40 ms·

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

• 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.
  • joshstrange 5y ago
    > I am fine with taking this booster shot but do not like constant moving goalposts. The virus is changing (variants) and we have to adapt to the changes. Your options are rolling with the punches or standing firm on a stance that is no longer based in reality. I can understand the pushback/concern to having to identify yourself constantly but potentially needing a booster isn't moving the goalposts, it's reacting to new information.
  • thinkharderdev 5y ago
    Out of curiosity do you refuse to show an ID to the bouncer at a bar to prove that you're over 21? Or when you buy alcohol/tobacco in a grocery store?
    • da_big_ghey 5y ago
      I do not buy these things but do not like ideas of having to show ID. No person I know have had difficulty with their obtainment from these requirement.
• tboyd47 5y ago
  Requiring people to consume a medical product, especially one that has not been subject to the full FDA approval process, just to live their normal lives is morally wrong. They are making people into test subjects for a multinational corporation. It doesn't matter if we already do this to an extent with other vaccines; nothing in the past has ever come close to this. It doesn't matter if you think the vaccine is more or less dangerous than the coronavirus. It goes back to basic human dignity and human rights. You wouldn't want strangers mandating injections into your body that you don't want. No one would be okay that, unless they are insane. You might make the argument that anti-vaxxers are endangering others' health by being out in public without a vaccine, but that's only a claim. Lots of people make claims about others infringing their rights all the time, and a nontrivial number of those are baseless. A huge number of assumptions about medical science and constitutional law would need to be tested in court for it to hold any weight, unless you're willing to jettison the entire process of civil society.
  • sprafa 5y ago
    Stop getting your opinions from Facebook misinformation as if it’s a Macdonalds burguer bro.
  • q3k 5y ago
    > You wouldn't want strangers mandating injections into your body that you don't want. I mean, compulsory vaccination is a thing in many countries, and I think it's a net good for the world?
    • zepto 5y ago
      Compulsory injection with compounds that are not medically approved because they haven’t been tested to accepted standards is a good thing? For what it’s worth, I’m vaccinated and wear a mask in every public encounter until I’ve discussed the risks with whoever I am dealing with whether required to or not. However I strongly disagree with mandatory medical treatment of any kind. I could imagine a law for emergency vaccinations that I would find acceptable, but it would need to have a lot of safeguards.
• wdhilliard 5y ago
  My problem is that the whole thing is based on old data and a false premise that life is safe when vaccinated people are only around vaccinated people. We know this is slightly more true than among the unvaccinated, but only by about 40%. This is real data. Fears of privacy implications: Tracking data/metadata, How data is recorded, How long are records kept. What other data is linked to vaccination checks? Fears of discrimination: How is vaccination proven? Are special IDs required? What is the cost of identification? What about people who are ineligible to get vaccinated due to age, health status, medical conditions. What percentage of minority groups are vaccinated in comparison to other groups? Unintended consequences: Will this make unsafe behavior appear safer to vaccinated individuals? What about future variants? Are there future plans to extend the list of businesses/places this applies to like public transport, medical facilities, etc? Lastly, If you are vaccinated and feel safe doing these activities, why should you care about those who chose not to get vaccinated
  • alecst 5y ago
    Great reply, thank you. I don't want to get into a long argument, but a lot of what you say hinges on that 40% number. I'd like to know what that refers to. My reply to that 40% number: I thought that vaccines made you something like 20x less likely to end up in the hospital from coronavirus (widely cited as 95% protective.) And that unvaccinated people spread at 5x the rate of the vaccinated ones. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z Despite having done some research in virology for my MSc I definitely don't claim to be an expert. The field is really complex, and I'm always open to learning. So feel free to reply and educate me as long as we can keep it cordial. To answer your last question (presumably non-rhetorical) I worry about unvaccinated people allowing for mutations via community spread, as well as getting sick when they didn't have to, hurting themselves while taking up healthcare resources in the process. Is that unreasonable?
    • keneda7 5y ago
      Not the original poster but The article you link says the delta is unknown. Delta is rapidly becoming the most common variant in the US. (https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210720/delta-variant-now-accounts-for-83-of-us-covid-cases https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210720/delta-variant-now-a...) I believe the 40% is coming from the data out of Israel. (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-variant-pfizer-covid-vaccine-39percent-effective-in-israel-prevents-severe-illness.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-variant-pfizer-covid-v...) Also data from the CDC on the latest outbreak they studies shows that 74% of the positives were vaccinated. At the time the vaccination rate was about 69% for the state. I can't find anything on the actual town. (https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/this-900-person-delta-cluster-in-mass-has-cdc-freaked-out-74-are-vaccinated/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/this-900-person-delt...) The CDC also has said vaccinated do in fact have high viral loads of the virus and can spread it (https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/30/1022867219/cdc-study-provincetown-delta-vaccinated-breakthrough-mask-guidance https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...) Do you happen to have any actual studies showing unvaccinated people are causing mutations? I have seen it repeated but never seen the study behind it. I do know leaky vaccines cause outbreaks to spread faster. This can be seen in the past. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-m...) As for your last part. Lets look at it another way. Heart disease is the leading killer in the US. One of the best way to prevent heart disease is being physically fit and active. By your logic we should be mandating exercise for everyone to prevent it right? Shouldn't we also be forcing people to quite drinking and smoking as well? Overall its just a slippery slop when you give the government this right. What happens if conservatives get in power and decided abortion should be banned outright as they consider a fetus a person? By the same logic you are using, they would be perfectly reasonable to do that.
• Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > You have fears about getting a vaccine, moreso than for coronavirus. If this is you, do you prefer a mask mandate? As someone who is vaccinated, I'm frankly tired of wearing masks, and I don't feel I should have to wear one to protect someone else who is refusing a vaccine.
  • orangecat 5y ago
    Totally agreed. And the silly thing is that it's not the unvaccinated people demanding mask mandates, it's only (some of) the vaccinated people, for whom it would produce at best a tiny decrease in risk.
  • heavyset_go 5y ago
    Consider the people for whom the vaccine won't work for, or will be less effective for, like anyone on immune system suppressants because of transplants, or some cancer patients/survivors, or those taking immunosuppressants and biologics for things like Crohn's, UC, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, etc.
    • rajup 5y ago
      So these people should be wearing masks then? Sounds reasonable to me, not sure how imposing masks on vaccinated people helps.
      • heavyset_go 5y ago
        It's been a year of this, and you should know by now that masks are meant to prevent people from unknowingly spreading the virus to other people. From the FDA[1]: > Q: Do face masks provide protection from coronavirus? > A: Masks may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others. The CDC has guidance for wearing masks. Wearing a face mask may limit exposure to respiratory droplets and large particles and may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus. [1] https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/face-masks-including-surgical-masks-and-respirators-covid-19 https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and...
• BrianOnHN 5y ago
  Meta: What do you think about the timestamps on the children comments here? So many/much responses in <1min from the parent comment? GPT-3 manipulation?
  • tonightstoast 5y ago
    Thank you for bringing this up. There are multiple _long_ child comments that were sent under a minute after the post was published. Wild. I would guess it is someone with some sort of an agenda. Although I’m not sure about GPT-3. EDIT: please see @_Microft's comment above for an explanation of how HN will "pool" threads before coming to a conclusion :)
    • BrianOnHN 5y ago
      Yeah, even though it's against the rules to bring this up, which seems to be doing a favor for blatant manipulation (gpt bot or not) like this.
