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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 bel

by 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?
  - afavour 5y ago
    Sure, other kids are a risk, as they always are. Everything is a risk evaluation, even with a vaccine mandate if the restaurant has two kids at every table with little space between them then it might not be a good idea to go in. Doesn't invalidate the fact that it would be better if all the adults are vaccinated.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Sure, but it seems at least a little unreasonable (at least disingenuous) to me to argue that “I want to be able to take unvaccinated members in my party into a restaurant confident that the other people in the establishment are proven to be vaccinated because it's dangerous if unvaccinated people gather in a public, indoor establishment.” If unvax’d people represent such a risk to others in your judgment, you should not be part of putting unvax’d people in your own party into that situation. (For context, I’m pro-vax, got vax’d literally the first day I was eligible, and have a kid under 12 that I can hardly wait until they’re eligible. I’m against any vax passport scheme that even theoretically allows tracking/correlation of my identity/location if shown to a party intent on tracking me.)
- timr 5y ago
  > 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. This policy is also hysterical, and not based in science. Kids should not be under any restrictions due to SARS-CoV2. Please see my comment from yesterday as to why I believe this is true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775 (Aside: I generally feel that the FDA is on the right side of history by being exceptionally careful with approval of the vaccine for children, but arguments like the parent's -- I hear this a lot in different contexts -- do sometimes make me wish that they'd just make an extremely limited approval so that the most fearful 5% of people can force it upon their children and stop holding the rest of the world hostage.)
  - afavour 5y ago
    > the most fearful 5% of people can force it upon their children and stop holding the rest of the world hostage To be clear, as a parent, it's not because I'm fearful, it's because a positive COVID test from any child in my kid's school means that it shuts down for two weeks, completely messing up our lives, jobs etc. I'm not going to defend that policy for a second as I don't think it's a good idea either, but it's what we're dealing with day in, day out. We're not hysterical fearmongers.
    - timr 5y ago
      > To be clear, as a parent, it's not because I'm fearful, it's because a positive COVID test from any child in my kid's school means that it shuts down for two weeks, completely messing up our lives, jobs etc. Completely agreed. This is a stupid, hysterical policy, and we should all be against it. I include it with my previous comment that children should face no restrictions from SARS-CoV2. What we've done to kids in the last year is so unethical that it makes me furious. I don't mean to imply that you specifically, are hysterical, but this stuff is coming from a group of people who are operating based on fear and lack knowledge. And unfortunately, a great many of them are in positions of power.
- orblivion 5y ago
  > If they're able to know that everyone inside a restaurant is vaccinated they'll be more likely to visit. This is why I argue with some fellow libertarians on the idea of private company vaccine mandates. There's a place for it, such as this. Restaurants could differentiate this way. Different people have different needs. A government level mandate like this is insane.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Considering that vaccinated people can still carry the virus, and very few of those services are mandatory to survive, the minority can still stay safe at home, and the others can decide by themselves if they're willing to risk it.
    - orblivion 5y ago
      Not sure if this is in opposition to your point, but if there can be businesses that cater to them by lowering their risk profile I think that's great.
platz 5y ago
> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. For now...
- timr 5y ago
  Well then, by that logic, we can never let up on this. You never know what's going to happen in two weeks!
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    The first thing is to get the number of infections down. If the number of infections is low, then any bad event becomes accordingly less likely. Less mutations, less breakthrough infections.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  We should never allow people to go outside. There is just too big of a risk of serious illness.
clukic 5y ago
The vulnerable populations aren't vaccinated. The vaccination rate in Brooklyn for people 65+ is just a bit over 50% (51% white/54% African American). If cases keep rising I don't see any reason why hospitalizations and deaths won't follow. Unless the delta variant is less dangerous or treatments have improved tremendously. So, the options are 1)Stop indoor dining 2)Accept the public health implications or 3) Require vaccinations for high risk activities. I feel like option 3 imposes the least harm.
- timr 5y ago
  > The vulnerable populations aren't vaccinated. The vaccination rate in Brooklyn for people 65+ is just a bit over 50% (51% white/54% African American). Yes, they are. In NYC, 73% of adults over 65 are fully vaccinated, and 77% have had at least one dose: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.p... You're cherry-picking regions of low vaccination, but ignoring the overall metrics.
  - clukic 5y ago
    It's the local demographics that matter. I live in Brooklyn. I don't care what the vaccination rate is in the entire US, or NY state, and I'm hardly ever in Manhattan. I don't dine indoors because the vaccination rate in my neighborhood is 39%. And, while I'm probably not going to the hospital knowing that I might put one of my unvaccinated neighbors in there matters to me.
    - timr 5y ago
      > It's the local demographics that matter The local demographics don't matter unless there's a serious impact on the hospitals. That's why we started down this road, remember? It wasn't to eliminate death. > I don't dine indoors because the vaccination rate in my neighborhood is 39%. Are you vaccinated? If you are, you're worrying about something that is irrelevant to you. Avoiding restaurants because other people made a different choice is silly. > And, while I'm probably not going to the hospital knowing that I might put one of my unvaccinated neighbors in there matters to me. Ever had a head cold or the flu? You've put an elderly person at risk. Sorry, but it's true. You can never eliminate this kind of risk. If your standard is "I must never present a risk to anyone else, ever" then you're going to have a really difficult life. You can live that way if you like, but don't force it on me.
JoshTko 5y ago
A high vaccination rate is most beneficial for poor and minority populations as they are by far the most exposed to the virus via work.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  Except they don't want it.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  This seriously needs a cite. First time I've heard this claim.
  - JoshTko 5y ago
    You need a citation to understand which part? That poor people most often have service jobs such as retail or food service? That service jobs are higher risk for Covid transmission than white collar jobs? Or that poor people have few resources to address health issues if they get Covid?
    - throwitaway1235 5y ago
