine-passports-voter-id https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kevin-cramer-bill-vaccine-p... Fucking losers.
• Animats 5y ago
  OK, but we need to make the vaccine passport thing work better, and fast. California has https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/ https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/ and I can't get that to recognize that I've been vaccinated. I was vaccinated at Stanford, and their health record system, which I can access online, shows that. But the data didn't make it to the state system. Stanford customer support blames the state. State customer support says "contact your health care provider".
• endisneigh 5y ago
  I’m vaccinated and don’t agree with this. Out of curiosity is there precedent for something like this for non governmental organizations (schools are governmental).
• mirekrusin 5y ago
  Do you have to have vacinne if you had covid?
  • biztos 5y ago
    I don’t know the answer in this context, but in Europe the “immunity certificate” treats vaccination and recovery as equal.
• Ajay-p 5y ago
  How would this be enforced? What if a business just does not ask you for proof? Will they take your word for it or is it required to show actual proof? It could be a good advertising campaign: Come on in, we trust you.
• dnissley 5y ago
  I have many issues with this policy, and I'm both vaccinated and pro-vaccination. 1. As others have mentioned, this is being done before the vaccine being available to children under 12 and before the vaccine has been officially approved by the FDA. 2. This policy isn't simply being announced as a way to temporarily bring down cases, it's being instituted indefinitely, with no pre-determined expiration date. 3. There has been no attempt to justify the policy. And the burden of proof should be on those instituting the policy. 4. This announcement is nearly triumphant rather than displaying any kind of humility. They barely conceal their glee at having the political capital to spend on this policy.
  • mapme 5y ago
    The policy excludes children under 12 given they are not eligible.
• wtfzse 5y ago
  5th amendment - read it, learn it, love it this entire "mandate" is a complete farce Anyone that asks for it - take it the courts as it will be struck down hard.
• j3th9n 5y ago
  I can see an Alcohol Prohibition-like black market emerging. Exciting times!
• mostertoaster 5y ago
  Surviving is not the same thing as living just as noise is not the same thing as music. People have lost their minds over covid and act in ways that they would have said were insane probably five years ago. A bunch of younger people at very little risk of getting horribly sick, are demanding that everyone get vaccinated wear masks and want life to be miserable even though it is older people who are saying I’d rather just live my life and if I die I die. I might get one dose of the vaccine, just so I can not be part of either side of this crazy debate.
  • watercooler_guy 5y ago
    You can't become part of some crazy ideological group unless you start believing and spreading their rhetoric -- the crazies on both sides don't "own" the action of getting a vaccine. If you're already willing to get the vaccine, you may as well get both doses (assuming you're talking about a two-dose vaccine). You can keep living normally, instead of just surviving as you say, while affording yourself and others around you the maximum protection possible.
    • mostertoaster 5y ago
      First two doses for me is completely pointless. I’ve already have covid and recovered, which should be enough, but the crazies have also insisted you should still get vaccine, but even the mighty spirit of our age “science” has said just getting one as a booster combined with natural immunity would probably make you less likely to get or spread it than even those with two doses. So no I will not get two doses because it is pointless. I might get one, and I’ll be more “safe” than all the others, yet I will purposefully not get two so I don’t get tempted to thinking those who didn’t should be shunned and isolated. Let me ask you this, if I was a coworker and you found out I wasn’t vaccinated, yet wasn’t following the mandates, would you just say whatever, or would you notify the hotline to report violators? Could you do that with a good conscience?
    • mostertoaster 5y ago
      Also there are crazies on the other side too. People thinking there are giant conspiracies of powerful people plotting together how to get more power. No the scary thing about it all, is everyone the powerful and the weak are acting the way they are and feel completely justified and have their approval of their conscious.
• unknownOrigin 5y ago
  I don't think many people care what NYC does. That city is a joke. And a dump. (A few videos from Louis Rossmann and I never want to visit, let alone live there.)
  • HanShotFirst 5y ago
    Spoken like a true ignoramus.
• mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Your body NYCs choice.
• jcadam 5y ago
  Ok here's one poll on vaccine mandates: https://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/news/nat-issues-vaccines-0717/ https://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/news/nat-issues-vaccines-0... If we believe these results, vaccine mandates are about as unpopular as TARP was back in 2008 (opposition to which was largely responsible for the "Tea Party" movement). You can expect even stronger opposition to vaccine mandates - because this issue is far more personal. Bring on the downvotes.
  • reducesuffering 5y ago
    You should probably supplement that with at least one other survey. Trafalgar is by far the most right-leaning polling group and got the 2020 election predictions the most wrong based on their polling. 538 has some more info on their methodical issues.
