6 ms·

An interesting element is my choice vs choices put on me. There is another angle people talk about... The building I work in was designed and built by others.

by mfer 5y ago

An interesting element is my choice vs choices put on me. There is another angle people talk about... The building I work in was designed and built by others. Regulations mean they can't cut corners in their impact of me. A vaccine that protects me from getting the virus or getting a serious case. It's a difference between others work impacting my safety and my own choices impacting my safety. This is an area worth pondering.

plainnoodles 5y ago
Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. But as-is, normal people who took precautions to get vaccinated are being hurt by anti-vaxxers when they get an unrelated illness or injury (car wreck, infection, etc) and then suffer worse outcomes (including death) just because the ICU beds are full of people who could have literally just decided not to be in them (given how effective the vaccine is at preventing hospitalization). Our society is far too interconnected for almost anything to not at least indirectly affect someone else, even if the first-order effects are well-limited to "just you". Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
- mfer 5y ago
  >As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. This depends on where you're at. Where I live we currently are not near capacity in hospitals or ICUs. There isn't an issue and we are not near one. Should so many be mandated or highly pushed to get vaccinated because of a few hot spots that affect a small part of the population? This is a question I've heard. Note, there is a difference between believing (or knowing) the positive effects of vaccines, being a proponent, and getting one yourself. This is about forcing others against their will do to something. I fear this will come back to bite our nation in the future. Both in terms of the willingness to force people and the repercussions that will come from it.
- clipradiowallet 5y ago
  > As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. Can you extend this logic to other groups beyond "unvaccinated"? For example, imagine the ICU beds that would be unoccupied if people who smoke tobacco and drink alcohol chose to "die at home". As a society, we know both of these behaviors are detrimental to health, and yet there are people occupying ICU beds because of their decision to use those 2 substances. Slippery slope and whatnot.... health insurance premiums would also be a lot cheaper if my group health insurance plan wasn't subsidizing treatment for all my coworkers with lung cancer, emphysema, and liver failure.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    No we have laws to limit that, so why not have laws that limit where Typhoid Mary and Covid Christ can participate in society. They aren't putting them in jail they're simply giving the choice to get a jab or lose their current job or eating in a crowded restaurant. They are free to still start their own business and remain vaccine free.
- kuraudo 5y ago
  >As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. This argument falls flat when we do not require mandatory weight loss from other citizens. The point of the vaccine is not to protect oneself from taking up an icu bed, but to protect other people.
UncleMeat 5y ago
Vaccination provides clear social benefit by reducing infections, which limits spread of the virus and potential sources of mutation. It also limits the number of hospital resources that must be allocated to covid patients, freeing up those resources to aid others who are in need of medical care. In the same way, driving while drunk is tremendously dangerous to yourself but is also a danger to others.
robmccoll 5y ago
Society is a closed system. Mandating wearing seatbelts only saves me right? Except that someone will have to go to the effort of scraping me off the sidewalk, attempting to resuscitate me, transporting me to the hospital, resources at the hospital will be consumed that could have otherwise been preserved or applied elsewhere, and if I'm not insured, the cost of most of this will be borne by others. If I don't make it, what happens to my dependents? Friends? Family? People counting on me at work? Communicable disease and taking reasonable precaution isn't that different. This one is interesting because its virality and fatality rates are apparently on the cusp of what society as a whole agrees are worth doing something about.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  Wearing a seatbelt saves others besides you - people die and are injured by getting hit from non-seatbelt wearers, particularly those in the vehicle with them. Helmet laws for motorcycles? I'm generally against them for the reason that it doesn't affect others (except in really weird edge cases) and I don't think we should mandate people risking their own lives (Except in situations where people don't realize the danger they are in)
matwood 5y ago
Except the vaccine doesn't just protect you, it's also a layer of protection for anyone you might come in contact with. This is the whole concept of herd immunity. There are some people where the vaccine will not work, and others where it works but for whatever reason they are very susceptible to the virus. When you skip the vaccine you are now putting others at risk.
- mfer 5y ago