      I'm not a dev, I just like tech stuff. I say this because I actually work with lower middle class Black and Brown people, though I'm White and lower middle class. Let me explain something to you guys, we worked through each "wave" and didn't really care. We were not "forced" to work. It was never a big deal. The whole "woe is the working class during Covid" was just an excuse for neurotic professional class workers to WFH.
      - mcguire 5y ago
        "We study the spread of COVID-19 infections and deaths by county poverty level in the US. In the beginning of the pandemic, counties with either very low poverty levels or very high poverty levels reported the highest numbers of cases. A U-shaped relationship prevails for counties with high population density while among counties with low population density, only poorer counties report high incidence rates of COVID-19. Second, we discuss the pattern of infections spreading from higher to lower income counties. Third, we show that stay-at-home mandates caused significantly higher reductions in mobility in high income counties that experienced adverse weather shocks than counties that did not. These effects are not present in counties with high poverty rates. Using weather shocks in combination with stay-at-home mandates as an instrument for social distancing, we find that measures taken to promote social distancing helped curb infections in high income counties but not in low income counties. These results have important policy implications for containing the spread of infectious diseases in the future." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756168/)
preinheimer 5y ago
> And literally anyone who wants a vaccine can get one. Completely false. There's several groups that might want the vaccine that can't get it. Including: children and the immuno compromised. 32 kids were hospitalized in one week in Alabama last month. A state with half the population of NYC. https://www.al.com/coronavirus/2021/07/infant-among-children-battling-covid-in-alabama-hospitals-im-scared-now-uab-pediatrician-says.html https://www.al.com/coronavirus/2021/07/infant-among-children...
- isleyaardvark 5y ago
  Not to mention the adults who want to but can’t take sick time in case they feel side effects.
  - preinheimer 5y ago
    Thank you for bringing this up!
- notJim 5y ago
  I think immune compromised people can generally get the vaccine, but there are questions about how effective it is. Some have proposed they may need a 3rd dose.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Practically there's next to no data on mRNA vaccines given to immuno compromised indviduals, and almost certainly isn't the case that they're fine to get the non mRNA vaccines. So they end up not taking it for valid safety concerns.
    - notJim 5y ago
      > So they end up not taking it for valid safety concerns. Are you referring to the mRNA vaccine? If so, source for this? I see lots of articles that question whether the vaccines are as effective for immuno compromised people, but none that say they shouldn't take the mRNA vaccine. In fact, I see many studies testing the efficacy of mRNA vaccines for immuno-compromised people, which would seem to indicate we think it's safe. I only know one immuno-compromised person, and she got the vaccine.
davidf18 5y ago
I live in NYC. I can't tell you how important it is to keep people who are unvaccinated away from those of us who are vaccinated. For those that don't know, NYC has very crowded indoors situations because of the cost of real estate. We are all close together. No sympathy whatsoever for those who refuse to get a vaccine and even offered $100 to get the vaccine. People never have the right to infect another human being. That is just the way it is. No "rights" supersede the right to not be infected by non-vaccinated people. None.
- natchy 5y ago
  > even offered $100 to get the vaccine Must be one hell of a pandemic if that is a greater incentive than immunity.
mcguire 5y ago
"We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals." That would be false. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/immunization.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/immunization.asp which points to https://www.shotsforschool.org/child-care/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/child-care/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/7th-grade/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/7th-grade/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/k-12/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/k-12/ And then there's https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-8-part-b-chapter-9 https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-8-part-b-chapter-...
- timr 5y ago
  We have never required anything like this to go to a restaurant. Or the gym. Or the beach. This is a huge new step. Pointing out that children must be vaccinated against viruses that disproportionately harm children in order to participate in public education is true, but irrelevant to the question. Pointing out that we require certain vaccinations of immigrants is true, but irrelevant to the question. (Not for nothing: we require immigrants to pass a citizenship test and a background check, too. If the standard is "anything that is OK for US immigration is OK for going to Chick-Fil-A", then we're going to have to disagree...)
  - gumby 5y ago
    > We have never required anything like this to go to a restaurant. Or the gym. Or the beach. This is a huge new step. Indeed, instead there used to be mandatory, involuntary quarantine enforcement, sometimes (typhus, polio) on a per-household basis with the enforcement notice posted prominently on the front door. That restricted not only restaurants and beach visits but all visits of any kind.
    - timr 5y ago
      I'm not exactly sure which side of the argument you're on here, but ignoring the utility and/or practicality of quarantine on a mass scale, I wouldn't compare it to a policy requiring everyone to show their papers to go to McDonalds. It's almost like people are arguing "we did {restrictive policy} once, so any form of restriction is of the same form!" I mean...hell: we had slavery once. So maybe let's set aside the idea that prior infringements of individual liberty justify future infringements of individual liberty?
tootie 5y ago
I think there is also ample precedent for policy that prevents or discourages people from putting themselves at unnecessary risk of death or injury. If it's illegal to attempt suicide, then it stands to reason that we can pass rules against exposing yourself to Covid even if you are foregoing opportunities to protect yourself.
rubicon33 5y ago
> We should be reacting rationally to rates of hospitalization and deaths -- and right now, those are barely changed in NYC, No. No. No. No. No. Why is this so hard for people to understand? A virus doesn't just enter your body, and quietly go away. In MANY cases, it can have a lasting effect on your underlying health and wellness. This isn't a point of question, it's a known FACT that is all too often left out of the discussion entirely. I am vaccinated. I have friends who are vaccinated, and have still gotten COVID. One of them still doesn't have their sense of taste and smell back, after nearly 3 weeks post symptoms. They describe being brain fog, and tiredness that they didn't have before, as well as an "itch" in their lungs when exercising that they didn't have before. There's absolutely no reason to say things like "hysterical fixation on cases". Bringing cases down means LESS LIVES LOST and less HEALTH lost.
- desine 5y ago
  If the ultimate goal is saving lives, how much of your daily life are you willing to sacrifice for public health? Willing to forego car ownership? End two day shipping speeds for non essential purchases?
  - rubicon33 5y ago
