10 ms·

I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct. But what you describe is majoritarianism. It is a form of democracy but a very w

by worik 5y ago

I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct. But what you describe is majoritarianism. It is a form of democracy but a very weak form. For a lot of people, who are from minority groups, it is indistinguishable from totalitarianism. Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing them to comply is probably a cure worse than the disease - even a disease like COVID

prohobo 5y ago
You cannot make this virus extinct. These vaccines do not accomplish this goal, the end.
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  The goal is to keep serious cases to a minimum so they don’t clog the healthcare system thus making people die of all sorts of other things because they couldn’t be treated. Vaccines do help with that, tremendously.
  - prohobo 5y ago
    Do they? Can you prove that, or are you just saying random shit everyone else says? This was not the narrative at the beginning of the vaccine rollout, by the way. The narrative changed every month towards what you're currently saying. From what I've heard, thousands of people have been losing out on proper healthcare because of governments blocking their access; I'm talking people who should have had cancer screenings not getting them and dying because they were coerced into "lowering the strain on healthcare services". I also heard that thousands of healthcare workers have been getting fired, and ICU beds removed because of governments deciding they weren't heroic enough, and not fit for treating patients. Who are you trying to protect exactly?
    - Swenrekcah 5y ago
      You can look up all the statistics on vaccine effectiveness against serious cases. They work really well for that. They don’t work as well as first hoped against infection but data on third booster suggests better results on that front. Look it up instead of asking me for proof, while you yourself are restating hearsay originating from who knows where.
      - prohobo 5y ago
        I asked if you can prove that they stop hospitals from being overwhelmed, not whether they were effective. So far it's not looking very good, is that why you support the decision to mandate the shots?
        Swenrekcah 5y ago
        I'm not sure I support a vaccine mandate. I'm just saying that the vaccines work and it's foolish to claim otherwise. I can understand hesitation to get vaccinated, but I'd like to ask those same people if they take any other medicine at all and if they have read the pamphlet that comes with those. Also I'd like to ask if they are fine with getting a completely alien and known harmful substance into their body, the substance we call Coronavirus.
      - MarcoZavala 5y ago
  - TurkishPoptart 5y ago
    Sure, yet since when do I have to undergo an irreversible medical procedure for the sake of the government healthcare infrastructure?
    - Swenrekcah 5y ago
      I'll start by saying I haven't been a supporter of vaccine mandates. It's best if people can make this up for themselves. Given the right information it's not really a hard choice. And of course there can be personal reasons why it'd be wise to not get vaccinated, but those are rare. The procedure is benign. Describing it as irreversible is technically true but practically it's scaremongering. And it's for the sake of the people around you. Your society. So they don't die waiting for their healthcare services to unclog. Edit: And it's also obviously for the sake of the person getting vaccinated, let's not forget that :)
      - TurkishPoptart 5y ago
        Because, sadly, we know that's not true anymore. >...fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory. Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
        Swenrekcah 5y ago
        Yes I know, it was clear early on. The study also says: >Although vaccines remain highly effective at preventing severe disease and deaths from COVID-19, our findings suggest that vaccination is not sufficient to prevent transmission of the delta variant in household settings with prolonged exposures. Which is what we're talking about here, preventing serious cases.
    - chki 5y ago
      Since we have a global pandemic. This is a completely novel and unusual situation, why wouldn't you think that the solutions will be novel and unusual as well?
  - codr7 5y ago
    Source? From listening to nurses and doctors, I get the impression that most people in hospitals with Covid-issues lately are vaccinated; and I trust real people with real experiences over authorities with agendas.
    - usr1106 5y ago
      > I get the impression that most people in hospitals with Covid-issues lately are vaccinated I read some statistics over that the other day. It is correct when looking only at hospital patients. The explanation is that most who need hospital care come from a risk group. And risk groups are fully vaccinated by over 90% (here). So you end up with high absolute numbers of vaccinated hospital patients. If you look at a somewhat comparable group of people, chances to need hospital care are manyfold for the unvaccinated. It's true for higher risk groups and for lower risk groups. Vaccinations are not perfect protection against anything, but they reduce risk by a high factor.
      - codr7 5y ago
        Wasn't filling up hospitals the problem we were trying to solve by vaccinating people in the first place? Isn't that the excuse people use to harass anyone who doesn't feel like being experimented on for profit?
  - klipklop 5y ago
    >The goal is to keep serious cases to a minimum so they don’t clog the healthcare system... Reminds me of 2 weeks to flatten the curve. Yet here we are. Why all the sudden are we at risk of clogging the healthcare system with some areas hitting 70%+ adult vaccination rates? Germany already has given out 124,401,062 doses of the vaccine. All I ever see is the goalposts being moved with this stuff. I have taken the vaccine, but I am hesitant about mandates and vaccine passports.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      I find it exhausting that people such as yourself seem to latch onto missed time frames as a reason to just assume all public health policy is bullshit. Yes, because when I say I'm going to finish some software project in 2 weeks, I absolutely always get it done in 2 weeks. These are estimates. They are sometimes (often!) wrong. Sometimes they're wrong because the problem was underestimated. Sometimes they are wrong for political reasons. Yes, "flattening the curve" took more than 2 weeks. Big deal. Doing so did absolutely reduce pressure on ICUs and saved many lives. And hell, if everyone had actually followed all the mandates and guidelines at the time, maybe it would have only taken two weeks. But people don't, and it's always hard to gauge how many people will refuse to cooperate, and in what ways, and exactly what effect that will have. The reason the goalposts are moving is because this isn't a well-defined game with strictly-set rules. The virus doesn't care about our rules or projections. If it mutates, and the new variant does better against our vaccines, then... yes, the goalposts will move. Our utter failure to get high vaccination rates in poorer countries is likely a big cause of the new variants. It's all well and good to be sitting in a highly-vaccinated city in the first world, but all it takes is one person to fly in from somewhere with a new variant, and you're hosed.
      - poszlem 5y ago
        You miss a time frame if you say "2 weeks" and end up having to lockdown for 3 instead. If you say "2 weeks" and end up with lockdowns for years you are either incompetent or lying or both.
        5y ago
- mattzito 5y ago
  Sure, but we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.
  - runarberg 5y ago
