5 ms·

They could ban elderly and overweight people and other such undesirables^Wvulnerable people from civil society too. For their own good.

throwaway316943 5y ago
This is snarky but poses a real question. If we ban people from spaces or events due to their vulnerability to COVID then why do we not do the same for those vulnerable to other diseases? Flu is a good example for the young and elderly since it poses a significant risk. It would strain the argument but you could make a case for banning the obese from fast food restaurants based on this reasoning as well.
- skytreader 5y ago
  Don't forget what makes COVID19 so insidious: without testing, it takes time before an infected contagious person shows symptoms. By the time they decide to stay off public spaces, they have already potentially spread the virus. With the common flu, you know almost instantly so you stay home to recover. Fat people know their condition and it's their choice to eat fast food anyway. And obesity is also non contagious.
  - throwaway316943 5y ago
    The only people they would need to protect are other unvaccinated people who have made the choice to take whatever risk there is in going unvaccinated. The choice to not be vaccinated involves knowing that you may contact the virus from someone else and may become very ill or die. Attempting to protect someone by taking away their ability to make that choice is equivalent to removing the option to eat enough food to become obese.
    - skytreader 5y ago
      > Attempting to protect someone by taking away their ability to make that choice is equivalent to removing the option to eat enough food to become obese. We do that to obese people already. It's called a diet. Some of them even go farther than mere "prescriptions" but with psychological tricks to keep people on track. Also, really, comparing obesity to COVID19 is an apples to oranges thing. Obesity is not even viral. What you're missing is that in all these measures that seem so controversial (lockdowns, vaccination campaigns) preserving an individual's life/health is secondary to the main goal, a means to an end. The main goal is to not overwhelm the public healthcare infra. No one cares if you want to go to a concert when you're ill but when that illness has the potential to strain public health resources, then that's a different story entirely.
  - charbonneau 5y ago
    > Symptoms can begin about 2 days (but can range from 1 to 4 days) after the virus enters the body. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick. Some people can be infected with the flu virus but have no symptoms. During this time, those people may still spread the virus to others. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm
    - skytreader 5y ago
      For comparison: > People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. Anyone can have mild to severe symptoms. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/s... (emphasis added)
  - gruez 5y ago
    > Don't forget what makes COVID19 so insidious: without testing, it takes time before an infected contagious person shows symptoms. By the time they decide to stay off public spaces, they have already potentially spread the virus. but AFAIK even vaccinated people can spread the virus?
    - skytreader 5y ago
      As I mentioned in another comment, let's not forget that preventing spread through all these measures is all in service of a greater goal: avoiding strain on public health infra. To put it another way, it doesn't matter if vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus (any virus, even) as long as this infection chain does not result to an unmanageable pipeline of people who might need intensive medical care. In this context, the main benefit (but by no means only) of vaccines is the decreased hospitalization rate.
      - gruez 5y ago
        > As I mentioned in another comment, let's not forget that preventing spread through all these measures is all in service of a greater goal: avoiding strain on public health infra. If the ends justifies the means, what other public health interventions should we carry out, even in cases where there's no direct harm to society[1]? Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. Should we have blood pressure/cholesterol "passports" to pressure people into being healthier? [1] ie. you getting infected and infecting other people, as opposed to the more tenuous link of you getting infected, having to go to the emergency room, causing the emergency room to go over capacity and causing someone to die because of lack of care
        skytreader 5y ago
        > Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. Should we have blood pressure/cholesterol "passports" to pressure people into being healthier? Is heart disease exponentially contagious with the potential to strain medical resources in a matter of days? Again, these aren't interventions against social freedoms, rather an intervention to prevent a public service from being DDoSed, so to speak. The measures a matter of _hospitalization_. It's pointless to compare a "cause of death" metric to a "plain case count" metric.
- javagram 5y ago
  Because covid is 10-50x more deadly than the flu, it makes more sense to advocate for precautions against it. Just got my flu shot this week, but even for the young and healthy covid is more dangerous than the flu, except possibly in young children ages 0-12.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
javagram 5y ago
Overweight and elderly is not something you can fix in an hour with a free vaccine shot. Don’t you see the obvious difference?
- freeflight 5y ago
  The shot doesn’t work in an hour nor does it fix the actual problem. Nor is it really as simple as just trying to bully everybody into getting injected with vaccines that have been developed and pushed trough regulatory approval in record times. The last time something like that happened, during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, it turned out the people skeptical of rushed vaccinations were actually the ones with the right idea. While many others ended up suffering for the rest of their life’s for it, among them a whole lot of children.
  - javagram 5y ago
    I’m talking about the amount of time and effort one has to put in. Losing weight can take years even for a determined person, recommended weight loss speed is usually 1-2 lbs per week at most. To get vaccinated you have to just drop by the pharmacy during your grocery store run, wait about 15 minutes after the shot for observation, and it’s complete. (If taking a 2 shot vaccine, repeat the same 30 minute task 4 weeks later). Asking people to become non-obese before entering society is an entirely different level of effort. Asking people to become non-elderly is an impossibility at our current or near-future level of science. H1N1 was nowhere near as dangerous as COVID-19. And even in that case there’s no reason to believe getting the flu vaccine that year was a bad idea. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcolepsy-flu.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps... “ In 2018, a study team including CDC scientists analyzed and published vaccine safety data on adjuvanted pH1N1 vaccines (arenaprix-AS03, Focetria-MF59, and Pandemrix-AS03) from 10 global study sites. Researchers did not detect any associations between the vaccines and narcolepsy.”
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  So? It's for their own good. Don't you care about what is best for the undesirables?