    I don't think the ultimate goal should be saving lives. It should be avoiding the spread of COVID. Saving lives would just be a side effect of lower COVID cases (and vaccination). I'm all for re-opening businesses and promoting vaccinations. We have to get back to living our lives. I'm just tired of the idea people seem to have that it's entirely about lives.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Since SARS-CoV-2 is now endemic in the worldwide human population plus some animal species it's impossible to avoid the spread. We can slow the spread to a limited extent but eventually all of us will be exposed.
      - 5y ago
jaywalk 5y ago
> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. This is demonstrably false if you actually look at hospital admissions.
- polynomial 5y ago
  I'm not meaning to take sides here, but there are very real assertions being made that at the very least vaccination lowers the statistical probability of death to <1%, which is obviously seems like something we can verify with admission and fatality data.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    I haven't heard anything to the contrary, so I'll assume that's true. But as far as "serious illness" goes, I'd say it's pretty serious once you're admitted to a hospital.
- notJim 5y ago
  Do you have a cite? I thought vaccination reduced hospitalization to nearly zero. Here's a link where the highest state is at .06% https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-data-from-the-states/ https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrou...
  - peteretep 5y ago
    "the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96% effective against hospitalisation after 2 doses; the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is 92% effective against hospitalisation after 2 doses" https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective-against-hospitalisation-from-delta-variant https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective...
    - notJim 5y ago
      That's relative risk, not absolute risk. It's not saying 8% of people will be hospitalized, it's saying vaccinated people are hospitalized 92% less than unvaccinated people. Your absolute risk is much much smaller than 8%.
biztos 5y ago
The country I’m in right now, Hungary, seems to be doing as you suggest. They have about 75% vaccinated I think (a mix of just about all the vaccines available anywhere) and there is no mask mandate nor proof-of-vaccine mandate as of a few weeks ago. (Airport might be an exception, I haven’t been.). Interestingly it is also against the law to require anyone to NOT wear a mask — and I see about one person in 10 with a mask on the tram, usually none in the shops. Border controls to neighbor countries are very light so there isn’t really anything preventing the unvaccinated or for that matter infected from entering the country. I have no idea how this will turn out, I personally expect a big new wave among the unvaxxed in Europe after the summer, but if you’re curious what happens with an implicit policy of leaving the unvaccinated to their fate, keep an eye on Hungary, especially when the cold drives everyone indoors around October. (And there were a LOT of restrictions before the vaccination rate went up, but unlike Germany nobody was out protesting against them.)
myrandomcomment 5y ago
I have been in Manhattan for the last week with my family. I have seen 10+ free vaccinations locations. If you want to get vaccinated you can, no matter what your means. Not being vaccinated put the risk on the kids, which is unconscionable.
- myrandomcomment 5y ago
  So I was down voted in this. Let me make this clear...if you are the irrational anti-science anti-vaccine person and have the right to down vote please do so, but have the stones to post a reply saying it so the rest of us can add you to the ignore file. Get vaccinated. If you do not for other then a real medical reason you are a terrible person that might just cause the death of a young child. Fuck you.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> don't believe this will have much of a net effect on vaccination rate People who are still opposed to getting vaccinated, versus simply apathetic, are probably never going to be convinced. These measures should encourage the apathetic. For the others, it's cutting losses and hoping it encourages quarantine--whether that be staying home or moving. (Being unvaccinated upstate or in Tennessee is less problematic than being unvaccinated in Manhattan.) If we take the promise of mRNA platforms at face value, we are heading into an increasingly disease-free future with a strong minority self selecting affliction. I imagine we'll see more debates of this form if e.g. there is a population that is inoculated against Covid, most STDs, the flu, et cetera; and one that is not.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> 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 The COVID hospitalization rate in NYC has doubled since the beginning of July, and it has a steep positive rate of change. On its current trajectory, COVID hospitalizations will continue to increase, and sharply.
Barrin92 5y ago
> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. Terrible first order logic. The threat from the virus is not only immediate risk to the individual, it is also further transmissions increasing the risk of creating new breakthrough variants. Every infected person is a gamble that risks nullifying the effectiveness of vaccines, so the goal must be to bring down infections as strongly as possible. >We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals we should have. Tolerating disease spread and threats to vulnerable populations when vaccines are available that are practically risk-free (or the risk being magnitudes smaller than the payoff) is ridiculous. Maybe this finally shakes people awake and puts public health and safety to the top of the agenda rather than people throwing tantrums like children about government incursion. edit: and another point I forgot, with such a significant unvaccinated population we will very likely see surges in admissions in winter again. Public health resources are limited. Unnecessary Covid hospitalizations cause immense opportunity cost in the form of crowding out care and driving costs. Which in many cases other sick people and the public will have to carry.
- bingohbangoh 5y ago
  Won’t there always be a variant popping up somewhere in some part of the world though? The idea that “if we all got vaccinated, we could have zero variants” reeks of “zero COVID” thinking
  - datameta 5y ago
    More unvaccinated people -> more people getting covid -> more chances for mutation into variants It's really that simple. We want as few active infections as possible globally so that existing vaccinations can work for the variants they were made in mind with. Otherwise we will be at the disadvantage in a perpetual arms race trying to quickly stamp out the global "fires" of new variants.
    - zarzavat 5y ago
      If you actually want that, then you need some kind of megaproject to build vaccine factories to supply the entire world and to distribute them to the whole world's population. This virus doesn't respect borders.
pmarreck 5y ago
> We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals. Except for that time doctors were given police powers to enforce quarantine during the "Spanish Flu" spikes...
nindalf 5y ago
> We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals. This is factually untrue isn’t it? Children are forced to get vaccinated if they want to access the public school system in at least some parts of the US.
telxos 5y ago
Spot on. I am fully vaccinated but at this point it isn't about Covid. To paraphrase Mr. Bonaparte, a politician loves power like a musician loves his music. I have done all I can do. If you don't want to get vaccinated, good luck! If you are vaccinated and that terrified just stay inside or go out in a bee-keeper outfit. Let the normal people get on with their lives already. Of course I am downvoted in 2 seconds lol. Just glad I am old and lived a great life. Ya'll are fucked.