    I do think it is important to use the correct terminology here. This disease and the vaccines are already a huge spread of misinformation, so lets expand on the “sure” bit from this sentence a little. It is saying quite a lot: I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind. So we should acknowledge the fact that these vaccines will probably not eradicate COVID. We will have people getting sick from COVID and we will have more COVID variants for the foreseeable future. Even after most people have been thoroughly vaccinated. And given the slow global spread of vaccines we will also probably see more lockdown measures to slow the spread of the virus beyond the current vaccine capabilities. Now that said, remember that with the vaccines: > we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.
    - VoodooJuJu 5y ago
      >I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind I believe I speak for many when I say, "I have no idea what the experts' have in mind" (and that's not a good thing). So they're trying hard to get everyone vaccinated - a noble goal, perhaps, as our current roster of vaccines diminish symptoms and greatly reduce hospitalization and fatality rates. But..."Stop the spread, get vaccinated"...what? Like the parent said, all of the currently-approved intramuscular Covid-19 vaccines have proven to have a negligible effect on transmission rate. Early on, experts probably made an educated guess or wish that these vaccines would be sterilizing and started information campaigns on this premise. When this turned out to be not true, their "Stop the spread, get vaccinated" became "You unvaccinated are the problem, you are holding us back, and you will be locked down immediately". Rather than address their mistake, rather than open up transparently, they doubled down on the lie. Not a good way to build trust.
- throwoutway 5y ago
  Thank you! It’s this myth that keeps perpetuating that makes people think mandates are acceptable. And I say that as someone vaccinated.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    I have literally only seen people opposed to vaccine mandates bring this up. It's a fake talking point to paint people in favor of mandates as misinformed.
    - throwoutway 5y ago
      You're saying that a handful of your anecdotes are a perpetual fake talking point? I have seen the exact opposite. People are generally misinformed. In case you need a counterpoint to your anecdotes, read the upthread: > I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct.
      - joshuamorton 5y ago
        The person you're quoting was arguing against a vaccine mandate!
- crooked-v 5y ago
  However, they do accomplish the goal of stopping it from being a pandemic. With enough people vaccinated to reduce the R-value below 1, reinfections from animal reservoirs will become inherently self-limiting.
- pjc50 5y ago
  Why not? We eradicated smallpox.
  - gjs278 5y ago
    because that vaccine actually works. this one has “breakthrough” cases
  - prohobo 5y ago
    Are you serious? Let me ask you why we haven't eradicated influenza? Not all viruses are the same, and neither are all vaccines.
  - whiddershins 5y ago
    The smallpox vaccine is a sterilizing vaccine, meaning you cannot be infected and cannot transmit it once you are vaccinated. The MRNAs are non-sterilizing, as are many vaccines. They may reduce symptoms, reduce infections, and reduce transmission, but they are not considered a sterilizing vaccine. Secondly, coronaviruses mutate much faster than smallpox, and have other hard to deal with stuff like asymptomatic transmission. The only diseases we ever eradicated were polio and smallpox. I think we got rid of the guinea worm too. Out of all the many many diseases we have fought over the years.
    - glogla 5y ago
      > The MRNAs are non-sterilizing The vaccines we have are non-sterilizing - and my understanding is that the reason is mostly because we needed at least something very quickly and sterilizing vaccines for respiratory virus are harder to research. It is not inherent property of the technology as far as I know. Sterilizing vaccines for COVID seem to be theoretically possible. "Natural" infection generates stronger immune response on mucus membranes as well as deep inside the body and that provides higher protection against infection. There's no reason why that wouldn't be possible to replicate using a vaccine. But nobody succeeded at making one yet, so we'll have to see if it's practical.
    - anonAndOn 5y ago
      Thanks to some Af-Pak mullahs, the world still has polio in the wild. [0] [0]https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-development/polio https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-dev...
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  Yes the vaccine doesn't kill it, but what would kill it is a REAL lock down. Give everyone 2 months of salary, and 2 months of food. Nationalize food production for a month, give everyone shelf stable terrible food, the same crap that the majority of the anti-vaxxers have been hoarding for decades. Its like a pretend apocalypse. They should LOVE it.
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    How do you keep things like "power plants" and "water systems" running in this proposal? Either you allow so many exceptions that it's worthless, or you literally shut down modern civilization. It's far from clear that it can be blackstarted.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    One leak in the population of 7 billion and the whole plan is a waste.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    Unfortunately, that wouldn't really help long term, because the disease has spread through animal populations by now. The only way to reliably stop this from being an ongoing pandemic is measures that reduce the R-value below 1 in a long-term manner, like mass vaccinations.
    - gojomo 5y ago
      The high rates of breakthroughs mean even very-highly-vaxxed populations have had case surges. Rt is going to oscillate around 1, forever.
      - rbanffy 5y ago
        Even if it’s around 1 forever, if the effects are mild as they are with vaccinated people, it’ll be manageable as flu is.
        5y ago
timdaub 5y ago
No, it's not totalitarian. In Germany we have a constitution that protects all human's right equally. If there's good reasons why you can't receive a vaccination, I'm pretty sure nobody can force you. Not even the state. Go to your doctor to get an attest that exempts you from the mandatory vaccination. Nothing easier than that in Germany. And again: You are just speculating. Nobody knows if a vaccine mandate leaves people behind it tropes. You cannot know it, because it hasn't happened. I'd rather make decisions based on facts than just speculating about hypotheticals.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > In Germany we have a constitution that protects all human's right equally. If Germany's constitution allows vaccine mandates, then your insistence that it protects all human's rights will be of little comfort to the people who are forced to take the vaccination without their consent and in violation of their conscience. At best you are saying "Having control over what medical treatments are done to you is not a human right", and at worst you are saying "Antivaxers aren't human". Either way, you are putting too much trust in a system that claims to protect human rights, and totalitarians generally manage to find a way to twist the law to justify what they are doing, whether the excuse is "military necessity", "medical necessity", or something else.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    > the people who are forced to take the vaccination without their consent and in violation of their conscience. Your imagination got the better of you here - nobody will be forced to vaccinate, especially not without their consent. Similar to how nobody comes to your car and forces you to wear a seatbelt. Germany's constitution is quite clear about this, for apparent, historic reasons.
    - baggy_trough 5y ago
      You won't be physically forced to, but you also won't be allowed to do most of the things we normally consider that people have a right to do unless you comply. That's really a non physical way of forcing compliance (like saying I'll fire you from your job unless you agree).