  > When you skip the vaccine you are now putting others at risk. When you skip the flu vaccine you put others at risk. In a normal year 40k people die of the flu in the US. At what point do we draw what lines? I'm not suggesting what that point is. Just that we slow down, think about it, and understand the tradeoff. There is no perfect answer. There is also the element of the co-founding factors. Things like heart disease. Many of the co-founding factors, though not all, are repercussions of lifestyle (e.g., most heart disease is the result of many years of unhealthy eating). We don't force people to eat healthy which would avoid a significant amount of disease and related factors in COVID deaths. I realize this is not all cases... and I'm attempting to push thoughts forward rather than state my own ideas. Thinking this stuff through in depth is important. Seeing folks on the other side is important.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > At what point do we draw what lines? Somewhere. One one side, we don't allow you to shoot anyone you see to protect yourself against COVID. On the other we don't allow people with COVID to intentionally infect people (even sneezing on them in an obviously purposeful way implying you have COVID is getting punished.) So we draw it somewhere. > Just that we slow down, think about it, and understand the tradeoff. No. I have no desire to slow down. It's killing people now. It's delaying cancer treatments now. It's causing people to die of burst appendixes because they cannot get treatment now. If we need to revisit, fine. But it has to be after taking action.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    >In a normal year 40k people die of the flu in the US. So we draw the line somewhere between 40k and the number of deaths from covid? Note, it's not 650K in the US, those are deaths after all the social distancing, mask wearing, etc and more recently vaccinations. The true number would have been in the millions just in the US if these precautions weren't taken. Actually the IFR/CFR would be at a higher rate than now because hospitals would have been completely pummeled so people who now survive due to hospital care would die at home or in an ambulance waiting for a bed. Not to mention long covid, organ damage etc. The economy would suffer even with everything open. Are you saying that you would draw the line at more than millions dead in a year in the US for covid because we draw the line higher than 40k per year for the flu? If anything can be learnt from this, I think the argument can be that we can do more to combat flu every year, make it socially necessary for sick people to stay at home or mask up in subways etc.(like in Japan), increase testing, increase uptake of vaccines, new better MRNA vaccines etc.
boplicity 5y ago
Should we have freedom to harm others? Sometimes? Where we draw that line is very important, for sure.
- landemva 5y ago
  Supreme Court already drew the line as a right to privacy.
jonahbenton 5y ago
Indeed. People who raise this argument tend to ignore the fact that the most important impact of the vaccine is the systemic protection it offers against the irresponsibility of individual choice. The vaccine does not in fact guarantee person X will not be infected or hospitalized. Widespread vaccination does result in systemic reduction in community spread. Ponder that.
- mfer 5y ago
  > The vaccine does not in fact guarantee person X will not be infected or hospitalized. Widespread vaccination does result in systemic reduction in community spread. We aren't going to wipe out COVID. It's here to stay. From people to animals. At some point most of us will likely get it. There has been a fair amount written on this. If we look at past times we had pandemics (e.g., pandemic of 1889-90) we can see patterns. There the virus hit people and was bad the first year and gradually was less and less until they stopped tracking it. When we get hit the first time we get some immunity. For the virus from that pandemic it happens today as kids. Antibodies fade over time (while T cells remain). That means our nose and throat can easily get reinfected but after the first time we usually just get a simple cold (and first time is usually a simple cold, too). That situation moved from pandemic to endemic. The same will happen here. Yet, every year ~40k people in the US die from cold/flu. We can't stop it. How we treat people along the way will say a lot about us and impact our relationships once we hit the endemic stage. We'll get to endemic without or without the vaccine. The vaccine will help. Forcing people is going to create enemies and the side effect will live beyond the pandemic. Just a thought to ponder.
  - jonahbenton 5y ago
    "How we treat people along the way" is super important. Associating public health mandates with (EDIT correcting typo) "forcing people is going to create enemies" is the opposite of being respectful of people. Best wishes to you.
    - ctrlp 5y ago
      Put your reading glasses on. He said "forcing people is going to create enemies".
HWR_14 5y ago
No one is asking that you get the vaccine. Go buy 50 acres and subsistence farm by yourself. Or do you mean you'd still want to clog up a hospital bed for two months if you get sick. Because I'm pretty sure that impacts everyone.
- kuraudo 5y ago
  This argument implies that we should start mandating mandatory weight loss for the obese. The vaccine is about protecting other people, not hospital space.
  - chinathrow 5y ago
    Apples and oranges, and nothing is implied. Obesity is not highly contagious. Obesity can't mutate easily.
commandlinefan 5y ago
> A vaccine that protects me from getting the virus or getting a serious case But if the vaccine protects you, and you have it, why do you care if I get it or not? By definition, the only people I could hurt are myself or other unvaccinated people.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > why do you care if I get it or not? Because every infection is a chance to evolve a new variant that my (and my family's) vaccination does not protect against.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    So we should push for sterilizing vaccines instead of these lossy ones that don't kill the virus.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      Yes, got any ideas how?