jchoca 5y ago
>Those who choose not to get vaccinated are making a risk calculation; they are making a choice. Yes, but that choice does not only impact them. Being disallowed the luxury of going to restaurants and bars could be seen as a form of payment for creating that externality.
icedistilled 5y ago
what about immunocompromised people who don't really have a choice. Some of them get the vaccine but it gives them no anti-bodies, as if they were not vaccinated. What about them?
zzzeek 5y ago
your "poor and minority populations" argument strikes me as disingenuous bad faith; if there are poor and minority populations who dont want to be vaccinated, they will be safer by not going into crowded spaces as well. but above all, some of us have children under 12. we'd like them to be safe. we have relatives who have weakened immune systems, who are in great danger even though they are fully vaccinated. These are the people who have literally no choice between a. hide in fear for years or b. expose themselves to great danger. vaccine mandates allow these people who otherwise have no choice to be more free in the world, by asking those people who totally have a choice to please make that choice by either not entering our public spaces, or getting vaccinated.
- nickff 5y ago
  Coercing poor & minority populations into bending to the will of the powerful, and saying it's for their own good has a long and tragic history. I am not sure whether your argument is in bad faith, but it does seem willfully ignorant of history.
  - zzzeek 5y ago
    Try again, the vaccine saves lives, and in that sense is not comparable to past injustices. It is of course comparable in that it's completely understandable that there is mistrust, but prohibiting people who don't want to be vaxxed from going into public spaces and endangering themselves and others is still a life saving policy. It's not "for their own good" , it's for the good of everyone.
cuchoi 5y ago
> I don't believe this will have much of a net effect on vaccination rate Chile saw a big uptick in vaccination when a similar policy was implemented.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 5y ago
The core assumptions to your argument are that secondary infections of children are not of concern at all, and that future variants will have similar propagation and impact. Limited evidence suggests that the delta variant may highly contagious among vaccinated populations and that lambda may be resistant to some vaccines.
_AzMoo 5y ago
> 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. There are immuno-compromised people who can't get the vaccine for health reasons. By accepting a lack of herd immunity you are throwing those people under the bus. If you are worried about impacts on minority populations then this is something you surely must be considering.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > By accepting a lack of herd immunity That's the reality. This is endemic and is grouped with the collection of other infections that are going to be around a lot longer than HN (eg latent Tuberculosis infections in around 20% of the global pop).
XorNot 5y ago
> I believe it will disproportionately negatively impact poor and minority populations Those populations are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, and don't need you to do it for them. You have an opinion, don't dress it up in someone else's situation. The current leading population for vaccination rate in Alabama is the band of majority black districts (and subsequently case numbers have gone down and down and down) there. You know what those populations are at risk from? Crippling hospital debt from contracting preventable diseases being spread by people pushing antivax nonsense and who do not take preventative measures. And being shot at their jobs when asking those people to wear masks on private property, for some reason.
- beaner 5y ago
  Great, let's just be consistent and take this perspective when it comes to voter ID laws, too.
  - natchy 5y ago
    It wouldn’t be inconsistent to advocate for voter ID laws and let minorities disagree. His point was not speaking for minorities.
deegles 5y ago
> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. … maybe for currently known variants. New ones will appear, and no one can predict if current vaccines will protect us from them. It makes sense to me that a mixed population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people interacting frequently could lead to vaccine-resistant strains. Keep wearing your masks!
Alex3917 5y ago
If you get a breakthrough case of Delta, you have a 19% chance of getting long covid. That’s not to say there should be mandatory vaccinations, but case counts definitely matter.
JPKab 5y ago
The vaccine is free, and widely made available. The communities who aren't getting it, provided they aren't politically conservative, are assumed to be doing this due to lack of trust based on past racism, as you stated. This is a good faith explanation with no data to support it. These are the same populations most likely to ignore all sorts of laws, rules, etc. I grew up in a trailer park, and the culture was one of die hard defiance to all forms of authority, no matter the cost, or how trivial the guidance/rules. I saw this same cultural trait at play in the inner city when I lived in DC as well. The reality is that there are several dysfunctional cultures in the US, across multiple ethnic groups including my moron family, that are pathologically opposed to obeying any form of authority. They tend to also be highly fatalistic, have high teen pregnancy rates, high crime rates, etc. And although they are almost always poor, many other cultural groups in the US that are equally poor don't have these issues. Again, my family, and my relatives fall into this category. And so do the urban unvaccinated. Trailer parks and ghettos have more in common than you think. I say this because you're hitting on a point that is going to really undermine NYC government: A group of politicians who assume that unequal outcomes are driven by systemic racism are going to run headlong into a law that is going to disproportionately prevent Black and Latino New Yorkers from accessing businesses and restaurants. They are desperately going to continue with a narrative that absolves them of personal responsibility, and continue making the vaccine easier to access. It's not going to work, and they will get rid of this as soon as they can, rather than go against their own systemic racism narrative.
shaklee3 5y ago
I don't think you know many anti-vax people if you think education is the answer. Every one I've met is completely unwilling to look at data coming out, and instead relies solely on headlines they've read that are usually incomplete or outright wrong.
aerostable_slug 5y ago
>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... In my day job, I interact with many prisons and jails both across the US and in other countries. Minority inmates reject vaccination at a rate well above White inmates, largely due to trust issues. It's a huge problem, one that's not talked about enough due to the moronic social media meme that everyone who doesn't want to get vaccinated must be a MAGA-hat-owner. This is provably incorrect. Note that the C.O.s also largely distrust big .gov. I was just out at a facility where half of my escorts spontaneously brought up buying guns before Biden bans them (as he has indicated he wants to do — it's not a crazy notion). I've always been a skeptic, but the degree of distrust in authority has never been greater in my lifetime. It is unfortunate that this trend is costing lives.