Pyramus 5y ago
> Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. It's an interesting question and there is lots of debate in Germany at the moment as to why. Some factors are: * Germany did very well during the pandemic so people didn't experience a Bergamo or Madrid moment * Germany has a strong esoteric / anthroposophical movement (Steiner, Waldorf et al.) * Federalism: Vaccination rates vary a lot by state
- native_samples 5y ago
  None of those are the right answer. These are the answers people come up with having never talked to anyone who disagrees. The right answers are: 1. They don't trust the medical authorities to be honest about the risks. 2. They don't feel a need for it because they're at low risk of COVID and know it. 3. They don't believe it will change anything.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    > The right answers The right answers, but for the wrong question ;) Not disagreeing with you, but parent was asking why is Germany so bad relative to their European peers.
    - worik 5y ago
      Pacific peers actually!-)
  - jseban 5y ago
    And 1. The recommendation to take the vaccine goes exactly against anything the doctors said pre-covid. Before covid, nobody would recommend you to take a vaccine against something you are not in a risk group for, and double doses and boosters were unheard of. This makes me suspicious, and I don't think that is unreasonable. 2. You get really sick from the second dose of the vaccine, which also is not normal, you are not supposed to get sick from vaccines, you are supposed to take them to avoid getting sick So the whole vaccination situation is something that's new and confusing, why do what my doctor always said to not do? Why get sick from vaccines, aren't they supposed to stop you from getting sick? Why double and triple vaccines?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gojomo 5y ago
Vaccinations are too leaky to "make this virus extinct". Within a few months of vaccination, half or more of people can get mild, but still transmissable, cases of Delta. (Omicron is likely worse; there are already multiple reports of mild cases among those with recent 3rd booster shots.) Honest epidemiologists have been warning about this risk since 2020, and more forcefully when confirmed by early vax results in 2021. But many people are still on the warpath against the unvaxed, as if that can make a difference. Well, it can for the unvaxed themselves – winning them a less-severe case. But every vaxed person is going to be exposed to, and have mild cases of, COVID – via waning immunity & multiplying variants. There is no net increase in protection from harassing the last ~15% (a more honest count of hardcore holdouts) into a vax they don't want. (Most of them have probably had COVID already, or soon will, giving them an immunity just as good as vaccination.)
- omegaworks 5y ago
  >Most of them have probably had COVID already, or soon will, giving them an immunity just as good as vaccination. Immunity from prior-infection was worse than vaccination at protecting people from Delta.[1] 1. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/vaccine-induced-immunity.html#anchor_1635546906501 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...
  - switch007 5y ago
    By how much? It's really disingenuous to say "more" or "less" or "better" or "worse" without qualification.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Source? The papers I have seen show the exact opposite!
    - bovid19 5y ago
      Would you mind sharing which papers you are talking about?
    - 5y ago
throwawaysea 5y ago
It's a tyranny of the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority I simply don't understand why one person needs to undergo a medical procedure to enable someone else to experience the safe conditions they want. These vaccines don't even grant immunity in the traditional sense (see CDC's revision of definitions here) - all the vaccines do is move things from one nonzero probability of risk to another nonzero probability of risk. If people are SO worried about their health, they need to behave honestly and either quarantine themselves or wear a full body protective hazmat suit everywhere. But requiring others to get a vaccine to attain some arbitrary risk ratio just doesn't make sense.
- jseban 5y ago
  > I simply don't understand why one person needs to undergo a medical procedure to enable someone else to experience the safe conditions they want. Me neither, I think it's completely unreasonable.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    I think it’s completely unreasonable that people complain about an explosives factory next to a school. The risk of explosion is very low and the economic impact on the company would be devastating. Why do people think their right to be a little more safer trumps the right to manufacture high explosives?
    - jseban 5y ago
      I don't see how that's an accurate comparison at all. It doesn't require people to undergo medical procedures, doesn't violate their right to their own bodies or their basic freedom
      - rbanffy 5y ago
        It’s about the right to expose others to a risk without their consent. You don’t have the right to expose others to a deadly disease. If you undergo the “medical procedure” (an injection, not surgery, brain transplant or anything complicated, expensive or risky) you reduce risks for you and others, as well as you avoid the risk of using my taxes to pay for additional medical care you wouldn’t need if you just had the very minor inconvenience of two injections.
dhosek 5y ago
In the US, it's because a bunch of demagogues have decided that they will make a lot of money (or retain political power) by saying that vaccines don't work and/or are harmful. Fox News regularly spews this kind of nonsense in its programming and a number of Republican politicians are happy to go along with it.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  We should remember that the freedom of the press exists because a well informed population is necessary for a functioning democracy. The moment the press starts spreading disinformation, it starts to be detrimental to democracy and should be treated as that.
  - Eelongate 5y ago
    > We should remember that the freedom of the press exists because a well informed population is necessary for a functioning democracy. The text of the First Amendment does not contain this or any other justification for itself. And rightfully so I think; such a right does not require utilitarian justification. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
EricE 5y ago
> Let's make this virus extinct. Here's the core problem - unrealistic expectations. Even the CDC has backed off from the whole "make the virus extinct" mantra; they haven't spouted it for over a year now. Which is a good thing - it was utterly ridiculous from day one. This virus isn't going away. It is carried by animals. You going to vaccinate every animal that we all come in contact with? Ha! You are not going to shelter in place or vaccinate away this virus. We had better figure out how to coexist with it in a rational and reasonable manner. The good news with the Omicron variant there are no reported hospitalizations in South Africa. So it's more virulent, but less bad. Here is the perfect path to herd immunity - a variant that people can get a mild infection from and have stronger natural immunity to than the vax would give, as well as broader protection to variants. Actually any protection to variants would be an improvement over the current vax - there has be zero confirmation from the CDC or vax makers that the vax provides any protection against Delta, let alone Omicron. All they make are vague promises about it reducing the reaction. Big deal! If the reporting by South African doctors is correct and Omicron is as mild as they have seen then what exactly is the vax doing? Nothing - except exposing you needlessly to potential side effects. BTW that Omicron is more virulent but less bad is totally unsurprising to anyone familiar with viruses and who wasn't politically motivated or shamed to pushing the ridiculous narratives around COVID right now; this is totally expected behavior as viruses mature in the wild and was predicted by many virologists last year. Virologists who were then quickly derided as quacks, truthers and worse since they dared to challenge the widely accepted groupthink. Same crap that happened with the lab leak, changing stances on masks, ignoring of massive spike in reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and more - hot takes that turned out to be VERY wrong later but amazingly the corrections never get the same amount of publicity as the initial propaganda.
