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That's the hard part, I'm all for giving the vaccine to all who wants it. And at the same time not forcing everyone to take the vaccine. As an example Denmark

That's the hard part, I'm all for giving the vaccine to all who wants it. And at the same time not forcing everyone to take the vaccine. As an example Denmark will reach about 75% vaccinated without any mandates, though a Corona passport will be in effect until October 2021. That is one of the better ways of handling it in my opinion.

oblio 5y ago
The thing is, I don't think there's any democratic country where there's an actual "vaccine mandate". Nobody there is forcing anyone to get vaccinated. It's done through "Corona passports". And on top of that, countries like Denmark have much higher levels of social trust than countries like the US.
- ghaff 5y ago
  While at least generally true, requiring to go into many workplaces (and therefore stay employed) and many other indoor locations is pretty close to a mandate if widely implemented. I'm not saying I disagree with doing this, but it gets close to forcing people in all but name.
  - oblio 5y ago
    I can't say that I've been following Danish news, but I can tell you for sure that for example in Italy hospitals and other institutions have asked for Covid vaccination in order to stay employed. I wouldn't be surprised to see that Denmark does the same, and more, if vaccinations number don't reach the thresholds needed to prevent healthcare systems from collapsing. And you should know that Denmark is far from as "laissez faire" as many Americans imagine. For example even before Covid they were enforcing some very harsh social measures targeting self-isolating communities, in order to maintain social cohesion, for example.
  - sdenton4 5y ago
    That's a good thing. If it's personally painful to not get the vaccine, we'll have many more vaccinations, which will lead to better public (and economic!) health. Freedom of choice does not mean freedom from consequences. BTW, if you /don't/ get the vaccine, you'll still almost-certainly get covid antibodies eventually, via contracting the virus. As a reminder, the virus itself has not been FDA approved, and is known to have both short and long-term harmful side effects. The vaccine is many orders of magnitude safer than the virus.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Trust me. I'm not arguing against vaccines at all and I got one as soon as I could. However, I think most of us would agree that literally vaccinating people by force would be wrong. So I also don't think it's unreasonable to be at least a bit discomfited when some combination of government at multiple levels and employers make it harder for unvaccinated people to earn a living and participate in society. Even if at the end of the day I approve of many of those requirements--for example I need to prove vaccination status to go to a planned industry event next month which seems very reasonable--I certainly take no joy in such coercion and recognize that it is further polarizing. Sure it's just "consequences" but those consequences are such that it's also not really a choice.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        I think I've flipped the other way on this. I am sick and tired of people believing that their "rights" are more important than public health. I would very much wish that people would recognize this for themselves, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with forcing people to comply if they don't. We've done this for decades already; for example, many/most/(all?) school districts in the US require certain vaccinations[0] for children, else they are not permitted to go to school (and in many places, not sending your children to school, without other arrangements, is illegal, so they are de-facto forced to comply, absent allowed religious/medical exemptions). Sure, you might say that the scope of some of these new and proposed vaccination rules around COVID go much further, but I don't see a material difference. If we haven't been up in arms about requirements around childhood vaccinations, I don't think we can reasonably be upset about businesses requiring their employees to be vaccinated against COVID. At this point my patience with the vaccine "hesitant" is gone. Unless you have a valid medical reason, if you are refusing to get vaccinated, you are actively inviting great harm on the health of your community, and that needs to stop. I do agree that literal vaccination by force would be going too far. But I am absolutely thrilled that my city requires vaccination for many indoor activities right now, and requires employees at those indoor businesses to be vaccinated, and that many private businesses are implementing their own vaccination requirements. It's the right thing to do, full stop. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/laws/state-reqs.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/laws/state-reqs.ht...

oblio 5y ago

The thing is, I don't think there's any democratic country where there's an actual "vaccine mandate". Nobody there is forcing anyone to get vaccinated. It's done through "Corona passports". And on top of that, countries like Denmark have much higher levels of social trust than countries like the US.

ghaff 5y ago
While at least generally true, requiring to go into many workplaces (and therefore stay employed) and many other indoor locations is pretty close to a mandate if widely implemented. I'm not saying I disagree with doing this, but it gets close to forcing people in all but name.
- oblio 5y ago
  I can't say that I've been following Danish news, but I can tell you for sure that for example in Italy hospitals and other institutions have asked for Covid vaccination in order to stay employed. I wouldn't be surprised to see that Denmark does the same, and more, if vaccinations number don't reach the thresholds needed to prevent healthcare systems from collapsing. And you should know that Denmark is far from as "laissez faire" as many Americans imagine. For example even before Covid they were enforcing some very harsh social measures targeting self-isolating communities, in order to maintain social cohesion, for example.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  That's a good thing. If it's personally painful to not get the vaccine, we'll have many more vaccinations, which will lead to better public (and economic!) health. Freedom of choice does not mean freedom from consequences. BTW, if you /don't/ get the vaccine, you'll still almost-certainly get covid antibodies eventually, via contracting the virus. As a reminder, the virus itself has not been FDA approved, and is known to have both short and long-term harmful side effects. The vaccine is many orders of magnitude safer than the virus.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Trust me. I'm not arguing against vaccines at all and I got one as soon as I could. However, I think most of us would agree that literally vaccinating people by force would be wrong. So I also don't think it's unreasonable to be at least a bit discomfited when some combination of government at multiple levels and employers make it harder for unvaccinated people to earn a living and participate in society. Even if at the end of the day I approve of many of those requirements--for example I need to prove vaccination status to go to a planned industry event next month which seems very reasonable--I certainly take no joy in such coercion and recognize that it is further polarizing. Sure it's just "consequences" but those consequences are such that it's also not really a choice.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      I think I've flipped the other way on this. I am sick and tired of people believing that their "rights" are more important than public health. I would very much wish that people would recognize this for themselves, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with forcing people to comply if they don't. We've done this for decades already; for example, many/most/(all?) school districts in the US require certain vaccinations[0] for children, else they are not permitted to go to school (and in many places, not sending your children to school, without other arrangements, is illegal, so they are de-facto forced to comply, absent allowed religious/medical exemptions). Sure, you might say that the scope of some of these new and proposed vaccination rules around COVID go much further, but I don't see a material difference. If we haven't been up in arms about requirements around childhood vaccinations, I don't think we can reasonably be upset about businesses requiring their employees to be vaccinated against COVID. At this point my patience with the vaccine "hesitant" is gone. Unless you have a valid medical reason, if you are refusing to get vaccinated, you are actively inviting great harm on the health of your community, and that needs to stop. I do agree that literal vaccination by force would be going too far. But I am absolutely thrilled that my city requires vaccination for many indoor activities right now, and requires employees at those indoor businesses to be vaccinated, and that many private businesses are implementing their own vaccination requirements. It's the right thing to do, full stop. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/laws/state-reqs.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/laws/state-reqs.ht...