by timr 5y ago

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?
- afavour 5y ago
  Sure, other kids are a risk, as they always are. Everything is a risk evaluation, even with a vaccine mandate if the restaurant has two kids at every table with little space between them then it might not be a good idea to go in. Doesn't invalidate the fact that it would be better if all the adults are vaccinated.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Sure, but it seems at least a little unreasonable (at least disingenuous) to me to argue that “I want to be able to take unvaccinated members in my party into a restaurant confident that the other people in the establishment are proven to be vaccinated because it's dangerous if unvaccinated people gather in a public, indoor establishment.” If unvax’d people represent such a risk to others in your judgment, you should not be part of putting unvax’d people in your own party into that situation. (For context, I’m pro-vax, got vax’d literally the first day I was eligible, and have a kid under 12 that I can hardly wait until they’re eligible. I’m against any vax passport scheme that even theoretically allows tracking/correlation of my identity/location if shown to a party intent on tracking me.)
timr 5y ago
> 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. This policy is also hysterical, and not based in science. Kids should not be under any restrictions due to SARS-CoV2. Please see my comment from yesterday as to why I believe this is true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775 (Aside: I generally feel that the FDA is on the right side of history by being exceptionally careful with approval of the vaccine for children, but arguments like the parent's -- I hear this a lot in different contexts -- do sometimes make me wish that they'd just make an extremely limited approval so that the most fearful 5% of people can force it upon their children and stop holding the rest of the world hostage.)
- afavour 5y ago
  > the most fearful 5% of people can force it upon their children and stop holding the rest of the world hostage To be clear, as a parent, it's not because I'm fearful, it's because a positive COVID test from any child in my kid's school means that it shuts down for two weeks, completely messing up our lives, jobs etc. I'm not going to defend that policy for a second as I don't think it's a good idea either, but it's what we're dealing with day in, day out. We're not hysterical fearmongers.
  - timr 5y ago
    > To be clear, as a parent, it's not because I'm fearful, it's because a positive COVID test from any child in my kid's school means that it shuts down for two weeks, completely messing up our lives, jobs etc. Completely agreed. This is a stupid, hysterical policy, and we should all be against it. I include it with my previous comment that children should face no restrictions from SARS-CoV2. What we've done to kids in the last year is so unethical that it makes me furious. I don't mean to imply that you specifically, are hysterical, but this stuff is coming from a group of people who are operating based on fear and lack knowledge. And unfortunately, a great many of them are in positions of power.
orblivion 5y ago
> If they're able to know that everyone inside a restaurant is vaccinated they'll be more likely to visit. This is why I argue with some fellow libertarians on the idea of private company vaccine mandates. There's a place for it, such as this. Restaurants could differentiate this way. Different people have different needs. A government level mandate like this is insane.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Considering that vaccinated people can still carry the virus, and very few of those services are mandatory to survive, the minority can still stay safe at home, and the others can decide by themselves if they're willing to risk it.
  - orblivion 5y ago
    Not sure if this is in opposition to your point, but if there can be businesses that cater to them by lowering their risk profile I think that's great.

platz 5y ago

> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. For now...

timr 5y ago
Well then, by that logic, we can never let up on this. You never know what's going to happen in two weeks!
- _ph_ 5y ago
  The first thing is to get the number of infections down. If the number of infections is low, then any bad event becomes accordingly less likely. Less mutations, less breakthrough infections.
_-david-_ 5y ago
We should never allow people to go outside. There is just too big of a risk of serious illness.

clukic 5y ago

The vulnerable populations aren't vaccinated. The vaccination rate in Brooklyn for people 65+ is just a bit over 50% (51% white/54% African American). If cases keep rising I don't see any reason why hospitalizations and deaths won't follow. Unless the delta variant is less dangerous or treatments have improved tremendously. So, the options are 1)Stop indoor dining 2)Accept the public health implications or 3) Require vaccinations for high risk activities. I feel like option 3 imposes the least harm.

timr 5y ago
> The vulnerable populations aren't vaccinated. The vaccination rate in Brooklyn for people 65+ is just a bit over 50% (51% white/54% African American). Yes, they are. In NYC, 73% of adults over 65 are fully vaccinated, and 77% have had at least one dose: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.p... You're cherry-picking regions of low vaccination, but ignoring the overall metrics.
- clukic 5y ago
  It's the local demographics that matter. I live in Brooklyn. I don't care what the vaccination rate is in the entire US, or NY state, and I'm hardly ever in Manhattan. I don't dine indoors because the vaccination rate in my neighborhood is 39%. And, while I'm probably not going to the hospital knowing that I might put one of my unvaccinated neighbors in there matters to me.
  - timr 5y ago
    > It's the local demographics that matter The local demographics don't matter unless there's a serious impact on the hospitals. That's why we started down this road, remember? It wasn't to eliminate death. > I don't dine indoors because the vaccination rate in my neighborhood is 39%. Are you vaccinated? If you are, you're worrying about something that is irrelevant to you. Avoiding restaurants because other people made a different choice is silly. > And, while I'm probably not going to the hospital knowing that I might put one of my unvaccinated neighbors in there matters to me. Ever had a head cold or the flu? You've put an elderly person at risk. Sorry, but it's true. You can never eliminate this kind of risk. If your standard is "I must never present a risk to anyone else, ever" then you're going to have a really difficult life. You can live that way if you like, but don't force it on me.