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  > no reported hospitalisations There are lots of hospitalisations, they are ramping up drastically. See SA regional hospital data. > totally unsurprising to anyone familiar with viruses Actually no human virus has ever evolved through selection pressure to become less virulent. This is just a (convenient to the deniers) myth. Lab leak is just as fanciful as it has ever been, masking advice was updated as soon as we knew better, vaccines have been proven very safe. I am going to accept that you are commenting in good faith. I would ask you to consider your sources, your influences, and the ever rising toll of sickness and death caused not least by the kind of misinformation you are propagating.
lb0 5y ago
> Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing them to comply is probably a cure worse than the disease - even a disease like COVID Yeah, please please come here and find a way to "unloose" these people, I'm out of clue. We have a lot of failures here in Germany that surface, everything is too slow, from bad organization to corruption (like most western democracies), behind in digitalization, behind in taking the right measures, slow decisions even after 2 years into this pandemic situation.. true, a big chance to clear up and maybe hopefully do better in the future. But those people (the last 10-20% radical idiotic percent that drives the rest forward)? I really start hating my country and fellow citizens, so many spoiled brats living in prosperity, complaining about everything, believing in total bullshit, it is unbelievable. If you attempt your best in an open and honest discussion, you are called a liar with the first word that comes out of your mouth.... > Want a war? That’s what you’re going to get if you persist with this paranoid hypochondriac fascism. That's a perfect description for those people, not the vaccination, phew..if we get a war it will be by further catering to the far right. And btw, most of these people who go demoing right now (except the few violent far right ones that are under them), I bet most have never been to a real demonstration in their lives - now standing up for their personal party freedom while limiting the freedom of everyone else - again and again. And btw please.. everyone who gets triggered by the word "lockdown" get your facts right first - there are lockdowns and there are lockdowns. We had very strict lockdowns over the last year in most our neighbors (e.g. France, Italy, Spain) - fines when you went out on the street at the wrong times .. we in Germany were up to that once close, though I believe noone here ever got fined for anything. What we discuss and have as "lockdown" right now in Germany is actually just the "lockdown of the unvaccinated" - means 2G in shops that are not essential - oh yeah, poor unvaccinated crowd cannot go Christmas shopping, while health personal is crying for help, ERs and intensive cares are filling up, and a newspaper already appealed to stop driving unless totally necessary, because of injury risk. Yeah sorry, I'm totally fed up :( Read too much on twitter and also here again, and I feel also a little bad and dizzy. Have been waiting 1h in the cold and another hour inside today to get my booster shot - bad organized Germany, again, but not complaining today! I'm happy to see so many people still trying to do their littlest part to relieve the health care workers and try to help get the hospitals some space for people that really need it for reasons that couldn't be avoided. And a little proud to be part of it - In that sense, the dizzyness is appreciated and better than a Feierabendbeer, the injected chip is working, the 5G in my brain is getting activated and well welcomed. gn8
ivan_gammel 5y ago
In a democracy nobody has absolute freedom and minorities do not enjoy protections of the rights to threaten others. If 30% of the people do not get vaccinated without valid reason, they violate the right of others to live and stay healthy. It is scientifically established fact that vaccination reduces health risks for the public, so vaccination mandate will be based on the same constitutional grounds as speed limits and other limitations of personal freedoms. Noteworthy is that it cannot be enforced for the people who just stay at home. Anti-vaxxers can lock themselves up for a few years and be free from vaccine if they want.
- EricE 5y ago
  How do unvaccinated people violate vaccinated people's rights? If you have so little faith that the vaccine can protect you, then why did you take it and why are you advocating others should be forced to? Also even if 100% of all humans were to take it you do realize that vaccinated people can carry and spread it (asymptomatically, no less) and that animals can carry and spread it too? Thinking that unvaccinated people violate anyone's rights is utterly ridiculous; it's far more selfish than what your ilk love to accuse those who don't want to take the vaccine of. This virus is NOT going away. So people might as well get that pipe dream out of their heads right now. It's time to stop letting emotion drive these conversations and get rational as well as realistic.
  - ivan_gammel 5y ago
    >If you have so little faith that the vaccine can protect you, then why did you take it and why are you advocating others should be forced to? This question has a really simple and well-known answer, so if you are unaware of the basics, maybe you should educate yourself first? Vaccine does not offer 100% protection to the individual who takes it, but, according to the scientific research, it significantly reduces: a) the risk to get infected, b) the risk of infecting others, c) the risk of complications or death. Only first of those risks is related to the freedom of personal choice, other two impact public health and public is in their right to restrict personal freedom for those, who do not comply - because chances that people may die are increasing. Yes, vaccine is not the ultimate protection. More lockdowns will be necessary and we will have to wear masks for few years more. Virus will not go away. But 5-10 million people are already dead and we must take all chances to prevent as many deaths as possible, until it mutates to the point where it is no more dangerous than a flu. If this means that some libertarians and anti-vaxxers will be pissed off, well, majority of people in many countries apparently does not care.
jansan 5y ago
It's 30% of the whole population, including small children who cannot get vaccinated at all. My younger son (14 years old) is not vaccinated. He will be banned from entering shops, probably from playing tennis, and our family will not be allowed to meet other families this winter. The reason why he is not vaccinated is that in Germany he would get the same amount of vaccine as a 150kg person. In the UK and Sweden they only give one dose to minors, not so in Germany. He is healthy, and does a lot of sports, so for him I see a higher risk from the vaccine (myocarditis) than from COVID-19. Also, the federal vaccination commission (Stiko) has explicitly demanded that there should be no social discrimination for minors based on their vaccination status as a condition for recommending the vaccines for 12 to 17 year olds. We trusted this recommendation.