    • jcadam 5y ago
      Eh? According to this article by Nate Silver, Trafalgar did reasonably well in 2020: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-death-of-polling-is-greatly-exaggerated/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-death-of-polling-is... Especially considering polling in 2020 was way off across the board.
      • reducesuffering 5y ago
        My mistake, thanks for the calibration. Trafalgar leaned the most towards Trump winning in 2020 so I naively assumed they were off the farthest, but clearly polling in a US election is more complicated than that.
• Hippocrates 5y ago
  So they're requiring vaccination in "many indoor settings", which just includes restaurants, movie theaters and gyms... Those are luxuries. What are people up in arms about then? Its like another take on the mask mandate outrage, where people conflated selfishness with freedom, except this time you can still do everything you need to while being non-compliant.
  • wyager 5y ago
    The government does not have carte-blanche authority to strip people of any liberty that isn’t strictly necessary for survival. The government stripping life of all its “luxuries” just looks like being in prison (except at least prisoners are allowed to go to the gym).
    • Hippocrates 5y ago
      Sounds very dystopian when you describe it outside the context of a life-saving measure. I don't like the idea of a "government stripping life of all its luxuries" either. ...but are you sure they don't have that authority? There have been plenty of times I've had luxuries stripped in the last two years. What about enjoyable, luxurious substances? International travel to exciting places? Driving around without a seatbelt?
      • wyager 5y ago
        It sounds dystopian because it is.
        • Hippocrates 5y ago
          Yes, your imaginary scenario is dystopian. There is nothing dystopian about not being allowed to eat a burger in a crowded room to help slow the spread of a deadly disease. You assert the government has no right to enforce that, and I'm calling you wrong.
• literallyaduck 5y ago
  Papers please.
• antattack 5y ago
  It appears to me (based on Providence breakthrough infections) that vaccinated people are actually more likely to spread the (delta) COVID because their symptoms allow them to continue daily activities while at the same time they shed the same amount of virus as vaccinated.
• nomdep 5y ago
  Replace “COVID” for “AIDS” and see how irresponsible and even criminal is to complain when you might have it now and not know it. Fear about the vaccine, privacy, or how “minorities are going to suffer”? BS
  • cochne 5y ago
    I’m a little confused at this comment. Are you saying the AIDS vaccine (when it comes) should be mandatory for all sexually active people?
    • nomdep 5y ago
      I’m saying that, if you know you might have AIDS, expecting you to use a condom is not tyrannical at all. Also, yes, why not? Same as polio Right now, without masks, every time you go outside is like having unprotected sex with drug addicts in the 90s. Worse in fact, because you are putting your life and the lives of others at risk knowingly.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• nradov 5y ago
  Boston Mayor Kim Janey explicitly rejected vaccine passports as being reminiscent of slavery. https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-mayor-janey-compares-vaccine-passports-to-slave-papers-birtherism/37213542 https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-mayor-janey-compares-vac... Note that I'm not making the comparison with slavery myself, I'm just passing on the statement from another big city mayor with a different perspective.
• deleted 5y ago
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• michannne 5y ago
  You can still transmit the disease after getting vaccinated. Maybe if it was like the flu vaccine I'd understand, but it's not. I much prefer the mask mandate and the mask mandate is the only thing that makes sense, at least until they come out with a better vaccine. As it stands right now you have people getting the vaccine lulling themselves into the belief that they can't transmit to anyone, it's impossible to know the stats but easy to see it is just as bad as people who don't have symptoms thinking they don't have the disease and can't spread it. If the goal is still seemingly to cut down spread this law does absolutely nothing but increase hubris and cause more cases as more people walk around without a mask. Walked into a CVS the other day and both the clerk and some customers had no mask on simply because they got the vaccine. So I'll stick with my mask for now.
  • mapme 5y ago
    It is much more effective than the flu vaccine and you can still transmit with the flu vaccine, as neither are purely sterilizing.
  • rubatuga 5y ago
    I totally agree. You can still transmit COVID with the vaccine. People who want to be protected from dying of COVID get the vaccine (90% less likely to die), and those who don’t will not get the vaccine. Seems simple to me.
• werber 5y ago
  This is the first hn thread I’ve been unable to finish due to bias fatigue (usually it’s oh, I guess I should be working) I don’t feel that I’ve learned anything new, but I feel a schism with no resolution.