  • _Microft 5y ago
    That's because it was not submitted when you think it was. The submission came here via the second-chance pool. That means that it was submitted recently, in this case yesterday. It might have gotten a few points and comments at best but did not really catch on. It was deemed interesting enough and moved to the second-chance pool to be automatically put on the frontpage a few hours later again. The process rewrites timestamps as far as I know. You can see it in the list at time of writing this: https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool (You can also access the second-chance pool via the link labelled "Lists" in the footer of the front page if you do not want to remember it.)
    • BrianOnHN 5y ago
      I see that, however I was referring to children comments of the initial comment in this thread, and not the submission itself.
      • 5y ago
• AndrewBissell 5y ago
  > Unless, of course, you think that the vaccine is more dangerous than coronavirus. And then I don't really know what to say. There are vast demographics for which this is actually the case. Children under 18, for example. If you think these passports will only ever be used to check for Covid vaccination status, or that they'll be rolled back once Covid is no longer killing appreciable numbers of people, you're as gullible as they come and I can only assume have been paying no attention to how these sorts of "temporary," "for the duration of the 'emergency' " measures have progressed over the past 20 years. This is the tip of the spear for implementing permanent a social credit system in the West. Yeah, let's let the state mandate that you buy an injection every year from private pharmaceutical companies, with extremely dodgy records and motivated entirely by profit, just to participate in normal life. What could go wrong?
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  • swader999 5y ago
    Right, you might trust Biden or Cuomo to use all this social credit type data from a passport flashed to go anywhere but would you trust the next Trump? There is no reason to give the state this much power. No reason at all.
  • forcry 5y ago
    But..but..CDC will protect me from any evils of pharma companies, right?....Right?
• polote 5y ago
  This measure can't be a way to create "zero covid spaces" because people who are vaccinated can still transmit the virus (even though less than unvaccinated people, but it doesnt seem to be a 90% reduction either). So the goal here is to increase the vaccination rate. It seems pretty weird to ask the indoor business owners to be the ones who are in charge of controlling that the vaccination rate is increasing and to be the one who are punished because the vaccination rate is not high enough.
  • chadash 5y ago
    Alternatively, I'd be much more comfortable going out if I knew everyone around me would be vaccinated.
    • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      But a lot of them can still be positive (i think 30% with AZ vaccine), and somehow noone tests the vaccinated ones, so you'd never know, and most of them are asymptomatic, so they don't even know it. I got my vaccine early on, and haven't been tested since.
      • chadash 5y ago
        Still a lot of unknowns, but seems pretty clear that vaccinated people are less likely to contract and spread. So I like my odds better among a vaccinated crowd.
        • IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
          User timr was presenting a study upthread that the odds of contagion are , as of right now, basically equal between vax and no vax. This was based on the fact the same level of virus load was found in both populations that were infected.
          • chadash 5y ago
            > that were infected These are the key words. But the odds of being infected in the first place are lower if you are vaccinated. So given a choice to spend time with a vaccinated stranger or an unvaccinated one, you should prefer the former if you want to avoid getting sick.
• citilife 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. Ill bite and present a good faith argument. Let's start with the fact COVID-19 is not a very scary disease. The media makes it seem FAR worse than the reality. Yes, there are risks. It appears to be 2-4x more deadly than influenza, but primarily impacts people with pre-existing conditions. As such, those individuals should protect themselves. If society needs to make some minor accommodations that may make sense. Example, perhaps we allow elderly to shop 6-9am at stores. They're given n95's, etc. To put it in perspective, in 2020 people in their 80's have a 20% higher chance of death than 2019, so if you have a 5% chance of dying per year, we're talking 6%. That's not dramatic. > 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? The evidence cloth masks are effective doesn't exist. As such, the policy doesn't make sense. Surgical and N95 masks do have evidence they help, but aren't primarily what people are using. If you're talking about "fears about getting the vaccine", the vaccine isn't approved and there are treatments for covid-19. Meaning we shouldn't have emergency use authorization at this point AND it's not an FDA approved drug. Even if it becomes approved, I would not expect anyone to take it without discussing with their doctors. Trials today are not completed. All we have are preliminary reports (phase 1, 2, 3): https://www.modernatx.com/covid19vaccine-eua/providers/clinical-trial-data https://www.modernatx.com/covid19vaccine-eua/providers/clini... Long term impacts wont be known for 5-10 years. Further, many people can't have the vaccines. I dont' see an issue with the vaccines, but people should be informed and not coerced. > 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? In terms of privacy, the 4th amendment protects against government search and seizures. When government mandates papers being reviewed, they are effectively acting as agents of the state and doing searches. Further, doctors should be the ones managing care, not bureaucrats. Historically, CDC and FDA issue suggestions and provide evidence. It's dangerous to try and enforce vaccines when we aren't taking into account pre-existing conditions. For instance, there are drugs, ages, pre-existing conditions, all of which impact vaccine effectiveness and risk profile(s). Coercing people to take a take part in a human experimentation is something we consider a crime against humanity. > 3. You are not particularly concerned about the community spread of coronavirus (and the implications of that) The disease is already wide spread and approximately everyone has been exposed. Arguably the vast majority have a partial immunity (had the disease or vaccine). If it's still spreading, there's nothing we can do. Further, the delta variant spreads more easily, but is less deadly. So we shouldn't really worry here.
• gizmo 5y ago
  It's simple. If you're vaccinated you shouldn't care whether other people in the restaurant are. That's the point of vaccination after all. And if you're not vaccinated obviously you're not going to be in favor of this new mandate. The people who support policies like these are vaccin efficacy denialists, petty tyrants, and doomers of various sorts. And there are good reasons to not want to live in a "papers please" society.
  • admax88q 5y ago
    That's not the point of vaccination. A group of people in a room all vaccinated is safer than a group of people half vaccinated. The vaccine is not a boolean on off switch, it's a percentage wise improvement over nothing, and it compounds when those around are also vaccinated.
    • forcry 5y ago
      > That's not the point of vaccination. Please provide some citation for this outrageous claim that the point of a vaccine is to NOT provide immunity from infection.
      • jacquesm 5y ago
        You could do worse than to read the wikipedia page about vaccines, which has this passage: "Vaccines can be prophylactic (to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by a natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (to fight a disease that has already occurred, such as cancer)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine
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• gadders 5y ago
  This discriminates against the same parts of the population that are unable to get an ID to be able to vote. I would think a vaccine passport would need some other form of ID first so it can be tied to a particular person.
  • tastyfreeze 5y ago
    Off topic but, there is nobody that is unable to get an ID in the US if they want one.
    • jstanley 5y ago
      I don't actually know, but it seems unlikely that illegal immigrants can get an ID from the government?
      • _-david-_ 5y ago
        Since they are here illegally they are not even supposed to be here so it doesn't seem like an issue.
      • tastyfreeze 5y ago
        Well, they could get one if they wanted but it takes a few extra steps. Namely, becoming a legal citizen.
    • tzs 5y ago
      ...if they have sufficient time and money. Many less well off people have neither, especially in states that have purposefully limited the hours of their offices that issue ID and put such offices far from poorer neighborhoods and far from public transit routes.
      • tastyfreeze 5y ago
        Here is an exercise for you. Go find somebody that you think might not have sufficient time or money to get an ID and ask them if they have one. Then ask them if they think there were any barriers to them getting an ID. I bet dollars to donuts you will be surprised by the answer.
• ryandrake 5y ago
  I have a family member who, despite acknowledging that seat belts work and save lives, refuses to wear his seat belt purely out of petty spite "because I'm not gonna let the tyrannical government tell me what to do!" This endless conversation about vaccines is feeling more and more like that. Orthodox Individualism has become a religion.