by worik 5y ago

prohobo 5y ago

You cannot make this virus extinct. These vaccines do not accomplish this goal, the end.

Swenrekcah 5y ago
The goal is to keep serious cases to a minimum so they don’t clog the healthcare system thus making people die of all sorts of other things because they couldn’t be treated. Vaccines do help with that, tremendously.
- prohobo 5y ago
  Do they? Can you prove that, or are you just saying random shit everyone else says? This was not the narrative at the beginning of the vaccine rollout, by the way. The narrative changed every month towards what you're currently saying. From what I've heard, thousands of people have been losing out on proper healthcare because of governments blocking their access; I'm talking people who should have had cancer screenings not getting them and dying because they were coerced into "lowering the strain on healthcare services". I also heard that thousands of healthcare workers have been getting fired, and ICU beds removed because of governments deciding they weren't heroic enough, and not fit for treating patients. Who are you trying to protect exactly?
  - Swenrekcah 5y ago
    You can look up all the statistics on vaccine effectiveness against serious cases. They work really well for that. They don’t work as well as first hoped against infection but data on third booster suggests better results on that front. Look it up instead of asking me for proof, while you yourself are restating hearsay originating from who knows where.
    - prohobo 5y ago
      I asked if you can prove that they stop hospitals from being overwhelmed, not whether they were effective. So far it's not looking very good, is that why you support the decision to mandate the shots?
      - Swenrekcah 5y ago
        I'm not sure I support a vaccine mandate. I'm just saying that the vaccines work and it's foolish to claim otherwise. I can understand hesitation to get vaccinated, but I'd like to ask those same people if they take any other medicine at all and if they have read the pamphlet that comes with those. Also I'd like to ask if they are fine with getting a completely alien and known harmful substance into their body, the substance we call Coronavirus.
    - MarcoZavala 5y ago
- TurkishPoptart 5y ago
  Sure, yet since when do I have to undergo an irreversible medical procedure for the sake of the government healthcare infrastructure?
  - Swenrekcah 5y ago
    I'll start by saying I haven't been a supporter of vaccine mandates. It's best if people can make this up for themselves. Given the right information it's not really a hard choice. And of course there can be personal reasons why it'd be wise to not get vaccinated, but those are rare. The procedure is benign. Describing it as irreversible is technically true but practically it's scaremongering. And it's for the sake of the people around you. Your society. So they don't die waiting for their healthcare services to unclog. Edit: And it's also obviously for the sake of the person getting vaccinated, let's not forget that :)
    - TurkishPoptart 5y ago
      Because, sadly, we know that's not true anymore. >...fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory. Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
      - Swenrekcah 5y ago
        Yes I know, it was clear early on. The study also says: >Although vaccines remain highly effective at preventing severe disease and deaths from COVID-19, our findings suggest that vaccination is not sufficient to prevent transmission of the delta variant in household settings with prolonged exposures. Which is what we're talking about here, preventing serious cases.
  - chki 5y ago
    Since we have a global pandemic. This is a completely novel and unusual situation, why wouldn't you think that the solutions will be novel and unusual as well?
- codr7 5y ago
  Source? From listening to nurses and doctors, I get the impression that most people in hospitals with Covid-issues lately are vaccinated; and I trust real people with real experiences over authorities with agendas.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    > I get the impression that most people in hospitals with Covid-issues lately are vaccinated I read some statistics over that the other day. It is correct when looking only at hospital patients. The explanation is that most who need hospital care come from a risk group. And risk groups are fully vaccinated by over 90% (here). So you end up with high absolute numbers of vaccinated hospital patients. If you look at a somewhat comparable group of people, chances to need hospital care are manyfold for the unvaccinated. It's true for higher risk groups and for lower risk groups. Vaccinations are not perfect protection against anything, but they reduce risk by a high factor.
    - codr7 5y ago
      Wasn't filling up hospitals the problem we were trying to solve by vaccinating people in the first place? Isn't that the excuse people use to harass anyone who doesn't feel like being experimented on for profit?
- klipklop 5y ago
  >The goal is to keep serious cases to a minimum so they don’t clog the healthcare system... Reminds me of 2 weeks to flatten the curve. Yet here we are. Why all the sudden are we at risk of clogging the healthcare system with some areas hitting 70%+ adult vaccination rates? Germany already has given out 124,401,062 doses of the vaccine. All I ever see is the goalposts being moved with this stuff. I have taken the vaccine, but I am hesitant about mandates and vaccine passports.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I find it exhausting that people such as yourself seem to latch onto missed time frames as a reason to just assume all public health policy is bullshit. Yes, because when I say I'm going to finish some software project in 2 weeks, I absolutely always get it done in 2 weeks. These are estimates. They are sometimes (often!) wrong. Sometimes they're wrong because the problem was underestimated. Sometimes they are wrong for political reasons. Yes, "flattening the curve" took more than 2 weeks. Big deal. Doing so did absolutely reduce pressure on ICUs and saved many lives. And hell, if everyone had actually followed all the mandates and guidelines at the time, maybe it would have only taken two weeks. But people don't, and it's always hard to gauge how many people will refuse to cooperate, and in what ways, and exactly what effect that will have. The reason the goalposts are moving is because this isn't a well-defined game with strictly-set rules. The virus doesn't care about our rules or projections. If it mutates, and the new variant does better against our vaccines, then... yes, the goalposts will move. Our utter failure to get high vaccination rates in poorer countries is likely a big cause of the new variants. It's all well and good to be sitting in a highly-vaccinated city in the first world, but all it takes is one person to fly in from somewhere with a new variant, and you're hosed.
    - poszlem 5y ago
      You miss a time frame if you say "2 weeks" and end up having to lockdown for 3 instead. If you say "2 weeks" and end up with lockdowns for years you are either incompetent or lying or both.
      - 5y ago
mattzito 5y ago
Sure, but we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.
- runarberg 5y ago
  I do think it is important to use the correct terminology here. This disease and the vaccines are already a huge spread of misinformation, so lets expand on the “sure” bit from this sentence a little. It is saying quite a lot: I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind. So we should acknowledge the fact that these vaccines will probably not eradicate COVID. We will have people getting sick from COVID and we will have more COVID variants for the foreseeable future. Even after most people have been thoroughly vaccinated. And given the slow global spread of vaccines we will also probably see more lockdown measures to slow the spread of the virus beyond the current vaccine capabilities. Now that said, remember that with the vaccines: > we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.
  - VoodooJuJu 5y ago
    >I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind I believe I speak for many when I say, "I have no idea what the experts' have in mind" (and that's not a good thing). So they're trying hard to get everyone vaccinated - a noble goal, perhaps, as our current roster of vaccines diminish symptoms and greatly reduce hospitalization and fatality rates. But..."Stop the spread, get vaccinated"...what? Like the parent said, all of the currently-approved intramuscular Covid-19 vaccines have proven to have a negligible effect on transmission rate. Early on, experts probably made an educated guess or wish that these vaccines would be sterilizing and started information campaigns on this premise. When this turned out to be not true, their "Stop the spread, get vaccinated" became "You unvaccinated are the problem, you are holding us back, and you will be locked down immediately". Rather than address their mistake, rather than open up transparently, they doubled down on the lie. Not a good way to build trust.
throwoutway 5y ago
Thank you! It’s this myth that keeps perpetuating that makes people think mandates are acceptable. And I say that as someone vaccinated.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  I have literally only seen people opposed to vaccine mandates bring this up. It's a fake talking point to paint people in favor of mandates as misinformed.
  - throwoutway 5y ago
    You're saying that a handful of your anecdotes are a perpetual fake talking point? I have seen the exact opposite. People are generally misinformed. In case you need a counterpoint to your anecdotes, read the upthread: > I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      The person you're quoting was arguing against a vaccine mandate!
crooked-v 5y ago
However, they do accomplish the goal of stopping it from being a pandemic. With enough people vaccinated to reduce the R-value below 1, reinfections from animal reservoirs will become inherently self-limiting.
pjc50 5y ago
Why not? We eradicated smallpox.
- gjs278 5y ago
  because that vaccine actually works. this one has “breakthrough” cases
- prohobo 5y ago
  Are you serious? Let me ask you why we haven't eradicated influenza? Not all viruses are the same, and neither are all vaccines.
- whiddershins 5y ago
  The smallpox vaccine is a sterilizing vaccine, meaning you cannot be infected and cannot transmit it once you are vaccinated. The MRNAs are non-sterilizing, as are many vaccines. They may reduce symptoms, reduce infections, and reduce transmission, but they are not considered a sterilizing vaccine. Secondly, coronaviruses mutate much faster than smallpox, and have other hard to deal with stuff like asymptomatic transmission. The only diseases we ever eradicated were polio and smallpox. I think we got rid of the guinea worm too. Out of all the many many diseases we have fought over the years.
  - glogla 5y ago
    > The MRNAs are non-sterilizing The vaccines we have are non-sterilizing - and my understanding is that the reason is mostly because we needed at least something very quickly and sterilizing vaccines for respiratory virus are harder to research. It is not inherent property of the technology as far as I know. Sterilizing vaccines for COVID seem to be theoretically possible. "Natural" infection generates stronger immune response on mucus membranes as well as deep inside the body and that provides higher protection against infection. There's no reason why that wouldn't be possible to replicate using a vaccine. But nobody succeeded at making one yet, so we'll have to see if it's practical.
  - anonAndOn 5y ago
    Thanks to some Af-Pak mullahs, the world still has polio in the wild. [0] [0]https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-development/polio https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-dev...
jermaustin1 5y ago
Yes the vaccine doesn't kill it, but what would kill it is a REAL lock down. Give everyone 2 months of salary, and 2 months of food. Nationalize food production for a month, give everyone shelf stable terrible food, the same crap that the majority of the anti-vaxxers have been hoarding for decades. Its like a pretend apocalypse. They should LOVE it.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  How do you keep things like "power plants" and "water systems" running in this proposal? Either you allow so many exceptions that it's worthless, or you literally shut down modern civilization. It's far from clear that it can be blackstarted.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  One leak in the population of 7 billion and the whole plan is a waste.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Unfortunately, that wouldn't really help long term, because the disease has spread through animal populations by now. The only way to reliably stop this from being an ongoing pandemic is measures that reduce the R-value below 1 in a long-term manner, like mass vaccinations.
  - gojomo 5y ago
    The high rates of breakthroughs mean even very-highly-vaxxed populations have had case surges. Rt is going to oscillate around 1, forever.
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      Even if it’s around 1 forever, if the effects are mild as they are with vaccinated people, it’ll be manageable as flu is.
      - 5y ago