JoshTko 5y ago

A high vaccination rate is most beneficial for poor and minority populations as they are by far the most exposed to the virus via work.

bobthechef 5y ago
Except they don't want it.
imwillofficial 5y ago
This seriously needs a cite. First time I've heard this claim.
- JoshTko 5y ago
  You need a citation to understand which part? That poor people most often have service jobs such as retail or food service? That service jobs are higher risk for Covid transmission than white collar jobs? Or that poor people have few resources to address health issues if they get Covid?
  - throwitaway1235 5y ago
    I'm not a dev, I just like tech stuff. I say this because I actually work with lower middle class Black and Brown people, though I'm White and lower middle class. Let me explain something to you guys, we worked through each "wave" and didn't really care. We were not "forced" to work. It was never a big deal. The whole "woe is the working class during Covid" was just an excuse for neurotic professional class workers to WFH.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      "We study the spread of COVID-19 infections and deaths by county poverty level in the US. In the beginning of the pandemic, counties with either very low poverty levels or very high poverty levels reported the highest numbers of cases. A U-shaped relationship prevails for counties with high population density while among counties with low population density, only poorer counties report high incidence rates of COVID-19. Second, we discuss the pattern of infections spreading from higher to lower income counties. Third, we show that stay-at-home mandates caused significantly higher reductions in mobility in high income counties that experienced adverse weather shocks than counties that did not. These effects are not present in counties with high poverty rates. Using weather shocks in combination with stay-at-home mandates as an instrument for social distancing, we find that measures taken to promote social distancing helped curb infections in high income counties but not in low income counties. These results have important policy implications for containing the spread of infectious diseases in the future." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756168/)

preinheimer 5y ago

> And literally anyone who wants a vaccine can get one. Completely false. There's several groups that might want the vaccine that can't get it. Including: children and the immuno compromised. 32 kids were hospitalized in one week in Alabama last month. A state with half the population of NYC. https://www.al.com/coronavirus/2021/07/infant-among-children-battling-covid-in-alabama-hospitals-im-scared-now-uab-pediatrician-says.html https://www.al.com/coronavirus/2021/07/infant-among-children...

isleyaardvark 5y ago
Not to mention the adults who want to but can’t take sick time in case they feel side effects.
- preinheimer 5y ago
  Thank you for bringing this up!
notJim 5y ago
I think immune compromised people can generally get the vaccine, but there are questions about how effective it is. Some have proposed they may need a 3rd dose.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Practically there's next to no data on mRNA vaccines given to immuno compromised indviduals, and almost certainly isn't the case that they're fine to get the non mRNA vaccines. So they end up not taking it for valid safety concerns.
  - notJim 5y ago
    > So they end up not taking it for valid safety concerns. Are you referring to the mRNA vaccine? If so, source for this? I see lots of articles that question whether the vaccines are as effective for immuno compromised people, but none that say they shouldn't take the mRNA vaccine. In fact, I see many studies testing the efficacy of mRNA vaccines for immuno-compromised people, which would seem to indicate we think it's safe. I only know one immuno-compromised person, and she got the vaccine.

davidf18 5y ago

I live in NYC. I can't tell you how important it is to keep people who are unvaccinated away from those of us who are vaccinated. For those that don't know, NYC has very crowded indoors situations because of the cost of real estate. We are all close together. No sympathy whatsoever for those who refuse to get a vaccine and even offered $100 to get the vaccine. People never have the right to infect another human being. That is just the way it is. No "rights" supersede the right to not be infected by non-vaccinated people. None.

natchy 5y ago
> even offered $100 to get the vaccine Must be one hell of a pandemic if that is a greater incentive than immunity.

mcguire 5y ago

"We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals." That would be false. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/immunization.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/immunization.asp which points to https://www.shotsforschool.org/child-care/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/child-care/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/7th-grade/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/7th-grade/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/k-12/ https://www.shotsforschool.org/k-12/ And then there's https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-8-part-b-chapter-9 https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-8-part-b-chapter-...

timr 5y ago
We have never required anything like this to go to a restaurant. Or the gym. Or the beach. This is a huge new step. Pointing out that children must be vaccinated against viruses that disproportionately harm children in order to participate in public education is true, but irrelevant to the question. Pointing out that we require certain vaccinations of immigrants is true, but irrelevant to the question. (Not for nothing: we require immigrants to pass a citizenship test and a background check, too. If the standard is "anything that is OK for US immigration is OK for going to Chick-Fil-A", then we're going to have to disagree...)
- gumby 5y ago
  > We have never required anything like this to go to a restaurant. Or the gym. Or the beach. This is a huge new step. Indeed, instead there used to be mandatory, involuntary quarantine enforcement, sometimes (typhus, polio) on a per-household basis with the enforcement notice posted prominently on the front door. That restricted not only restaurants and beach visits but all visits of any kind.
  - timr 5y ago
    I'm not exactly sure which side of the argument you're on here, but ignoring the utility and/or practicality of quarantine on a mass scale, I wouldn't compare it to a policy requiring everyone to show their papers to go to McDonalds. It's almost like people are arguing "we did {restrictive policy} once, so any form of restriction is of the same form!" I mean...hell: we had slavery once. So maybe let's set aside the idea that prior infringements of individual liberty justify future infringements of individual liberty?

tootie 5y ago

I think there is also ample precedent for policy that prevents or discourages people from putting themselves at unnecessary risk of death or injury. If it's illegal to attempt suicide, then it stands to reason that we can pass rules against exposing yourself to Covid even if you are foregoing opportunities to protect yourself.

rubicon33 5y ago

> We should be reacting rationally to rates of hospitalization and deaths -- and right now, those are barely changed in NYC, No. No. No. No. No. Why is this so hard for people to understand? A virus doesn't just enter your body, and quietly go away. In MANY cases, it can have a lasting effect on your underlying health and wellness. This isn't a point of question, it's a known FACT that is all too often left out of the discussion entirely. I am vaccinated. I have friends who are vaccinated, and have still gotten COVID. One of them still doesn't have their sense of taste and smell back, after nearly 3 weeks post symptoms. They describe being brain fog, and tiredness that they didn't have before, as well as an "itch" in their lungs when exercising that they didn't have before. There's absolutely no reason to say things like "hysterical fixation on cases". Bringing cases down means LESS LIVES LOST and less HEALTH lost.