• velhartice 5y ago
  Possibly dumb question, what about the people who have been told by their doctor to NOT get a covid vaccine because of specific pre-existing conditions or medical history? My neighbor has been told by his doctor to not get any vaccine because of his medical history. Are those people just SOL, or am I missing something? THX
• anonymouse008 5y ago
  Anyone looking into providing the coronavac vaccine to the US? It appears to have the same effectiveness in terms of hospitalization benefits, and appears to be a traditional vaccine.
• IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  A couple of tidbits no one seems to be touching on - what will this do to the long term economy of the localities that choose to mandate this, if later the rest of the country does not go along? Will this see a rise of restaurant soeakeasies? - do people not wonder about the timing of it all, when the powerful opposition to the mayor of nyc (cuomo) is politically weakened by a sex scandal, and absorbs all the front page news in the process, effectively innoculating a mayor that is hated, among all demographic groups in nyc?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• NoblePublius 5y ago
  This from the same policy makers who proclaim Voter ID laws to be racist. This is ID to eat food.
• turtlebits 5y ago
  Honestly, I would just prefer everyone mask up and everything be locked down again. The amount of bickering is maddening.
  • chadcmulligan 5y ago
    I'm in australia - masked up and locked down again, like most of the east coast at the moment, it could be worse. Though Sydney seems intent on killing some of the population.
  • lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    You're more than welcome to mask up and stay locked in your home if you're concerned.
• 99_00 5y ago
  60% of African Americans will be excluded from these business due to vaccination rates among African Americans in New York State. https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-...
• exefraud 5y ago
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• ctoth 5y ago
  I keep seeing an argument put forward that we should mandate getting vaccinated (and feel righteous about it!) to prevent the rise of a new scary variant that might bypass the vaccines. This argument, of course, is made by innumerate people who do not realize that the number of US holdouts is utterly dwarfed by the number of people who want a vaccine but can't get it no matter what. If we are worried about a new scary variant slowly burbling away in the lungs of the unvaccinated, preparing to jump out and get us good vaccinated folk, should we not be focusing our energy on... I donno, actually trying to help people who want it get vaccinated instead of forcing people who are reluctant? My $0.02 from a fully vaccinated person who still thinks people should be able to make their own decisions about their bodily autonomy.
  • ctoth 5y ago
    Thinking about this more, maybe we should literally go so far as doing a last call for vaccines. Okay, if you want them, we'll only have them for another month and then we're sending all our supply to Mexico or whatever! Far more likely to actually use them that way, and it'll get those who are holding out for no real reason to step up and get them.
  • mcbuilder 5y ago
    Why not both? I assume your talking internationally about those that desire the vaccine, and domestically in the US for those who are reluctant. Can't we donate vaccines overseas while still pushing those who are here to get the vaccine?
  • pb7 5y ago
    You can walk into any pharmacy and get vaccinated. We are long past demand exceeding supply. That's why vaccination rate graphs are plateauing and the numbers for 1-shot and fully vaccinated are converging.
    • ctoth 5y ago
      Yes, here, in the US! According to the WHO, we're gonna need something like 11 billion vaccines[0] to cover the planet, however. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/world/vaccine-coronavirus-global-stalls.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/world/vaccine-coronavirus...
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• rubatuga 5y ago
  It's horrible how confident and grandstanding the NYC government is of their own policy: “A strong stance needs to be taken,” the lawmaker added. “It will be controversial, but your stance — when we look back in history on this one, this will be a defining moment in your government.” They act like they know what's best, when in fact we have no idea how COVID-19 will evolve in the future or what the efficacy of the current vaccines will be with future variants. Also, we have studies coming out that show natural immunity is stronger than vaccine immunity against future COVID-19 infections. Simply put, this virus is going under evolutionary pressures that nobody can predict. Having the NYC mayor saying things like, "it’s the only way to protect our people"? Um, you could do lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing, or IVM. He is trying to incite hatred and war, with words like "We could not have been more kind... The voluntary phase is over". Pretty shameful in my opinion.
  • felipellrocha 5y ago
    > we have studies coming out that show natural immunity is stronger than vaccine immunity against future COVID-19 infections Which... studies? As far as I've seen the opposite is true.
    • rubatuga 5y ago
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33907755/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33907755/ T cell responses are important for viral infections. However, we see that T-cell responses are significantly decreased in vaccine group, compared to natural immunity.