timdaub 5y ago

No, it's not totalitarian. In Germany we have a constitution that protects all human's right equally. If there's good reasons why you can't receive a vaccination, I'm pretty sure nobody can force you. Not even the state. Go to your doctor to get an attest that exempts you from the mandatory vaccination. Nothing easier than that in Germany. And again: You are just speculating. Nobody knows if a vaccine mandate leaves people behind it tropes. You cannot know it, because it hasn't happened. I'd rather make decisions based on facts than just speculating about hypotheticals.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> In Germany we have a constitution that protects all human's right equally. If Germany's constitution allows vaccine mandates, then your insistence that it protects all human's rights will be of little comfort to the people who are forced to take the vaccination without their consent and in violation of their conscience. At best you are saying "Having control over what medical treatments are done to you is not a human right", and at worst you are saying "Antivaxers aren't human". Either way, you are putting too much trust in a system that claims to protect human rights, and totalitarians generally manage to find a way to twist the law to justify what they are doing, whether the excuse is "military necessity", "medical necessity", or something else.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  > the people who are forced to take the vaccination without their consent and in violation of their conscience. Your imagination got the better of you here - nobody will be forced to vaccinate, especially not without their consent. Similar to how nobody comes to your car and forces you to wear a seatbelt. Germany's constitution is quite clear about this, for apparent, historic reasons.
  - baggy_trough 5y ago
    You won't be physically forced to, but you also won't be allowed to do most of the things we normally consider that people have a right to do unless you comply. That's really a non physical way of forcing compliance (like saying I'll fire you from your job unless you agree).