  • minikites 5y ago
    >Orthodox Individualism has become a religion. Over the last 40-some years, Conservatives and Republicans have been incredibly successful at destroying the idea of government which is effective and serves the public. The result is that oppositional defiance and grievance politics are all we have left.
    • DamnYuppie 5y ago
      Over the past 40 years elected officials have done a great job of passing legislation that shows they are incompetent, corrupt, and have no ones best interested except their own and will use any excuse to increase their control over people.
      • deleted 5y ago
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      • minikites 5y ago
        >a great job of passing legislation This is what I mean by "grievance politics". This is not true, but "feels" like it it is. If Congress has done "a great job of passing legislation", what were the legislative achievements of the Trump administration? How did that government reduce its role in our lives? How did the government "shrink" in any way, which is supposed to be the Republican promise? Republicans/Conservatives don't think the government should provide for society in the same way that Democrats/Liberals do. It's why Republicans politicized wearing a mask and now vaccination, because it's the government doing things. More importantly, telling them to do things. It's why Republicans universally obstruct the progress of the Democrats (see Mitch McConnell not filling a Supreme Court seat) but the reverse isn't generally true. Republicans don't want to pass much of anything, and many Democrats vote for the things they do. Ultimately, it doesn't matter who is blamed for corruption and incompetence, it still serves to further the idea that government shouldn't do anything. That's not an option when there's a disease ripping though society, which is why the reaction against vaccination and masking is so strong. It's directly challenging the idea that government and society can be effective at solving a problem if we work together. The Jeffersonian ideal of a weak government presiding over a agrarian society is outdated and not a meaningful model for modern society.
• tracedddd 5y ago
  We shouldn’t applaud the normalization of health status checks outside a border crossing. The world has a nasty trend of using crises to erode privacy and we collectively never recover - what was sold as temporary becomes permanent, endlessly extended and expanded. I’m not an antivaxer. The vaccine works and I believe it’s really safe. I’m vaccinated. Nearly anyone who is capable to go to a bar can easily go get vaccinated. If they don’t, I’m not interested in saving them from themselves, honestly. If the spread or variant breakthrough or some other aspect is so critical that we need to resort to novel privacy violations we should just shut down again instead.
  • tantalor 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
    • tracedddd 5y ago
      Pointing out a slippery slope doesn’t mean it isn’t worth considering the consequences. My position is indeed speculative, however it’s not without evidence. We very rarely regain rights or freedoms when they are taken so I think it’s valid to be concerned about the same thing happening here.
      • tantalor 5y ago
        > not without evidence Please give examples
        • tracedddd 5y ago
          Patriot Act.
          • saalweachter 5y ago
            Didn't the Patriot Act fail to get reauthorization on its last expiration? Granted, ~20 years is a pretty good run.
• dougmwne 5y ago
  I don't have much problem with a mandate, but I think you are missing a reason someone might be against one. A vaccine will protect the vast majority of people from bad outcomes if they themselves get it. There is strengthening evidence that vaccinated people can still be very infectious and a big danger to the unvaccinated. Therefore if you believe that governments should be parsimonious in their regulation of people's activities, mandating a vaccine that doesn't particularly protect anyone but the person who gets it might be an example of government overreach. We let people smoke after all. If you believe that the vaccine will protect others (and I hope it does, despite some recent concerning studies) then it is more defensible to mandate it. Basically, I would hope mandates like this are done on the science instead of on the hope that if we're all very good citizens and get our shots we will somehow be rewarded with protection from the big bad virus and an end to the pandemic.
• giantg2 5y ago
  For #2, if you have a medical condition that prevents you from receiving the vaccine it would require either falsified vaccine cards to show you as complying with the mandate, or disclosure of a/the medical condition that prevents you from getting it. Effectively, this small minority is finding themselves in a position that pits their medical privacy of their underlying medical conditions against the requirement to prove vaccination status. On a related note, I wonder why antibody levels aren't used. I mean, we should want to measure outcomes, not output. If you have comparable levels of antibodies from natural infection vs the vaccine, then you should be well protected. Conversely, if you recieved the vaccine but your immune system does not produce a sufficient level of antibodies, then they shouldn't be considered "safe", right? This question was mostly based on an article I saw about a nurse who was fired because she didn't get the vaccine eventhough she had antibodies. It made me think it was mostly a move by some corporate lawyer limit liability. "you can "take your chances" with the vaccine which, statistically and biologically, is safer than getting coronavirus." Can you elaborate on what you mean by biologically safer? Also, I'm looking forward to the data Pfizer will be releasing soon for their regular market approval, because I haven't been able to find good statistics about covid v vaccine serious side effects by risk factor(s).
  • Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    > For #2, if you have a medical condition that prevents you from receiving the vaccine it would require either falsified vaccine cards to show you as complying with the mandate. IMO, people with legitimate medical conditions should just be granted excelsior passes, the same as those who are vaccinated. There's few enough people with these conditions that it shouldn't be a health issue. Religious exemptions are the tricky one, since NYC especially has e.g. orthodox jews clustered together in their own communities. IMO, they should not got passes. If they don't want a vaccine, fine—they just won't be able to go to the movies.
    • giantg2 5y ago
      Yeah, issuing the pass that doesn't differentiate between vaccinated and excluded would prevent almost all of the concern. Some people do have concerns about disclosuring health info to the government. Although the government could just buy the "anonymous" medical records and figure them out if they really wanted to. Yeah, religious exclusions get tricky. Really the whole thing can be tricky because it comes down to philosophical beliefs of what should be mandated and for whom. Edit: Why so many downvotes without reply?
• stickfigure 5y ago
  Residents of the US have self-selected into two cohorts: 1) People that will get resistance via vaccines 2) People that will get resistance via infection Some 30-40% of the US population decided on #2. Roughly 0.7% of them will die because of that decision, but this is exactly what they are asking for! If you are in cohort #1, you really don't have a lot to worry about from the virus. Why are you denying people the consequences of their decisions? Yes, the medical system will be briefly overrun, and it would be a terrible time to need hospitalization. That's a good argument for getting it over as quickly as possible! The delta variant is estimated to have an R0 of 8-10. Let it rip and the surge will be over in weeks. What about the children? Serious negative effects on kids seem to be extraordinarily rare. The kids will be fine. I am only half joking here. "We live in a society" cuts both ways - we have to respect the general health of everyone, but we also have to respect the explicit wishes of a huge portion of the population - almost a third. The good news is that almost exclusively, they're going to be the ones dying. I can live with that.
  • Daishiman 5y ago
    I am in cohort #1. I don't want to continue to increase the chances of breakthrough mutations and I do not want others to do so. I do not want a substantial number of people getting sick and having to use collective resources to heal them at the expense of others because of a collectively bad choice. I do not want to substitute, work overtime, or have reduced productivity due to this. While vaccinated people are fairly safe, even with us all being vaccinated we are adding to the background risk of hospitalization the equivalent of several hard flu seasons. I've had a really bad flu where I felt I was dying, twice in my life. I do not look forward to having my body bearing that brunt every couple of years for the rest of my life.
    • rajin444 5y ago
      > I do not want a substantial number of people getting sick and having to use collective resources to heal them at the expense of others because of a collectively bad choice Why are you ok with using this argument for covid, but not smoking / obesity / football / etc.? The principle is sound, but the selective application is not.