by mfer 5y ago

plainnoodles 5y ago

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. But as-is, normal people who took precautions to get vaccinated are being hurt by anti-vaxxers when they get an unrelated illness or injury (car wreck, infection, etc) and then suffer worse outcomes (including death) just because the ICU beds are full of people who could have literally just decided not to be in them (given how effective the vaccine is at preventing hospitalization). Our society is far too interconnected for almost anything to not at least indirectly affect someone else, even if the first-order effects are well-limited to "just you". Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

mfer 5y ago
>As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. This depends on where you're at. Where I live we currently are not near capacity in hospitals or ICUs. There isn't an issue and we are not near one. Should so many be mandated or highly pushed to get vaccinated because of a few hot spots that affect a small part of the population? This is a question I've heard. Note, there is a difference between believing (or knowing) the positive effects of vaccines, being a proponent, and getting one yourself. This is about forcing others against their will do to something. I fear this will come back to bite our nation in the future. Both in terms of the willingness to force people and the repercussions that will come from it.
clipradiowallet 5y ago
> As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. Can you extend this logic to other groups beyond "unvaccinated"? For example, imagine the ICU beds that would be unoccupied if people who smoke tobacco and drink alcohol chose to "die at home". As a society, we know both of these behaviors are detrimental to health, and yet there are people occupying ICU beds because of their decision to use those 2 substances. Slippery slope and whatnot.... health insurance premiums would also be a lot cheaper if my group health insurance plan wasn't subsidizing treatment for all my coworkers with lung cancer, emphysema, and liver failure.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  No we have laws to limit that, so why not have laws that limit where Typhoid Mary and Covid Christ can participate in society. They aren't putting them in jail they're simply giving the choice to get a jab or lose their current job or eating in a crowded restaurant. They are free to still start their own business and remain vaccine free.
kuraudo 5y ago
>As another comment said, if the unvaccinated were willing to stick to their "ideals" and die at home instead of an ICU bed, I would be a lot more amenable to arguments against mandates. This argument falls flat when we do not require mandatory weight loss from other citizens. The point of the vaccine is not to protect oneself from taking up an icu bed, but to protect other people.

UncleMeat 5y ago

Vaccination provides clear social benefit by reducing infections, which limits spread of the virus and potential sources of mutation. It also limits the number of hospital resources that must be allocated to covid patients, freeing up those resources to aid others who are in need of medical care. In the same way, driving while drunk is tremendously dangerous to yourself but is also a danger to others.

robmccoll 5y ago

Society is a closed system. Mandating wearing seatbelts only saves me right? Except that someone will have to go to the effort of scraping me off the sidewalk, attempting to resuscitate me, transporting me to the hospital, resources at the hospital will be consumed that could have otherwise been preserved or applied elsewhere, and if I'm not insured, the cost of most of this will be borne by others. If I don't make it, what happens to my dependents? Friends? Family? People counting on me at work? Communicable disease and taking reasonable precaution isn't that different. This one is interesting because its virality and fatality rates are apparently on the cusp of what society as a whole agrees are worth doing something about.

gilbetron 5y ago
Wearing a seatbelt saves others besides you - people die and are injured by getting hit from non-seatbelt wearers, particularly those in the vehicle with them. Helmet laws for motorcycles? I'm generally against them for the reason that it doesn't affect others (except in really weird edge cases) and I don't think we should mandate people risking their own lives (Except in situations where people don't realize the danger they are in)

matwood 5y ago

Except the vaccine doesn't just protect you, it's also a layer of protection for anyone you might come in contact with. This is the whole concept of herd immunity. There are some people where the vaccine will not work, and others where it works but for whatever reason they are very susceptible to the virus. When you skip the vaccine you are now putting others at risk.