Pyramus 5y ago

> Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. It's an interesting question and there is lots of debate in Germany at the moment as to why. Some factors are: * Germany did very well during the pandemic so people didn't experience a Bergamo or Madrid moment * Germany has a strong esoteric / anthroposophical movement (Steiner, Waldorf et al.) * Federalism: Vaccination rates vary a lot by state

native_samples 5y ago
None of those are the right answer. These are the answers people come up with having never talked to anyone who disagrees. The right answers are: 1. They don't trust the medical authorities to be honest about the risks. 2. They don't feel a need for it because they're at low risk of COVID and know it. 3. They don't believe it will change anything.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  > The right answers The right answers, but for the wrong question ;) Not disagreeing with you, but parent was asking why is Germany so bad relative to their European peers.
  - worik 5y ago
    Pacific peers actually!-)
- jseban 5y ago
  And 1. The recommendation to take the vaccine goes exactly against anything the doctors said pre-covid. Before covid, nobody would recommend you to take a vaccine against something you are not in a risk group for, and double doses and boosters were unheard of. This makes me suspicious, and I don't think that is unreasonable. 2. You get really sick from the second dose of the vaccine, which also is not normal, you are not supposed to get sick from vaccines, you are supposed to take them to avoid getting sick So the whole vaccination situation is something that's new and confusing, why do what my doctor always said to not do? Why get sick from vaccines, aren't they supposed to stop you from getting sick? Why double and triple vaccines?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gojomo 5y ago

Vaccinations are too leaky to "make this virus extinct". Within a few months of vaccination, half or more of people can get mild, but still transmissable, cases of Delta. (Omicron is likely worse; there are already multiple reports of mild cases among those with recent 3rd booster shots.) Honest epidemiologists have been warning about this risk since 2020, and more forcefully when confirmed by early vax results in 2021. But many people are still on the warpath against the unvaxed, as if that can make a difference. Well, it can for the unvaxed themselves – winning them a less-severe case. But every vaxed person is going to be exposed to, and have mild cases of, COVID – via waning immunity & multiplying variants. There is no net increase in protection from harassing the last ~15% (a more honest count of hardcore holdouts) into a vax they don't want. (Most of them have probably had COVID already, or soon will, giving them an immunity just as good as vaccination.)

omegaworks 5y ago
>Most of them have probably had COVID already, or soon will, giving them an immunity just as good as vaccination. Immunity from prior-infection was worse than vaccination at protecting people from Delta.[1] 1. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/vaccine-induced-immunity.html#anchor_1635546906501 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...
- switch007 5y ago
  By how much? It's really disingenuous to say "more" or "less" or "better" or "worse" without qualification.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Source? The papers I have seen show the exact opposite!
  - bovid19 5y ago
    Would you mind sharing which papers you are talking about?
  - 5y ago

throwawaysea 5y ago

It's a tyranny of the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority I simply don't understand why one person needs to undergo a medical procedure to enable someone else to experience the safe conditions they want. These vaccines don't even grant immunity in the traditional sense (see CDC's revision of definitions here) - all the vaccines do is move things from one nonzero probability of risk to another nonzero probability of risk. If people are SO worried about their health, they need to behave honestly and either quarantine themselves or wear a full body protective hazmat suit everywhere. But requiring others to get a vaccine to attain some arbitrary risk ratio just doesn't make sense.

jseban 5y ago
> I simply don't understand why one person needs to undergo a medical procedure to enable someone else to experience the safe conditions they want. Me neither, I think it's completely unreasonable.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  I think it’s completely unreasonable that people complain about an explosives factory next to a school. The risk of explosion is very low and the economic impact on the company would be devastating. Why do people think their right to be a little more safer trumps the right to manufacture high explosives?
  - jseban 5y ago
    I don't see how that's an accurate comparison at all. It doesn't require people to undergo medical procedures, doesn't violate their right to their own bodies or their basic freedom
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      It’s about the right to expose others to a risk without their consent. You don’t have the right to expose others to a deadly disease. If you undergo the “medical procedure” (an injection, not surgery, brain transplant or anything complicated, expensive or risky) you reduce risks for you and others, as well as you avoid the risk of using my taxes to pay for additional medical care you wouldn’t need if you just had the very minor inconvenience of two injections.

dhosek 5y ago

In the US, it's because a bunch of demagogues have decided that they will make a lot of money (or retain political power) by saying that vaccines don't work and/or are harmful. Fox News regularly spews this kind of nonsense in its programming and a number of Republican politicians are happy to go along with it.

rbanffy 5y ago
We should remember that the freedom of the press exists because a well informed population is necessary for a functioning democracy. The moment the press starts spreading disinformation, it starts to be detrimental to democracy and should be treated as that.
- Eelongate 5y ago
  > We should remember that the freedom of the press exists because a well informed population is necessary for a functioning democracy. The text of the First Amendment does not contain this or any other justification for itself. And rightfully so I think; such a right does not require utilitarian justification. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

EricE 5y ago

> Let's make this virus extinct. Here's the core problem - unrealistic expectations. Even the CDC has backed off from the whole "make the virus extinct" mantra; they haven't spouted it for over a year now. Which is a good thing - it was utterly ridiculous from day one. This virus isn't going away. It is carried by animals. You going to vaccinate every animal that we all come in contact with? Ha! You are not going to shelter in place or vaccinate away this virus. We had better figure out how to coexist with it in a rational and reasonable manner. The good news with the Omicron variant there are no reported hospitalizations in South Africa. So it's more virulent, but less bad. Here is the perfect path to herd immunity - a variant that people can get a mild infection from and have stronger natural immunity to than the vax would give, as well as broader protection to variants. Actually any protection to variants would be an improvement over the current vax - there has be zero confirmation from the CDC or vax makers that the vax provides any protection against Delta, let alone Omicron. All they make are vague promises about it reducing the reaction. Big deal! If the reporting by South African doctors is correct and Omicron is as mild as they have seen then what exactly is the vax doing? Nothing - except exposing you needlessly to potential side effects. BTW that Omicron is more virulent but less bad is totally unsurprising to anyone familiar with viruses and who wasn't politically motivated or shamed to pushing the ridiculous narratives around COVID right now; this is totally expected behavior as viruses mature in the wild and was predicted by many virologists last year. Virologists who were then quickly derided as quacks, truthers and worse since they dared to challenge the widely accepted groupthink. Same crap that happened with the lab leak, changing stances on masks, ignoring of massive spike in reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and more - hot takes that turned out to be VERY wrong later but amazingly the corrections never get the same amount of publicity as the initial propaganda.