• tomp 5y ago
  4) You oppose tyranny. People should be free to make their own choices. By going out unvaccinated, I'm not putting anyone in danger, except those who choose to be endangered (not isolating / sheltering at home, unmasked, unvaccinated). 5) You oppose discrimination. I'm immune but not vaccinated. Where's my immunity certificate?
  • __m 5y ago
    I want to drive a car without the tyranny of speed limits, I’m not putting anyone in danger except those who choose to be endangered (driving a car, walking a street). I oppose discrimination. I know how to drive a car, where is my driver’s license?
    • textgel 5y ago
      I want to be able to date without the risk of HIV, seems we have to abolish gay bars and make homsexuality itself a crime.
      • TomVDB 5y ago
        In many states, it’s a crime to have unprotected sex while knowingly having HIV and not informing your partner. That covers things right there. Do you have any other examples to demonstrate your ability to make absurd analogies?
        • underseacables 5y ago
          Not anymore… California repealed its law, and Illinois is in the process of doing the same. You can knowingly transmit HIV to someone in California without telling them anything, and its not a crime.
        • uuipplo 5y ago
          No it doesn't; you are not having fundamental rights such as free movement abolished. Now have another go at comprehending the analogy now that its basic mechanics have been explained to you in simple terms and consider that your inability to grasp the analogy demonstrates a moral or intellectual (or both) failing on your part that you seriously need to address. You are demanding the abolition of the right to free movement, god only knows what you'll want next.
• timr 5y ago
  I am pro-vaccine (and fully vaccinated), but I don't support this policy at all. I don't believe this will have much of a net effect on vaccination rate, I believe it will disproportionately negatively impact poor and minority populations in NYC who already have a bad/mistrustful relationship with health care and government, and it is obviously a huge new governmental intrusion into our daily lives. It might well lead to anger and violence (as similar moves have across Europe). These are my opinions, but I think the strongest arguments against it are facts: if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. And literally anyone who wants a vaccine can get one. Those who choose not to get vaccinated are making a risk calculation; they are making a choice. This policy comes from an almost hysterical fixation on "cases", which are not a metric of any meaning. SARS-CoV2 is not going away. We should be reacting rationally to rates of hospitalization and deaths -- and right now, those are barely changed in NYC, thanks to the very high vaccination rate amongst the vulnerable population: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-trends.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-trends.pag... One can certainly argue that there exist small groups of people for whom the vaccine is not perfect protection. This is true, but it's no different than all other viruses, which have threatened immunocompromised people forever. We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals. So while I empathize with them, this still seems like over-reach to me.
  • afavour 5y ago
    > And literally anyone who wants a vaccine can get one. Literally not true. Kids under 12 are not able to be vaccinated, which puts a limit on the activities they and their families can do. If they're able to know that everyone inside a restaurant is vaccinated they'll be more likely to visit. > It might well lead to anger and violence (as similar moves have across Europe). Not really. There were some minor protests and then an untick in vaccination rate. As someone living in NYC right now I really can't see this being met with violence.
    • sokoloff 5y ago
      How could a family under 12 possibly know that everyone inside a restaurant is vaccinated unless the restaurant only allows a single party to have a member under 12?
• cm2187 5y ago
  That's not the only reasons people wouldn't want to take the vaccine. For instance lots of people already had covid (particularly in NYC), and developed a natural immunity, which from the low reinfection rate, seems to be rock solid. It doesn't make a lot of sense to require that population to take a vaccine. As for the vaccine being more or less dangerous than the virus, I think for any population over 40 or in poor health, the trade off is clearly in favour of the vaccine. But if you are 20 and in good health, I am not sure it is that obvious. I am not overly concerned about the vaccine myself, and I got vaccinated even though I had covid (mostly to be able to travel), but I have some sympathy for people who decline to be vaccinated, particularly when all the population at risk had a chance to get vaccinated. At this point this is them managing their own risk. Their life, their decision.
  • chimeracoder 5y ago
    > As for the vaccine being more or less dangerous than the virus, I think for any population over 40 or in poor health, the trade off is clearly in favour of the vaccine. But if you are 20 and in good health, I am not sure it is that obvious. The risks of complications from the virus are many orders of magnitude higher than risks of complications from the vaccine, even for people in their 20s.
    • cm2187 5y ago
      Whatever the numbers are, you are balancing a minuscule risk against another minuscule risk. That's not going to be a convincing argument.
      • chimeracoder 5y ago
        > Whatever the numbers are, you are balancing a minuscule risk against another minuscule risk. That's not going to be a convincing argument. The rate of complications from COVID-19 infections among people in their 20s is absolutely not "minuscule".
        • mdorazio 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
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• Consultant32452 5y ago
  I care more about the health of small business than I do about the health of people who contract covid and will continue to view all sociopolitical activity through that unchanging lens.
  • nicoffeine 5y ago
    I agree to some extent, but if the virus mutates among the unvaccinated and breaks through all current vaccines, small businesses profitability will be a small part of a much larger catastrophe.
    • Consultant32452 5y ago
      Vaccine use is accelerating the evolution of the virus because these vaccines don’t stop you from catching COVID, they just provide a different kind of host to adapt to. Add that variable into your calculation and reimagine the future with a more accurate understanding of what’s to come and what you think about these new variants.
• briane80 5y ago
  Ivermectin has shown great promise not only treating symptons of covid (5000% reduction in viral load in one paper) but also as a prophylactic. The small studies released recently suggest up to 83% effectiveness as a prophylactic. Of course larger RCT will need done, but fat chance of that with the economic incentive for big pharma and their politcal cronies and the weird political push to get EVERYONE vaccinated. Getting downvoted by the hive mind so here's some links to a paper and offical news sources- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/ https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Fulltext/2021/08000/Ivermectin_for_Prevention_and_Treatment_of.7.aspx https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Fulltext/2021/... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.31.21258081v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.31.21258081v... https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-scientist-says-covid-19-could-be-treated-for-under-1day-675612 https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-scientist-says-... meta study - https://ivmmeta.com/ https://ivmmeta.com/ https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indian-bar-association-sues-who-scientist-over-ivermectin/article_f90599f8-c7be-11eb-a8dc-0b3cbb3b4dfa.html https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indian-ba... https://www.pfizer.com/science/coronavirus/antiviral-efforts?linkId=125685685 https://www.pfizer.com/science/coronavirus/antiviral-efforts...
  • swader999 5y ago
    It saved my ass. My regular gp's advice was just to live with long covid for the next 12 months or so until it went away. He couldn't prescribe it so I found the horse paste and got better.
• AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  Why would you be opposed to a policy requiring everyone to jog three miles every day? Jogging is good for your health, its side effects are minor and benefits to the society in whole will be tremendous.
  • pklausler 5y ago
    If I choose to stop running, I'm not increasing a health risk for others. Sloth is not contagious.
    • textgel 5y ago
      You're potentially taking up a hospital bed at some point that could be used for someone else.
• silicon2401 5y ago
  > 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? I'd rather have a mask mandate, like we did earlier. Lacking one is ridiculous because it's trivial to lie and forge a vaccine card. First they said masks wouldn't help, then they said the vaccine was enough. Both steps have been wrong. Societies are being petulant and refusing to just skip to the effective option because they want to party and avoid cooking.
  • JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > it's trivial to lie and forge a vaccine card New York State has a digital vaccine tracking system and pass. Naturally, out of state people would find it easier to commit fraud.
• grllierg 5y ago
  Fuck you fascist! Burn in hell!