desine 5y ago
If the ultimate goal is saving lives, how much of your daily life are you willing to sacrifice for public health? Willing to forego car ownership? End two day shipping speeds for non essential purchases?
- rubicon33 5y ago
  I don't think the ultimate goal should be saving lives. It should be avoiding the spread of COVID. Saving lives would just be a side effect of lower COVID cases (and vaccination). I'm all for re-opening businesses and promoting vaccinations. We have to get back to living our lives. I'm just tired of the idea people seem to have that it's entirely about lives.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Since SARS-CoV-2 is now endemic in the worldwide human population plus some animal species it's impossible to avoid the spread. We can slow the spread to a limited extent but eventually all of us will be exposed.
    - 5y ago

jaywalk 5y ago

> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. This is demonstrably false if you actually look at hospital admissions.

polynomial 5y ago
I'm not meaning to take sides here, but there are very real assertions being made that at the very least vaccination lowers the statistical probability of death to <1%, which is obviously seems like something we can verify with admission and fatality data.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  I haven't heard anything to the contrary, so I'll assume that's true. But as far as "serious illness" goes, I'd say it's pretty serious once you're admitted to a hospital.
notJim 5y ago
Do you have a cite? I thought vaccination reduced hospitalization to nearly zero. Here's a link where the highest state is at .06% https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-data-from-the-states/ https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrou...
- peteretep 5y ago
  "the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96% effective against hospitalisation after 2 doses; the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is 92% effective against hospitalisation after 2 doses" https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective-against-hospitalisation-from-delta-variant https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective...
  - notJim 5y ago
    That's relative risk, not absolute risk. It's not saying 8% of people will be hospitalized, it's saying vaccinated people are hospitalized 92% less than unvaccinated people. Your absolute risk is much much smaller than 8%.

biztos 5y ago

The country I’m in right now, Hungary, seems to be doing as you suggest. They have about 75% vaccinated I think (a mix of just about all the vaccines available anywhere) and there is no mask mandate nor proof-of-vaccine mandate as of a few weeks ago. (Airport might be an exception, I haven’t been.). Interestingly it is also against the law to require anyone to NOT wear a mask — and I see about one person in 10 with a mask on the tram, usually none in the shops. Border controls to neighbor countries are very light so there isn’t really anything preventing the unvaccinated or for that matter infected from entering the country. I have no idea how this will turn out, I personally expect a big new wave among the unvaxxed in Europe after the summer, but if you’re curious what happens with an implicit policy of leaving the unvaccinated to their fate, keep an eye on Hungary, especially when the cold drives everyone indoors around October. (And there were a LOT of restrictions before the vaccination rate went up, but unlike Germany nobody was out protesting against them.)

myrandomcomment 5y ago

I have been in Manhattan for the last week with my family. I have seen 10+ free vaccinations locations. If you want to get vaccinated you can, no matter what your means. Not being vaccinated put the risk on the kids, which is unconscionable.

myrandomcomment 5y ago
So I was down voted in this. Let me make this clear...if you are the irrational anti-science anti-vaccine person and have the right to down vote please do so, but have the stones to post a reply saying it so the rest of us can add you to the ignore file. Get vaccinated. If you do not for other then a real medical reason you are a terrible person that might just cause the death of a young child. Fuck you.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> don't believe this will have much of a net effect on vaccination rate People who are still opposed to getting vaccinated, versus simply apathetic, are probably never going to be convinced. These measures should encourage the apathetic. For the others, it's cutting losses and hoping it encourages quarantine--whether that be staying home or moving. (Being unvaccinated upstate or in Tennessee is less problematic than being unvaccinated in Manhattan.) If we take the promise of mRNA platforms at face value, we are heading into an increasingly disease-free future with a strong minority self selecting affliction. I imagine we'll see more debates of this form if e.g. there is a population that is inoculated against Covid, most STDs, the flu, et cetera; and one that is not.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> 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 The COVID hospitalization rate in NYC has doubled since the beginning of July, and it has a steep positive rate of change. On its current trajectory, COVID hospitalizations will continue to increase, and sharply.

Barrin92 5y ago

> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. Terrible first order logic. The threat from the virus is not only immediate risk to the individual, it is also further transmissions increasing the risk of creating new breakthrough variants. Every infected person is a gamble that risks nullifying the effectiveness of vaccines, so the goal must be to bring down infections as strongly as possible. >We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals we should have. Tolerating disease spread and threats to vulnerable populations when vaccines are available that are practically risk-free (or the risk being magnitudes smaller than the payoff) is ridiculous. Maybe this finally shakes people awake and puts public health and safety to the top of the agenda rather than people throwing tantrums like children about government incursion. edit: and another point I forgot, with such a significant unvaccinated population we will very likely see surges in admissions in winter again. Public health resources are limited. Unnecessary Covid hospitalizations cause immense opportunity cost in the form of crowding out care and driving costs. Which in many cases other sick people and the public will have to carry.

bingohbangoh 5y ago
Won’t there always be a variant popping up somewhere in some part of the world though? The idea that “if we all got vaccinated, we could have zero variants” reeks of “zero COVID” thinking
- datameta 5y ago
  More unvaccinated people -> more people getting covid -> more chances for mutation into variants It's really that simple. We want as few active infections as possible globally so that existing vaccinations can work for the variants they were made in mind with. Otherwise we will be at the disadvantage in a perpetual arms race trying to quickly stamp out the global "fires" of new variants.
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    If you actually want that, then you need some kind of megaproject to build vaccine factories to supply the entire world and to distribute them to the whole world's population. This virus doesn't respect borders.

pmarreck 5y ago

> We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals. Except for that time doctors were given police powers to enforce quarantine during the "Spanish Flu" spikes...

nindalf 5y ago

> We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals. This is factually untrue isn’t it? Children are forced to get vaccinated if they want to access the public school system in at least some parts of the US.

telxos 5y ago

Spot on. I am fully vaccinated but at this point it isn't about Covid. To paraphrase Mr. Bonaparte, a politician loves power like a musician loves his music. I have done all I can do. If you don't want to get vaccinated, good luck! If you are vaccinated and that terrified just stay inside or go out in a bee-keeper outfit. Let the normal people get on with their lives already. Of course I am downvoted in 2 seconds lol. Just glad I am old and lived a great life. Ya'll are fucked.