somewhereoutth 5y ago
> no reported hospitalisations There are lots of hospitalisations, they are ramping up drastically. See SA regional hospital data. > totally unsurprising to anyone familiar with viruses Actually no human virus has ever evolved through selection pressure to become less virulent. This is just a (convenient to the deniers) myth. Lab leak is just as fanciful as it has ever been, masking advice was updated as soon as we knew better, vaccines have been proven very safe. I am going to accept that you are commenting in good faith. I would ask you to consider your sources, your influences, and the ever rising toll of sickness and death caused not least by the kind of misinformation you are propagating.

lb0 5y ago

> Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing them to comply is probably a cure worse than the disease - even a disease like COVID Yeah, please please come here and find a way to "unloose" these people, I'm out of clue. We have a lot of failures here in Germany that surface, everything is too slow, from bad organization to corruption (like most western democracies), behind in digitalization, behind in taking the right measures, slow decisions even after 2 years into this pandemic situation.. true, a big chance to clear up and maybe hopefully do better in the future. But those people (the last 10-20% radical idiotic percent that drives the rest forward)? I really start hating my country and fellow citizens, so many spoiled brats living in prosperity, complaining about everything, believing in total bullshit, it is unbelievable. If you attempt your best in an open and honest discussion, you are called a liar with the first word that comes out of your mouth.... > Want a war? That’s what you’re going to get if you persist with this paranoid hypochondriac fascism. That's a perfect description for those people, not the vaccination, phew..if we get a war it will be by further catering to the far right. And btw, most of these people who go demoing right now (except the few violent far right ones that are under them), I bet most have never been to a real demonstration in their lives - now standing up for their personal party freedom while limiting the freedom of everyone else - again and again. And btw please.. everyone who gets triggered by the word "lockdown" get your facts right first - there are lockdowns and there are lockdowns. We had very strict lockdowns over the last year in most our neighbors (e.g. France, Italy, Spain) - fines when you went out on the street at the wrong times .. we in Germany were up to that once close, though I believe noone here ever got fined for anything. What we discuss and have as "lockdown" right now in Germany is actually just the "lockdown of the unvaccinated" - means 2G in shops that are not essential - oh yeah, poor unvaccinated crowd cannot go Christmas shopping, while health personal is crying for help, ERs and intensive cares are filling up, and a newspaper already appealed to stop driving unless totally necessary, because of injury risk. Yeah sorry, I'm totally fed up :( Read too much on twitter and also here again, and I feel also a little bad and dizzy. Have been waiting 1h in the cold and another hour inside today to get my booster shot - bad organized Germany, again, but not complaining today! I'm happy to see so many people still trying to do their littlest part to relieve the health care workers and try to help get the hospitals some space for people that really need it for reasons that couldn't be avoided. And a little proud to be part of it - In that sense, the dizzyness is appreciated and better than a Feierabendbeer, the injected chip is working, the 5G in my brain is getting activated and well welcomed. gn8

ivan_gammel 5y ago

In a democracy nobody has absolute freedom and minorities do not enjoy protections of the rights to threaten others. If 30% of the people do not get vaccinated without valid reason, they violate the right of others to live and stay healthy. It is scientifically established fact that vaccination reduces health risks for the public, so vaccination mandate will be based on the same constitutional grounds as speed limits and other limitations of personal freedoms. Noteworthy is that it cannot be enforced for the people who just stay at home. Anti-vaxxers can lock themselves up for a few years and be free from vaccine if they want.

EricE 5y ago
How do unvaccinated people violate vaccinated people's rights? If you have so little faith that the vaccine can protect you, then why did you take it and why are you advocating others should be forced to? Also even if 100% of all humans were to take it you do realize that vaccinated people can carry and spread it (asymptomatically, no less) and that animals can carry and spread it too? Thinking that unvaccinated people violate anyone's rights is utterly ridiculous; it's far more selfish than what your ilk love to accuse those who don't want to take the vaccine of. This virus is NOT going away. So people might as well get that pipe dream out of their heads right now. It's time to stop letting emotion drive these conversations and get rational as well as realistic.
- ivan_gammel 5y ago
  >If you have so little faith that the vaccine can protect you, then why did you take it and why are you advocating others should be forced to? This question has a really simple and well-known answer, so if you are unaware of the basics, maybe you should educate yourself first? Vaccine does not offer 100% protection to the individual who takes it, but, according to the scientific research, it significantly reduces: a) the risk to get infected, b) the risk of infecting others, c) the risk of complications or death. Only first of those risks is related to the freedom of personal choice, other two impact public health and public is in their right to restrict personal freedom for those, who do not comply - because chances that people may die are increasing. Yes, vaccine is not the ultimate protection. More lockdowns will be necessary and we will have to wear masks for few years more. Virus will not go away. But 5-10 million people are already dead and we must take all chances to prevent as many deaths as possible, until it mutates to the point where it is no more dangerous than a flu. If this means that some libertarians and anti-vaxxers will be pissed off, well, majority of people in many countries apparently does not care.

jansan 5y ago

It's 30% of the whole population, including small children who cannot get vaccinated at all. My younger son (14 years old) is not vaccinated. He will be banned from entering shops, probably from playing tennis, and our family will not be allowed to meet other families this winter. The reason why he is not vaccinated is that in Germany he would get the same amount of vaccine as a 150kg person. In the UK and Sweden they only give one dose to minors, not so in Germany. He is healthy, and does a lot of sports, so for him I see a higher risk from the vaccine (myocarditis) than from COVID-19. Also, the federal vaccination commission (Stiko) has explicitly demanded that there should be no social discrimination for minors based on their vaccination status as a condition for recommending the vaccines for 12 to 17 year olds. We trusted this recommendation.