• mbostleman 5y ago
  This is one that I think you missed that I have heard a lot: 4. You view this as the state being paternalistic to protect the unvaccinated when, in fact, if in August of 2021 you have not yet been vaccinated, you are almost certainly making a personal risk management decision and, as such, should be prepared for the consequences to not only yourself, but others like you (unvaccinated). This view also seems to be predicated on the idea that the vaccinated are largely unaffected by the spread amongst the unvaccinated. To what degree this is true, I don't know. It's hard to keep up with the evolving data and narratives.
• unethical_ban 5y ago
  Here is my take: anyone who wants the vaccine can get it. If there are adults who can't, perhaps we need a law to grant paid time off for anyone who doesn't have it, specifically to allow them time to get the vaccine. There doesn't seem to be evidence that children are at a high risk of health issues due to the virus. So in America after 8 months, most people who want the vaccine have it. Those who have it are incredibly safe, though not completely. My question is this: when do we admit that in the US, we can go back to normal? At this point, i do see it like the flu or any other moderate respiratory illness. There is a risk, and we mitigated it. If someone wants to wear a mask, okay. If a business or hospital wants to mandate masks, fine. But at this point, the unvaccinated in this country have chosen to ride without a helmet. So long as the health system doesn't collapse, that is on them, as it has always been.
• dotcommand 5y ago
  > Pretty dismal discussion in here at the time of writing. Largely complaints about tyranny. Because it's highly tyrannical? Odd how cavalier you are about this. Nevermind that you have a right to privacy when it comes to health matters, this also forces you to carry "ID" pretty much everywhere. Also, all tyrannies a born to "protect you". > Makes me sad that we can't have a calm discussion about the merits of the policy. I don't think that's what you are interested in. You wouldn't have started off your comment that way if you did.
  • jhgb 5y ago
    > Because it's highly tyrannical? I hope that one day you'll experience an actual tyranny for comparison. Something like Belarus or North Korea. > this also forces you to carry "ID" pretty much everywhere Yes, because US car drivers don't already do that? And pretty much anyone in developed countries in the world.
    • readflaggedcomm 5y ago
      Not everybody drives. Identification for voting is onerous enough, not to mention for groceries.
      • jhgb 5y ago
        > Identification for voting is onerous enough This makes absolutely no sense for anyone not living in the US. You could as well be speaking Klingon. > not to mention for groceries This makes even less sense.
    • jcadam 5y ago
      > I hope that one day you'll experience an actual tyranny for comparison. Something like Belarus or North Korea. Cool. We should submit to any and all amounts of government overreach and abuse of power until our rulers decide to go full Pol-Pot. Then we can say "Hey, wait a minute." The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
      • 5y ago
• srcreigh 5y ago
  What's the harm in letting unvaccinated people spread covid amongst themselves? Vaccinated people aren't at risk. Unvaccinated people know the risks and they've had plenty of time to be vaccinated. It's not illegal to decide to do $XYZ_DANGEROUS_ACTIVITY, why should it be illegal to be exposed to covid? The only concern in theory is that a vaccine-immune covid variant could develop amongst unvaccinated populations. Is there any evidence for that though? EDIT: see responses below, there is some good info, thanks folks.
  • omegaworks 5y ago
    > What's the harm in letting unvaccinated people spread covid amongst themselves? Uncontrolled spread in the unvaccinated puts others that can not produce an immune response at risk. >Vaccinated people aren't at risk. This is false, fully vaccinated people in my network have been hospitalized. >Is there any evidence for that though? Reproduction and mutation in the infected is the primary mechanism by which variants develop.
  • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    > The only concern in theory is that a vaccine-immune covid variant could develop amongst unvaccinated populations. Is there any evidence for that though? Considering that also vacinated people get covid, this doesn't help at all, and since they're mostly asymptomatic, they can even spread it more. Otherwise, I agree... vaccines are available for everyone, if you want to risk it, it's your risk to take.
  • bombela 5y ago
    If you are immunocompromised. Even though vaccinated. You could still catch the virus and be seriously impacted by it for example. The vaccine is not a guaranteed 100% protection for a healthy young person. And the weaker you are, the worse are the odds. And then you have the possiblity of mutations. The longueur the virus is on circulation. The more likely it is to mutate with worse outcome.
    • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      But if you're immunocompromised, you're fscked anyways, and should stay at home, because a lot of vaccinated people (~30+% with astrazeneca) can still get it, and even stay asymptomatic (so they spread it, but don't even know it, and noone tests them, because they're vaccinated).
• deleted 5y ago
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• l33tman 5y ago
  4. You already have had COVID-19 and feel the added (minor) protection by 1-2 vaccine shots gets you into more cons than pros.
  • goostavos 5y ago
    The forgotten minority :(
  • jhgb 5y ago
    The "added protection" is not "minor" in any sense.
• ashtonkem 5y ago
  It’s also worth pointing out that this isn’t exactly a new policy. Most forms of education from kindergarten through college requires proof of various vaccines. I remember having to get a whole slew of boosters at 18 because we couldn’t find the old records in order to go to college. You’d think that after a pandemic has killed 600,000 of our fellow citizens we’d be able to come together and simply repeat as adults what we do for most children, but alas we live in a deeply unserious time.
  • chrisco255 5y ago
    I don't have proof of any vaccine I have ever received. I didn't need to submit any kind of vaccination proof to go to college. Yes, I got my MMR and Tetanus shots in Kindergarten, but no one has cared since. And even then you can get exceptions. Medical fascism is not normal or acceptable in everyday life. We dealt with far worse diseases including smallpox, polio and many others without this authoritarianism.
    • ashtonkem 5y ago
      Which college did you go to?
      • chrisco255 5y ago
        University of Florida
        • ashtonkem 5y ago
          Here’s the immunizations the University of Florida requires: https://healthcompliance.shcc.ufl.edu/immunization-requirement/requirements-and-recommendations/ https://healthcompliance.shcc.ufl.edu/immunization-requireme... Here’s the Florida law that requires immunization before entering K-12 school: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=1000-1099/1003/Sections/1003.22.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ... Based on the text of the law, immunization was required in K-12 Florida schools since at least 2002. Here’s the law that required you be immunized against Hep B and Meningitis before attending the University of Florida, also from 2002: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=1000-1099/1006/Sections/1006.69.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ... And the administrative code that covers both K-12 and adult education: https://www.flrules.org/gateway/readFile.asp?sid=0&tid=12780931&type=1&file=64D-3.046.doc https://www.flrules.org/gateway/readFile.asp?sid=0&tid=12780... It’s possible you didn’t provide this if you went to college before 2002, but if you went after 2002 then you just forgot. That or you signed a lot of waivers and forgot, but that’s a different claim. I guess you can claim that fascism won in Florida back in 2002, but that’s not going to persuade a lot of people.
• deleted 5y ago
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• tajustice 5y ago
  ID laws are inherently racist, and have been leveraged by white supremacists for decades to keep POC from enjoying the rights and privileges they're guaranteed under the law. Businesses requiring vaccination IDs are de facto discriminating against POCs and other minorities because POCs and minorities are less likely to have ID, and less likely to be vaccinated.
  • ok123456 5y ago
    The coronavirus doesn't discriminate. Edit: Can't reply to the child since it's dead, but for the record, I got my covid vaccinations at an AME church (i.e., black) back in April. Edit 2: >Anecdotal evidence is always useful for bigotry. I went to an AME church (i.e., black) back in April and the church was denied vaccines. No you didn't. > The statistical facts are clear: POCs are much less likely to have access to vaccines, to be vaccinated, and to have IDs. Requiring ID is inherently racist. What facts? You're just making up stuff. This has nothing to do with voter ID or voter suppression. You're just trolling, poorly.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • tajustice 5y ago
      But ID laws and vaccine access do discriminate.