mfer 5y ago
> When you skip the vaccine you are now putting others at risk. When you skip the flu vaccine you put others at risk. In a normal year 40k people die of the flu in the US. At what point do we draw what lines? I'm not suggesting what that point is. Just that we slow down, think about it, and understand the tradeoff. There is no perfect answer. There is also the element of the co-founding factors. Things like heart disease. Many of the co-founding factors, though not all, are repercussions of lifestyle (e.g., most heart disease is the result of many years of unhealthy eating). We don't force people to eat healthy which would avoid a significant amount of disease and related factors in COVID deaths. I realize this is not all cases... and I'm attempting to push thoughts forward rather than state my own ideas. Thinking this stuff through in depth is important. Seeing folks on the other side is important.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > At what point do we draw what lines? Somewhere. One one side, we don't allow you to shoot anyone you see to protect yourself against COVID. On the other we don't allow people with COVID to intentionally infect people (even sneezing on them in an obviously purposeful way implying you have COVID is getting punished.) So we draw it somewhere. > Just that we slow down, think about it, and understand the tradeoff. No. I have no desire to slow down. It's killing people now. It's delaying cancer treatments now. It's causing people to die of burst appendixes because they cannot get treatment now. If we need to revisit, fine. But it has to be after taking action.
- belltaco 5y ago
  >In a normal year 40k people die of the flu in the US. So we draw the line somewhere between 40k and the number of deaths from covid? Note, it's not 650K in the US, those are deaths after all the social distancing, mask wearing, etc and more recently vaccinations. The true number would have been in the millions just in the US if these precautions weren't taken. Actually the IFR/CFR would be at a higher rate than now because hospitals would have been completely pummeled so people who now survive due to hospital care would die at home or in an ambulance waiting for a bed. Not to mention long covid, organ damage etc. The economy would suffer even with everything open. Are you saying that you would draw the line at more than millions dead in a year in the US for covid because we draw the line higher than 40k per year for the flu? If anything can be learnt from this, I think the argument can be that we can do more to combat flu every year, make it socially necessary for sick people to stay at home or mask up in subways etc.(like in Japan), increase testing, increase uptake of vaccines, new better MRNA vaccines etc.

boplicity 5y ago

Should we have freedom to harm others? Sometimes? Where we draw that line is very important, for sure.

landemva 5y ago
Supreme Court already drew the line as a right to privacy.

jonahbenton 5y ago

Indeed. People who raise this argument tend to ignore the fact that the most important impact of the vaccine is the systemic protection it offers against the irresponsibility of individual choice. The vaccine does not in fact guarantee person X will not be infected or hospitalized. Widespread vaccination does result in systemic reduction in community spread. Ponder that.

mfer 5y ago
> The vaccine does not in fact guarantee person X will not be infected or hospitalized. Widespread vaccination does result in systemic reduction in community spread. We aren't going to wipe out COVID. It's here to stay. From people to animals. At some point most of us will likely get it. There has been a fair amount written on this. If we look at past times we had pandemics (e.g., pandemic of 1889-90) we can see patterns. There the virus hit people and was bad the first year and gradually was less and less until they stopped tracking it. When we get hit the first time we get some immunity. For the virus from that pandemic it happens today as kids. Antibodies fade over time (while T cells remain). That means our nose and throat can easily get reinfected but after the first time we usually just get a simple cold (and first time is usually a simple cold, too). That situation moved from pandemic to endemic. The same will happen here. Yet, every year ~40k people in the US die from cold/flu. We can't stop it. How we treat people along the way will say a lot about us and impact our relationships once we hit the endemic stage. We'll get to endemic without or without the vaccine. The vaccine will help. Forcing people is going to create enemies and the side effect will live beyond the pandemic. Just a thought to ponder.
- jonahbenton 5y ago
  "How we treat people along the way" is super important. Associating public health mandates with (EDIT correcting typo) "forcing people is going to create enemies" is the opposite of being respectful of people. Best wishes to you.
  - ctrlp 5y ago
    Put your reading glasses on. He said "forcing people is going to create enemies".

HWR_14 5y ago

No one is asking that you get the vaccine. Go buy 50 acres and subsistence farm by yourself. Or do you mean you'd still want to clog up a hospital bed for two months if you get sick. Because I'm pretty sure that impacts everyone.

kuraudo 5y ago
This argument implies that we should start mandating mandatory weight loss for the obese. The vaccine is about protecting other people, not hospital space.
- chinathrow 5y ago
  Apples and oranges, and nothing is implied. Obesity is not highly contagious. Obesity can't mutate easily.

commandlinefan 5y ago

> A vaccine that protects me from getting the virus or getting a serious case But if the vaccine protects you, and you have it, why do you care if I get it or not? By definition, the only people I could hurt are myself or other unvaccinated people.

throwaway210222 5y ago
> why do you care if I get it or not? Because every infection is a chance to evolve a new variant that my (and my family's) vaccination does not protect against.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  So we should push for sterilizing vaccines instead of these lossy ones that don't kill the virus.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    Yes, got any ideas how?