throwaway316943 5y ago

This is snarky but poses a real question. If we ban people from spaces or events due to their vulnerability to COVID then why do we not do the same for those vulnerable to other diseases? Flu is a good example for the young and elderly since it poses a significant risk. It would strain the argument but you could make a case for banning the obese from fast food restaurants based on this reasoning as well.

skytreader 5y ago
Don't forget what makes COVID19 so insidious: without testing, it takes time before an infected contagious person shows symptoms. By the time they decide to stay off public spaces, they have already potentially spread the virus. With the common flu, you know almost instantly so you stay home to recover. Fat people know their condition and it's their choice to eat fast food anyway. And obesity is also non contagious.
- throwaway316943 5y ago
  The only people they would need to protect are other unvaccinated people who have made the choice to take whatever risk there is in going unvaccinated. The choice to not be vaccinated involves knowing that you may contact the virus from someone else and may become very ill or die. Attempting to protect someone by taking away their ability to make that choice is equivalent to removing the option to eat enough food to become obese.
  - skytreader 5y ago
    > Attempting to protect someone by taking away their ability to make that choice is equivalent to removing the option to eat enough food to become obese. We do that to obese people already. It's called a diet. Some of them even go farther than mere "prescriptions" but with psychological tricks to keep people on track. Also, really, comparing obesity to COVID19 is an apples to oranges thing. Obesity is not even viral. What you're missing is that in all these measures that seem so controversial (lockdowns, vaccination campaigns) preserving an individual's life/health is secondary to the main goal, a means to an end. The main goal is to not overwhelm the public healthcare infra. No one cares if you want to go to a concert when you're ill but when that illness has the potential to strain public health resources, then that's a different story entirely.
- charbonneau 5y ago
  > Symptoms can begin about 2 days (but can range from 1 to 4 days) after the virus enters the body. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick. Some people can be infected with the flu virus but have no symptoms. During this time, those people may still spread the virus to others. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm
  - skytreader 5y ago
    For comparison: > People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. Anyone can have mild to severe symptoms. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/s... (emphasis added)
- gruez 5y ago
  > Don't forget what makes COVID19 so insidious: without testing, it takes time before an infected contagious person shows symptoms. By the time they decide to stay off public spaces, they have already potentially spread the virus. but AFAIK even vaccinated people can spread the virus?
  - skytreader 5y ago
    As I mentioned in another comment, let's not forget that preventing spread through all these measures is all in service of a greater goal: avoiding strain on public health infra. To put it another way, it doesn't matter if vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus (any virus, even) as long as this infection chain does not result to an unmanageable pipeline of people who might need intensive medical care. In this context, the main benefit (but by no means only) of vaccines is the decreased hospitalization rate.
    - gruez 5y ago
      > As I mentioned in another comment, let's not forget that preventing spread through all these measures is all in service of a greater goal: avoiding strain on public health infra. If the ends justifies the means, what other public health interventions should we carry out, even in cases where there's no direct harm to society[1]? Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. Should we have blood pressure/cholesterol "passports" to pressure people into being healthier? [1] ie. you getting infected and infecting other people, as opposed to the more tenuous link of you getting infected, having to go to the emergency room, causing the emergency room to go over capacity and causing someone to die because of lack of care
      - skytreader 5y ago
        > Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. Should we have blood pressure/cholesterol "passports" to pressure people into being healthier? Is heart disease exponentially contagious with the potential to strain medical resources in a matter of days? Again, these aren't interventions against social freedoms, rather an intervention to prevent a public service from being DDoSed, so to speak. The measures a matter of _hospitalization_. It's pointless to compare a "cause of death" metric to a "plain case count" metric.
javagram 5y ago
Because covid is 10-50x more deadly than the flu, it makes more sense to advocate for precautions against it. Just got my flu shot this week, but even for the young and healthy covid is more dangerous than the flu, except possibly in young children ages 0-12.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

javagram 5y ago

Overweight and elderly is not something you can fix in an hour with a free vaccine shot. Don’t you see the obvious difference?

freeflight 5y ago
The shot doesn’t work in an hour nor does it fix the actual problem. Nor is it really as simple as just trying to bully everybody into getting injected with vaccines that have been developed and pushed trough regulatory approval in record times. The last time something like that happened, during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, it turned out the people skeptical of rushed vaccinations were actually the ones with the right idea. While many others ended up suffering for the rest of their life’s for it, among them a whole lot of children.
- javagram 5y ago
  I’m talking about the amount of time and effort one has to put in. Losing weight can take years even for a determined person, recommended weight loss speed is usually 1-2 lbs per week at most. To get vaccinated you have to just drop by the pharmacy during your grocery store run, wait about 15 minutes after the shot for observation, and it’s complete. (If taking a 2 shot vaccine, repeat the same 30 minute task 4 weeks later). Asking people to become non-obese before entering society is an entirely different level of effort. Asking people to become non-elderly is an impossibility at our current or near-future level of science. H1N1 was nowhere near as dangerous as COVID-19. And even in that case there’s no reason to believe getting the flu vaccine that year was a bad idea. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcolepsy-flu.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps... “ In 2018, a study team including CDC scientists analyzed and published vaccine safety data on adjuvanted pH1N1 vaccines (arenaprix-AS03, Focetria-MF59, and Pandemrix-AS03) from 10 global study sites. Researchers did not detect any associations between the vaccines and narcolepsy.”
throwawaylinux 5y ago
So? It's for their own good. Don't you care about what is best for the undesirables?