    • tajustice2 5y ago
      Anecdotal evidence is always useful for bigotry. I went to an AME church (i.e., black) back in April and the church was denied vaccines. The statistical facts are clear: POCs are much less likely to have access to vaccines, to be vaccinated, and to have IDs. Requiring ID is inherently racist.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • tajustice2 5y ago
      >I got my covid vaccinations at an AME church (i.e., black) back in April. No you didn't. Here are the facts: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fewer-black-americans-are-getting-the-covid-19-vaccine-no-its-not-hesitancy/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fewer-black-america... https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
• swayvil 5y ago
  We settled this point at Nuremburg. Involuntary experimental medical procedures are what the bad guys do.
  • Clubber 5y ago
    Don't tell the CIA that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...
    • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      "CIA bad!" is pretty common trope around here. I think many would consider the CIA, in part or whole, to be a subset of the bad guys.
      • Clubber 5y ago
        >I think many would consider the CIA, in part or whole, to be a subset of the bad guys. Yes, that's what I was insinuating.
• Buttons840 5y ago
  My gut feeling is closer to 4. You perceive the government as taking more and more power without ever giving any back. I don't know if this is true, but that is the reason for my instinctual opposition and I haven't overriden it yet.
  • eruleman 5y ago
    We're still taking off our shoes at the airport even though it was a "temporary" measure started in 2006.
• dataflow 5y ago
  The part that irks me about a vaccine mandate is it being imposed before FDA approval. The FDA isn't confident enough to approve the vaccine yet, yet other parts of the government are (effectively) saying they know better than the FDA? Is it really surprising that people hesitate when they see this? Isn't it kind of alarming to hear a government say, hey, our own scientists haven't approved this, but we want to inject it into your body anyway?
  • ibejoeb 5y ago
    The problem is also that there is political pressure to approve it. That sucks. Whatever time it takes to go through the process is the time it takes. Pushing it through is only going to do two things: 1) show that the process is political and that FDA approval is fungible and 2) make us wonder what the purpose of it is and why we should ever do it at all after this, if it can just be bypassed when politically convenient. Is it just fat to be trimmed? FDA approval does not confer safety and efficacy. It it there to report empirical safety and efficacy. FDA regularly revokes approval. That should count for something.
    • dataflow 5y ago
      Yeah, it's a tough situation for sure. I've been wondering if there's a more creative solution that could be implemented here. Like someone from the FDA coming and saying, hey, we obviously won't know long term effects with 100% certainty until a few years pass, but all the signs we're seeing indicate the vaccines are just as safe as any other vaccines up to this point, we've gotten it ourselves, and it's our belief that you should feel safe getting it too. Or the FDA inventing a new type of temporary approval for epidemics or something like that that basically means "we feel this is safe enough to mandate amid outbreaks, but not otherwise". (An EUA seems almost similar, but to me it means "this is safe enough to use in an emergency", not mandate.)
      • ibejoeb 5y ago
        I think it's more of the limitation of liability at this point. Whether or not any central authority endorsed it is moot when 100 million doses have been given. The big problem for me is in making light of the process that, perfect or imperfect, is a extremely important in a for-profit pharma paradigm.
• hemloc_io 5y ago
  Vaxed and pro-vax, but I'm pretty opposed to this policy out of NYC. (And I suspect other cities soon). I'm personally a bit of a privacy nut so take that as you will, but open to changing my mind. To have a different take than other people, I just don't know if this precedent is really one that we want to start, particularly if you are liberal/leftist. For e.g. let's say we're at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, and the govt mandates a policy requiring you to have a negative HIV test in order to go-to any bar/restaurant etc or there are a bunch of private businesses that say they don't want to risk their patrons from getting HIV, so require a negative HIV test in order to enter, or even that their patrons are just uncomfortable being around people with HIV so they mandate it. HIV patients aren't a protected class so it could happen and there's nothing anyone can do about it, yet I bet most of the people wanting these vaccine card mandates now would disagree with that policy. Businesses being able to reject/accept customers can already run into some weird civil rights issues already, and it's strange that so many people who are ostensibly left wing are advocating for libertarian positions on what a business should be able to discriminate on, because it benefits their team this time. How many people out there argued that a business should have to bake a gay wedding cake, b/c businesses shouldn't discriminate on your sexual preference, but think they should on your personal health decisions? (Which, since vaccines work means that patrons in that business who are vaccinated shouldn't be in any particular extra danger.)* More frustrating is that if we want more people to be vaxxed there's many more things that we that aren't punitive, but probably don't feel as fair. (aka why did I get nothing for getting vaxed but XYZ got 100-1000$/lottery/free tickets whatever.) Since a large portion of the unvaxed aren't the Trumpian sterotype, but concerned with things like having to take days off of work to deal with side effects. [0] 0: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-profile-of-the-unvaccinated/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-co... * This discounts the generation of new variants outside the business, since this policy is ostensibly targeted at keeping patrons safe, not at being a pseudo-mandate for getting the vaccine.
  • jbeam 5y ago
    You are not going to contract HIV from someone by standing in the same room as them. That is a very key difference. There is plenty of discrimination among gay men when it comes to the possibility of contracting HIV, i.e. sexually. Many will require their partners to be on PrEP.
• mensetmanusman 5y ago
  4. You had covid, and you don’t want to pay pharmaceutical companies to go to McDonalds.
• ceilingcorner 5y ago
  How about... 4) You recognize this as yet another crisis that the government is using to unconstitutionally increase its powers. 9/11 and the Patriot Act and Iraq/Afghanistan being a recent example. This stuff happens again and again and yet somehow the default position is “convince me why this is a bad thing.” History education needs more funding, and fast.
• pmarreck 5y ago
  Given that the Delta variant is so contagious that it would require 90% vaxxed to achieve herd immunity, I see the situation as largely hopeless for those who fail to see the wisdom of getting vaccinated The crazy thing is that the knee-jerk backlash against this vaccine has carried over into ALL vaccines for many people... So expect to see measles, polio, etc. etc. all over again thanks to the polarization involved at this point
• dcolkitt 5y ago
  > Unless, of course, you think that the vaccine is more dangerous than coronavirus. And then I don't really know what to say. I'd still encourage everyone to vaccinate for pro-social reasons, but for the young and the healthy I don't think this is such a ridiculous assertion. I'm virtually 100% confident that vaccines are completely safe and effective. However for a large fraction of people they will make you feel like shit for 2-5 days. Let's just do a quick QALY based tradeoff for a healthy 25-year old. To make it interesting let's also say that she was already previously infected with Covid. The baseline CFR for this age group is approximately 0.004%. For someone with antibodies this number's at least 50% for subsequent infections. Assuming 70 years of remaining life expectancy, Covid infection would lead to the loss of 12 hours of life expectancy. In contrast, I'd definitely prefer to be dead than live with the post-vaccine symptoms I experienced. And for me the suffering lasted about 96 hours. And I'm not atypical here. In that sense, vaccines are nearly ten times worse from a QALY perspective than the risk of being unvaccinated. Again, all that being said, I was vaccinated and would encourage everyone else to do the same. But for the typical healthy 20-something, skipping the vaccine isn't necessarily irrational-- just selfish.