• graderjs 5y ago
  There's a book called why the West still rules and in it it talks about the history of human civilization and discusses the idea that there are sort of theories that can predict the major directions and major players at each stage of history as the meaning of technology and geography alters over time in response to the level of development and interconnectedness of society. In that book there's this concept called the advantages of backwardness and it's this thing that crops up often after a crisis where the previous major player, having collapsed as a result of whatever forces brought them down, surrender some of their former glory to previously more backward regions whose backwards methods, in the new climate or situation, set them up for success. Here's a quote from Ian Morris the book's author discussing the advantages of backwardness in an interview: "And as cities, states, and industry spread, they entered new geographical niches where the old ways of doing things didn’t always work. People on these frontiers were forced to tinker, to make old techniques work in new—and eventually better—ways. The best example might be in the origins of agriculture: Seven-thousand years ago, farming first developed in the hilly lands around the edges of what we now call Iraq. When farmers moved down to the plains of modern Iraq, they found that to make farming work, they had to develop irrigation agriculture. We saw the same thing happen again with the spread of industry in the 19th century. Industry was invented in the British Isles, but as it spread outward into Germany and North America, people in these places had to create new ways of making industry work successfully. As they did so, Germany and the United States began to replace the British Isles as the center of industry. And we see the same process continuing to work in our own day. In the last 20 years, we’ve seen the meteoric rise of China. We should expect the “advantages of backwardness” to continue being one of the major motors in world history." The connection with the present topic I think is the following. In a sense we've denied our immune systems the advantages of backwardness by the very same advanced technology we designed to augment and protect them. In other words by rushing to create and deploy a vaccine we've prevented our collective human immune system from cultivating defenses to this virus. In that sense I think the policy from a high-level strategic point of view is a weakness and possibly fundamentally flawed, because it opens the possibility the we've made our immune system dependent on vaccinations to deal with further and related infections in future. The other side of the coin is the advantages of backwardness for the virus: we have applied such a strong selective pressure so universally and quickly that in order for the virus to survive it is forced to evolve to become more transmissible, and possibly more dangerous. The more dangerous point is contentious but I argue it as follows because the more dangerous a variant is is correlated with the strength of our measures against it we are selecting for more dangerous variance to evolve more transmissibility. In effect this could be one of the first times in human history that our advanced technology has seriously thrown a natural system previously in equilibrium, in other words the equilibrium between our collective immune system and the collective microbiome of bacterial viruses on Earth, out of balance. nearly many natural examples of how we've done this but they're localized to particular regions like oil spills or Forest clearing we're throwing ecosystems out of balance left right and center but this might be the first time we've done it on a global scale. (And if we release the prophesized mosquito nuclear bomb that's going to wipe out mosquitoes around the world that will be another example of throwing a global ecosystem out of balance). In this pandemic topic, as we keep throwing more fuel at that fire thinking we're solving the problem we may end up simply be providing fuel for future conflagrations that could lead to our collective demise. I don't want to be too dramatic here and I admit the choice of words has a little bit of that effect but we are talking about a massive global scale thing which we are right to take it seriously and while there may be many motivations for getting a large proportion of the world vaccinated, this line of thinking is not one I've seen elaborated very much so I wanted to add it here.
• yibg 5y ago
  Given the current attitudes towards vaccines and individual rights, it's doubtful we'll be able to have another achievement like the elimination of smallpox and polio. What happened in the last few decades? Increased mistrust of government? Shift in the views of individualism? Or is my assessment wrong and if something like smallpox popped up today we'd be able to work together to eradicate it?
  • silent_cal 5y ago
    The vaccines don't prevent transmission and had less than a year of testing. It's perfectly rational to be "hesitant" about them.
  • lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    covid and smallpox are two very different beasts.
  • michannne 5y ago
    I think it's because you don't understand quite how powerful the smallpox and polio vaccines are. I can walk around wherever I want with 0 concern of transmitting some dormant smallpox or polio. I don't see why people are comparing the COVID vaccine to either of these as you can still transmit COVID. In an absolute sense, all the COVID vaccine does is make your life more bearable, but those around you still have a non-zero chance of getting it from you. When you take that into account I start to wonder why some are so obsessed with treating it like the smallpox and polio vaccines when it is anything but.
• TheGigaChad 5y ago
  Too bad that 6th of January didn't work :(
• ashtonkem 5y ago
  Some of the comments in here about the vaccine and the pandemic are shocking to me. I guess I was wrong, we have become a society of selfish and narcissistic people. I guess this pandemic will go on forever.
  • michannne 5y ago
    There shouldn't be a debate about it in the first place. If you want an even higher chance of not dying if you manage to catch the virus, get the vaccine. If you care about reducing the spread, wear the mask. I don't see why either of these things need to be mandated as they sound like pretty clear cut personal decisions in my eyes but I digress. What I am seeing are a lot of people that conflate wearing a mask to being protected from the virus' side effects, or that getting the vaccine makes it impossible for them to transmit, and that they are morally/ethically superior to those who take neither of these decisions.