4 ms·

It's a waste of resources to figure out whether someone has natural immunity (its quite hard to do logistically). Much easier to just give them the vaccine, the

It's a waste of resources to figure out whether someone has natural immunity (its quite hard to do logistically). Much easier to just give them the vaccine, then your bases are covered. These are public health decisions -- they don't occur in a vacuum with unlimited resources.

peteradio 5y ago
So my medical decisions will be made for me because its too hard to do a proper test? How much fucking money has been spent due to this pandemic, amazing vaccine development, government backstops all over the place, but somehow a routine blood draw and test is seen as too absurd an idea?
- sam0x17 5y ago
  > So my medical decisions will be made for me because its too hard to do a proper test In short, yes, this is called good public health policy. It's not merely a simple blood test and it's not something just any lab could do. Anti-body testing is finicky, expensive, time-consuming, and not as reliable as has_vaccine (boolean). So in other words, we are going to make your medical decision for you because not doing so puts the health of many others at risk and you don't have the right to put countless others at risk. A simple utilitarian analysis yields this as the obvious solution. It is worth sacrificing your personal preference at no risk to yourself to save potentially many lives. Even the vaccinated are at risk when a large percentage of the population runs around unvaccinated, because each transmission increases the risk of a mutation that gives rise to a vaccine-resistant strain with a higher death rate. Then we'd be back at square one. In the worst case scenario it could kill off the majority of the population. This situation is exactly analogous to someone in the food industry saying they should have a religious exemption for hand-washing. The bad effects of allowing such an exemption (people dying from food poisoning and catching diseases from food) aren't worth the small sacrifice of simply having to wash your hands before preparing food. With good reason, we ignore people who say "there are microchips in the soap" and still make them wash their hands or seek employment elsewhere.
  - peteradio 5y ago
    In fact the specificity of an antibody test is much better correlated with "has_immunity" than a vaccine card. The situation is analogous to making someone wash their hands who has already washed their hands.
    - sam0x17 5y ago
      > The situation is analogous to making someone wash their hands who has already washed their hands AKA it's super easy and simplifies things
      - peteradio 5y ago
        Haha, I really set myself up for that one.
sdiupIGPWEfh 5y ago
We could make individuals pay for it. Heck, we could tax it, make them pay through the nose for it, and reinvest it back into vaccinations. Up the costs even more if they want to be retested. Since it's not medically necessary, their insurance shouldn't have to cover it, meaning the costs won't have to be borne by everyone else.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Yes, this would also be very reasonable public health policy.

peteradio 5y ago

So my medical decisions will be made for me because its too hard to do a proper test? How much fucking money has been spent due to this pandemic, amazing vaccine development, government backstops all over the place, but somehow a routine blood draw and test is seen as too absurd an idea?

sam0x17 5y ago
> So my medical decisions will be made for me because its too hard to do a proper test In short, yes, this is called good public health policy. It's not merely a simple blood test and it's not something just any lab could do. Anti-body testing is finicky, expensive, time-consuming, and not as reliable as has_vaccine (boolean). So in other words, we are going to make your medical decision for you because not doing so puts the health of many others at risk and you don't have the right to put countless others at risk. A simple utilitarian analysis yields this as the obvious solution. It is worth sacrificing your personal preference at no risk to yourself to save potentially many lives. Even the vaccinated are at risk when a large percentage of the population runs around unvaccinated, because each transmission increases the risk of a mutation that gives rise to a vaccine-resistant strain with a higher death rate. Then we'd be back at square one. In the worst case scenario it could kill off the majority of the population. This situation is exactly analogous to someone in the food industry saying they should have a religious exemption for hand-washing. The bad effects of allowing such an exemption (people dying from food poisoning and catching diseases from food) aren't worth the small sacrifice of simply having to wash your hands before preparing food. With good reason, we ignore people who say "there are microchips in the soap" and still make them wash their hands or seek employment elsewhere.
- peteradio 5y ago
  In fact the specificity of an antibody test is much better correlated with "has_immunity" than a vaccine card. The situation is analogous to making someone wash their hands who has already washed their hands.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    > The situation is analogous to making someone wash their hands who has already washed their hands AKA it's super easy and simplifies things
    - peteradio 5y ago
      Haha, I really set myself up for that one.

sdiupIGPWEfh 5y ago

We could make individuals pay for it. Heck, we could tax it, make them pay through the nose for it, and reinvest it back into vaccinations. Up the costs even more if they want to be retested. Since it's not medically necessary, their insurance shouldn't have to cover it, meaning the costs won't have to be borne by everyone else.

sam0x17 5y ago
Yes, this would also be very reasonable public health policy.