  • dan-robertson 5y ago
    I’m a healthy 25 year old. I think simple QALY metrics for me getting the vaccine or risking getting COVID naturally are roughly even (the COVID side fluctuates as the chance of getting the virus changes) at around a 1e-6 chance of serious complications. The AstraZeneca vaccine seems to have a slightly higher chance of complications. These simple, individualised analyses are about the extent of what public health authorities may do when deciding on the safety or benefits of a treatment. However they exclude other advantages to being a person with a vaccine: - maybe some of your friends are being very cautious about the virus (for rational or irrational reasons) and being your vaccinated means more meaningful interactions with them - maybe your employer lets vaccinated people return to the office (and you want to return). Or maybe there are other things that require vaccines (when I went up to university I had to confirm that I’d had a bunch of vaccines, for example) - maybe you want to be altruistic and reduce the risk you cause to other people - better ability to travel internationally - if everyone does it then there is less of an ability for further mutations to develop I mostly understand why health authorities are limited, and perhaps those simple statistics are the right thing to communicate to the public. But I think in our society as it is, getting the vaccine is still +ve EV for young people.
• caeril 5y ago
  > you might be opposed to this policy if: { 1...2...3 } You listed three reasons that people might be opposed to the vaccine itself, not merely the policy. None of these are applicable to my particular group, of which there are many: 4. You are pro-vaccine and anti-covid, but strictly opposed to insane and tyrannical government overreach by the very same people who literally murdered tens of thousands of elderly nursing home patients in 2020 by intentionally exposing them to COVID patients. It's strange you didn't even consider this option, as if meek, bootlicking obedience to authority - specifically, authority that has already demonstrated that they don't care at all about preventing COVID deaths - is to you as water is to a fish. > take your chances with coronavirus, which you will get sooner or later, and spread it. This is patently ridiculous. I am fully vaccinated, but the research is clear - I can carry an infection just as effectively in my nasal cavity as my antivax cousin. Showing my card at the door does PRECISELY NOTHING to prevent spread. The Times, no friend to the antivax crew, grudgingly admitted this a few days ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/health/cdc-masks-vaccinated-transmission.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/health/cdc-masks-vaccinat... It's quite obvious at this point, that vaccination protects ME, and ME alone. Pretending that vaccination status confers magical sainthood and capital-P Purity amongst its devotees is old hat. And enacting actual unconstitutional policy predicated on old science is even worse. I'm still waiting, after a year and a half, for any governments, anywhere, to mandate the ONLY thing that the science is VERY CLEAR will ACTUALLY dramatically reduce COVID fatalities among everyone under 70: mandatory weight loss for the obese. But something tells me you won't advocate for THAT particular policy position, will you?
  • notJim 5y ago
    This emotionally charged language isn't helpful to a rational discussion. I think your comment would be stronger without it. > I am fully vaccinated, but the research is clear - I can carry an infection just as effectively in my nasal cavity as my antivax cousin. Showing my card at the door does PRECISELY NOTHING to prevent spread. I'm pretty sure this is untrue, but not positive. The communication has been very confusing. As I understand it, you can get a high viral load, but it declines much more rapidly in vaccinated people. > mandatory weight loss for the obese. This would obviously be far far more invasive than getting two shots. Why support this form of government tyranny, in your words, rather than another?
• SergeAx 5y ago
  Anecdotal case: I got covid this January, quite symptomatic, full anosmia, high fever and about 20% of lungs damaged. Since then I contacted freshly infected people at least twice. Both of them became sick 1-2 days after contact, one with proved Delta variant. In both cases I self-quarantined and get mild symptoms for 2-3 days: light fever, partial anosmia. Both time I got significant increase of IgG antibodies. So I consider my immunity is first class. At the same time, both persons I contracted virus from were fully vaccinated with two doses couple of months ago, one of them had a pretty bad case, missed hospital just one day away. The point is: if someone is ready to take a risk and contract covid - society should allow it because those people will either die on they own knowledge, or get a better immunity than any vaccine can offer. We know now that vaccination status and even natural immunity is not stopping people from virus transmission, so this argument is off the table.
  • paraph1n 5y ago
    > or get a better immunity than any vaccine can offer. Better immunity? Almost no one who is fully vaccinated has ever died from COVID-19. It's hard to imagine better immunity than that. > society should allow it because those people will either die on they own knowledge, or get a better immunity than any vaccine can offer. Or they will serve as a mutation vector for the next, more transmissible, deadlier variant. I guess it comes down to whether you favor a rational society based on the rule of law and some degree of fairness, or a free-for-all anarchy where the only rule is natural selection. The latter is what we had before society was invented some thousands of years ago.
    • SergeAx 5y ago
      Yes, almost no one who is fully vaccinated ever died from COVID. But those who underwent a real COVID rarely ever reinfected again, set aside suffering even mild symptoms. There are literally lower thousands reinfection cases in the world (0.5% by PCR research in Denmark), while infection cases among fully vaccinated are ordinary, especially with Delta variant. > Or they will serve as a mutation vector for the next, more transmissible, deadlier variant. Unfortunately, hosts with partial immunity (natural asymptomatic cases or half-vaccinated) are more suitable environment for virus mutation. In tabula rasa host virus just takes over the system by storm, all mutations are in equal conditions. Weak immunity means new mutations are having an advantage and natural selection completes the case. And now we know that even fully vaccinated people are relatively easily contracting Delta variant. You may draw the conclusion.
• ipaddr 5y ago
  Giving a small list and saying everyone must fit into these boxes is incomplete logic. You could be anti-needle. You could have health issues. You could be in an isolated community. You could have got the vaccine and are not worried about their kid. You could be anything.
• roenxi 5y ago
  A selection of other arguments, roughly ordered by strength: 1. This is mandating that vaccine companies make more money, the incentives are suspect. We might reasonably expect people who already had COVID should have better immunity than the vaccinated since the vaccination is basically just a simulation of having COVID. Why not then be suspicious of reasoning motivated by unscrupulous profiteers? People will be getting vaccinated who don't want or need it, which raises an eyebrow. This policy is probably a fig leaf for government handouts to big pharma. 2. The evidence changes. We don't know what the 2 year effects of COVID are yet since the disease hasn't existed for 2 years. Even now week-to-week what everyone knows can change. I do not trust that the scientific basis for this decision will still be sound in 12 months - the data here is raw. 3. What about the argument that people have a right to control their own bodies? There has been a concerted push by reasonable people for that, eg, in the area of abortions. If the NYC government can demand vaccination for the greater good then it is basically the same logic as demanding carriage of babies to term for the greater good. We know a lot of people disagree with that logic. 4. You also haven't distinguished between (1) thinking that the vaccine is a bad idea and (2) thinking that governments feeling empowered to mandate the most experimental vaccines in a generation is unwise. It already appears they don't work as advertised given that having taken the vaccine doesn't acceptably improve their risk profile vs. COVID (in the NY government's opinion). Which I think it does. 5. The far more effective measure would be tight border controls to prevent even worse variants - the biggest risk here as far as I can tell has always been something like a delta variant appearing and breaking through the first generation of vaccines. But defending against that would inconvenience the people making the decisions, so it is unlikely they'll think of that. The decision makers aren't serious about stopping the virus, so their decisions made to allegedly stop the virus are suspect.