jchoca 5y ago

>Those who choose not to get vaccinated are making a risk calculation; they are making a choice. Yes, but that choice does not only impact them. Being disallowed the luxury of going to restaurants and bars could be seen as a form of payment for creating that externality.

icedistilled 5y ago

what about immunocompromised people who don't really have a choice. Some of them get the vaccine but it gives them no anti-bodies, as if they were not vaccinated. What about them?

zzzeek 5y ago

your "poor and minority populations" argument strikes me as disingenuous bad faith; if there are poor and minority populations who dont want to be vaccinated, they will be safer by not going into crowded spaces as well. but above all, some of us have children under 12. we'd like them to be safe. we have relatives who have weakened immune systems, who are in great danger even though they are fully vaccinated. These are the people who have literally no choice between a. hide in fear for years or b. expose themselves to great danger. vaccine mandates allow these people who otherwise have no choice to be more free in the world, by asking those people who totally have a choice to please make that choice by either not entering our public spaces, or getting vaccinated.

nickff 5y ago
Coercing poor & minority populations into bending to the will of the powerful, and saying it's for their own good has a long and tragic history. I am not sure whether your argument is in bad faith, but it does seem willfully ignorant of history.
- zzzeek 5y ago
  Try again, the vaccine saves lives, and in that sense is not comparable to past injustices. It is of course comparable in that it's completely understandable that there is mistrust, but prohibiting people who don't want to be vaxxed from going into public spaces and endangering themselves and others is still a life saving policy. It's not "for their own good" , it's for the good of everyone.

cuchoi 5y ago

> I don't believe this will have much of a net effect on vaccination rate Chile saw a big uptick in vaccination when a similar policy was implemented.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Spooky23 5y ago

The core assumptions to your argument are that secondary infections of children are not of concern at all, and that future variants will have similar propagation and impact. Limited evidence suggests that the delta variant may highly contagious among vaccinated populations and that lambda may be resistant to some vaccines.

_AzMoo 5y ago

> 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. There are immuno-compromised people who can't get the vaccine for health reasons. By accepting a lack of herd immunity you are throwing those people under the bus. If you are worried about impacts on minority populations then this is something you surely must be considering.

Supermancho 5y ago
> By accepting a lack of herd immunity That's the reality. This is endemic and is grouped with the collection of other infections that are going to be around a lot longer than HN (eg latent Tuberculosis infections in around 20% of the global pop).

XorNot 5y ago

> I believe it will disproportionately negatively impact poor and minority populations Those populations are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, and don't need you to do it for them. You have an opinion, don't dress it up in someone else's situation. The current leading population for vaccination rate in Alabama is the band of majority black districts (and subsequently case numbers have gone down and down and down) there. You know what those populations are at risk from? Crippling hospital debt from contracting preventable diseases being spread by people pushing antivax nonsense and who do not take preventative measures. And being shot at their jobs when asking those people to wear masks on private property, for some reason.

beaner 5y ago
Great, let's just be consistent and take this perspective when it comes to voter ID laws, too.
- natchy 5y ago
  It wouldn’t be inconsistent to advocate for voter ID laws and let minorities disagree. His point was not speaking for minorities.

deegles 5y ago

> if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. … maybe for currently known variants. New ones will appear, and no one can predict if current vaccines will protect us from them. It makes sense to me that a mixed population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people interacting frequently could lead to vaccine-resistant strains. Keep wearing your masks!

Alex3917 5y ago

If you get a breakthrough case of Delta, you have a 19% chance of getting long covid. That’s not to say there should be mandatory vaccinations, but case counts definitely matter.

JPKab 5y ago

The vaccine is free, and widely made available. The communities who aren't getting it, provided they aren't politically conservative, are assumed to be doing this due to lack of trust based on past racism, as you stated. This is a good faith explanation with no data to support it. These are the same populations most likely to ignore all sorts of laws, rules, etc. I grew up in a trailer park, and the culture was one of die hard defiance to all forms of authority, no matter the cost, or how trivial the guidance/rules. I saw this same cultural trait at play in the inner city when I lived in DC as well. The reality is that there are several dysfunctional cultures in the US, across multiple ethnic groups including my moron family, that are pathologically opposed to obeying any form of authority. They tend to also be highly fatalistic, have high teen pregnancy rates, high crime rates, etc. And although they are almost always poor, many other cultural groups in the US that are equally poor don't have these issues. Again, my family, and my relatives fall into this category. And so do the urban unvaccinated. Trailer parks and ghettos have more in common than you think. I say this because you're hitting on a point that is going to really undermine NYC government: A group of politicians who assume that unequal outcomes are driven by systemic racism are going to run headlong into a law that is going to disproportionately prevent Black and Latino New Yorkers from accessing businesses and restaurants. They are desperately going to continue with a narrative that absolves them of personal responsibility, and continue making the vaccine easier to access. It's not going to work, and they will get rid of this as soon as they can, rather than go against their own systemic racism narrative.

shaklee3 5y ago

I don't think you know many anti-vax people if you think education is the answer. Every one I've met is completely unwilling to look at data coming out, and instead relies solely on headlines they've read that are usually incomplete or outright wrong.

aerostable_slug 5y ago

>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... In my day job, I interact with many prisons and jails both across the US and in other countries. Minority inmates reject vaccination at a rate well above White inmates, largely due to trust issues. It's a huge problem, one that's not talked about enough due to the moronic social media meme that everyone who doesn't want to get vaccinated must be a MAGA-hat-owner. This is provably incorrect. Note that the C.O.s also largely distrust big .gov. I was just out at a facility where half of my escorts spontaneously brought up buying guns before Biden bans them (as he has indicated he wants to do — it's not a crazy notion). I've always been a skeptic, but the degree of distrust in authority has never been greater in my lifetime. It is unfortunate that this trend is costing lives.