• dan-robertson 5y ago
  I think I basically worry that the policy is not very effective. It doesn’t really allay anyone’s fears about the safety of the jab (I’ve seen people claim that the FDA giving it full approval rather than emergency approval would help but I don’t really believe them.) But then France recently announced a similar policy and saw a few protests and a lot of people getting the vaccine. They like to protest more in France than America but I think Americans (even in NY) are perhaps more vaccine-hesitant. I think I would like to see: - more effort to make vaccines more accessible (wider range of times of day; working with community groups to have pop up vaccination events that include non-vaccine things so people aren’t scared off; maybe trying to let people know where they can get vaccinated and that it’s free; requiring employers to give people paid time off work to get vaccinated; etc) - other incentives for vaccination (I see examples like being entered into a lottery or getting free donuts, but I mostly prefer just giving people cash to get vaccinated. Say $100 or maybe even $1000) Another thing would maybe making it easier for businesses to only admit people who are vaccinated or have some suitable exemption but I think the latter is hard for privacy reasons and I think the former is just inviting businesses to decrease their custom which they are not normally wont to do.
• deft 5y ago
  This is one of the strangest comments here, but you're trying to be rational while breaking down the vast majority of the worldwide population into one of 3 positions? You know most places don't have these mandates and never will? And things will be fine.
  • forcry 5y ago
    Of course, the fourth position is so dumb (that it is possible that someone can have low trust in authorities/scientists) that they don't know what to say..
• icedistilled 5y ago
  NPR yesterday was interviewing a guy who'd had an organ transplant and thus has to take immunosuppressant drugs. He'd been vaccinated, it was either pfizer or moderna. His doctor tested him for antibodies, his were undetectable. He was getting a third shot in hopes it would finally give him antibodies. By being against vaccines or against vaccine requirements, people risk the lives of those like that guy, who's already suffering and already has to be 10x as cautious.
  • colordrops 5y ago
    Using this reasoning shouldn't the flu vaccine also be required? Many immunosuppressed individuals cannot survive the flu. BTW, I'm not implying a stance here as pro- or anti- vaccine requirements - just probing this particular talking point.
    • prawn 5y ago
      I've seen it suggested that annual flu shots be required in some contexts. My main reason for not getting flu shots is laziness; my wife gets one annually.
  • EricMausler 5y ago
    You can support vaccines without support a government mandate of them and all the operational xlusterfuxks that come with that
  • fny 5y ago
    The real question though is do policies like this affect change or do they only stoke animosity. This is a sincere question. Do we know that the activities where vaccines are required are in fact hotspots? If you consider states that did full lockdowns compared to those that didn't but had mask mandates (California and New York vs texas Florida), there wasn't an appreciable difference in cases or deaths suggesting the mechanism of transition lied outside the reach of government. What's to say people still won't congregate elsewhere? In turn, I'm not convinced this will incentivize people to vaccinate. My mother refuses to get the shot and digs in more against it as penalties show up. Sure this is and data, but I know that many, many people have left New York City due to what they considered draconian lockdowns and I suspect many more people might leave to "freer" pastures. I'm not convinced this will achieve the intended objective, but instead far more animosity and pushback which is what you see in this thread which is far more tame than what the general population thinks. Would love to hear a rebuttal.
• anigbrowl 5y ago
  Largely complaints about tyranny Thought-terminating cliches are a very effective tool for shutting down discussion. Sadly they've become very common HN in recent years as the site has grown.
• MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I think the fear is another recession and businesses having to shut down for another time. The US can't exactly UBI death out of it's way. People are gonna die and plagues happen. I don't get why people assume that it's not supposed to happen in their lives? Guess what? Life is a constant gamble. The fact that we've hedged the odds in our favor doesn't mean that every now and then the House that is mother nature wins.
• websites2023 5y ago
  > 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? That it won’t stop at this. That I’m going to have to entrust my medical information to a shitty app that requires access to my location and contacts to show a QR code that links to a poorly secured database that will get hacked, all because the government doesn’t trust me when I say I got the vaccine.
• throwaway212135 5y ago
  This is not a policy. This is a mandate. A policy requires discussion and almost always ends with some vote. There is nothing democratic about this mandate.
• rodgerd 5y ago
  It's a collection of sophistry from Typhoid Marys. And yes, she was a real person. Those who ignore the humanities are doomed to repeat humanity's worst mistakes.
• apostacy 5y ago
  > 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? Could you explain why you are NOT afraid? Can you please explain what Apple and the City of New York have done to earn the kind of trust you want me to place in them? Is your starry-eyed trust also extended to police departments as well? They are building infrastructure to track people everywhere and punish us for non-compliance. Do you believe that systematic racism exists, and if so, do you think that it is possible that it could creep into the new health surveillance and enforcement infrastructure that they are building? Are there any mechanisms to challenge the abuses that will happen? I would be more ok with these policies if they pledged to dismantle (or mothball) contact tracing as soon as it is no longer needed, instead of just leaving it up and expanding it forever "just in case", as they certainly will do.
• onecommentman 5y ago
  Compared to the Reddit discussions in the COVID subreddit, these comments are publishable in Lancet. I look forward to the full CDC approval that will validate your presumption about any given vaccine’s efficacy and safety. Right now, the manufacturers have no “skin in the game”…no legal liability. I assume that liability will return with full CDC approval, instead of emergency approval that they have now. (My personal peripheral understanding) You see, there is a fourth choice, wait on vaccination until those making a vaccine are willing to accept the normal legal responsibility for the products injected into your body. Depending on your personal risk and risk exposure profile and your level of skepticism in an emergency drug, it may be the prudent personal choice. There are even other choices as well. There is more in Heaven and Earth than dreamt in your decision tree.
• op00to 5y ago
  This ignores that willingly spreading the virus hurts the efficacy of the vaccine.
  • forcry 5y ago
    >This ignores that willingly spreading the virus hurts the efficacy of the vaccine. I don't think that is how "efficacy" works, because to measure "efficacy" both the treatment and population is supposed to have similar exposure to the virus.
• forcry 5y ago
  > Unless, of course, you think that the vaccine is more dangerous than coronavirus. And then I don't really know what to say. You say this because you trust the authorities, the media and the scientists. You are free to trust them. And someone else should have the freedom NOT to trust them. And that is the whole point.
• forcry 5y ago
  > Unless, of course, you think that the vaccine is more dangerous than coronavirus. Do you have the answer to the following questions? Why did the mRNA technology remain unapproved for a long time since its inception? What exactly was relaxed in the approval process that lead to its EUA? Since the vaccine has been used population wide, will the missed studies or what ever due process eventually be done? Or will they be skipped, citing the real world usage (which was not controlled or followed up in a systematic manner)?
• CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Isn't one of the merits of a policy, whether it is, or isn't tyrannical?
• logifail 5y ago
  > 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. Given recent data which appear to demonstrate even the vaccinated can and will still catch C19, although with milder symptoms and [much] lower risk of needing hospital treatment, isn't the evidence still pointing to us all getting it sooner or later? "Covid-19 will now join other coronaviruses in being something we contract multiple times throughout our lives "[0] In many countries so many of the vulnerable and elderly are already vaccinated that maybe encouraging populations to reach some [ever-rising] "herd immunity" vaccination rate has become a political endeavour, not a scientific one. "Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge estimates that well over 60 per cent of 15-24 year olds [in the UK] have already had Covid anyway"[0] If so many young people have apparently already had it, is it right to spend so much time, money and political capital worrying about the vaccination rates in healthy young people? [0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/04/offering-vaccines-16-year-olds-should-mark-end-britains-coronavirus/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/04/offering-vaccine...
• Smithalicious 5y ago
  I am very worried about setting a precedent for mandating a medical procedure like this. Times like these are when it's both the hardest and the most important to stand by principles like that. It's very easy to give up power to government and very hard to claw it back, and I'm of the opinion that it's not worth giving up norms like this in the long term, even if I agree that in the short term this would be good. I feel similar about e.g. free speech and privacy.