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Yeah, but then the unvaccinated would only be risking their own lives. The most prominent argument for compulsory vaccination right now is that they're taking a

Yeah, but then the unvaccinated would only be risking their own lives. The most prominent argument for compulsory vaccination right now is that they're taking away scarce ICU beds.

jacquesm 5y ago
It's a factor, but not the whole story. A lot of people are immunocompromised and for them just getting infected immediately raises the risks to unacceptable levels. We all owe the weaker people in our societies (from a health perspective) to take care of them, and if that requires us to get vaccinated to create a cordon of safety then so be it. That there are a bunch of egoists that would rather have us all fend for ourselves doesn't change that, and usually those are exactly the people demanding we take on their burdens when the situation is reversed. It's called a social contract for a reason: taxes, vaccination against communicable diseases where possible, compulsory education and so on, it's the flipside of the coin, you get a lot of rights, but you also have some (sometimes moral) obligations.
- stormking 5y ago
  > We all owe the weaker people in our societies (from a health perspective) to take care of them, and if that requires us to get vaccinated to create a cordon of safety then so be it. Too bad current vaccines don't achieve that.
- nzk 5y ago
  The dead comment is unfortunately correct, there will probably be no herd immunity with these vaccines. That's what I hear from every virologist/epidemiologist lately anyways, and the real world data with highly vaccinated countries having record surges appears to confirm it. I agree that it would be a much stronger argument. However, I also find it cruel to force people into an injection that they do not want, and would probably still oppose a universal vaccine mandate for that reason. I'd be okay with a mandate that allows people who really don't want the vaccine to opt out. I'd even be okay with that for the COVID vaccines if it wasn't for the 2G stuff and the awful rhetoric against unvaccinated people that preceded it. Enacting the mandate now makes the whole thing feel too much like "we'll get you somehow". Like I said, I find it cruel. It's not my idea of a humane society.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Vaccines by themselves won't do miracles. But vaccines combined with some reasonable level of restrictions can get us through this to the point where we've caught up with the virus to a degree that we have other means to reduce the number of serious cases. Keep in mind that there is plenty of precedent for mandatory vaccinations, in almost every developed country and in plenty that are not young children are vaccinated against a whole raft of diseases that would otherwise cause serious problems. The only people that are exempt are those that do not want any vaccinations for religious reasons because it apparently interferes with 'gods plan'. If you want to deal with this at the same level of ignorance then that's fine with me but I personally have absolutely no problem with a mandate and I also would not have a problem with rescinding the exemption for religious purposes.
- mythrwy 5y ago
  While I don't disagree with what you are saying in the abstract, there are limits and the demands really should be rational. I don't see that with this series of vaccines. They do not stop transmission. The ICU issue cannot be addressed fairly without addressing the other causes that put large numbers of people in ICUs. We pay every year as a society in deaths for the assumption of some risk. We manage it, make laws, or just leave it alone and some people die (for example, we don't ban cars or eating too many calories or swimming pools). In my estimation we are going a bit overboard demanding everyone take a novel injection, most especially when it appears the health authorities either didn't understand or didn't communicate the effectiveness over time of the injections. There's a point were everything can't be all about what someone at the top proclaims is for the social good. Otherwise we wind up in corruption and dictatorship.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > In my estimation we are going a bit overboard demanding everyone take a novel injection This was the same with every vaccine in the past, very few vaccines have received as much scrutiny as these, the biggest risk is the long term one and even there we have a fairly good idea of what the possibilities of materializing are. None of these weigh up against the damage that a COVID-19 infection does. If you think mandatory vaccination equates corruption and dictatorship then I am not sure we are on the same wavelength regarding the meaning of those terms.
    - mythrwy 5y ago
      I think, (or hope rather) that the mandates are well meaning, no I don't think this is dictatorship, rather I'm addressing your more "meta" point about social responsibility and the perils of one group being able to dictate to others without input. As in, we can't just say "We have some social responsibilities so you must XX per the authorities" when XX is self serving, counterproductive, useless or harmful. We have an individual right, and responsibility, to weigh the dictates we are given at some point, perhaps not on all issues, but on some. Other vaccines were not taken in to market in this manner. It is a novel vaccine.
- dbankl 5y ago
  Many immunocompromised people have made personal choices that led to that situation. I do not see why people should be forced to take experimental non-sterilizing vaccines that don't even provide herd immunity, just to pretend that it saves this group. If you take a forced vaccine and get a vaccine injury, no one will care about you. You'll end up in Hartz 4 and that's it. There won't be any HN thread in support of you, because it isn't mainstream.
- nradov 5y ago
  I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, however in the long run that won't protect the immunocompromised. The virus is so contagious that there will be no significant herd immunity effect. Everyone will be exposed eventually. https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's true. We missed our chance to contain it early on, thanks to those that tried to spare the economy at the cost of 'a few lives' which has now harmed our economy for a much longer period than an initial effort at containment would have caused, not to mention that at that time we didn't know exactly how bad it would get (it could have been a lot worse than it was). But reducing the amount of active infections does have a beneficial effect because even though everyone will likely be exposed that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody will also get the disease (even the the worst diseases viral do not necessarily spread to 100% of the population), and there some chance that later strains may become milder. And if fewer people are ill at the same time that should increase the level of care available. But it's a rearguard action at this point.
    - stormking 5y ago
      > We missed our chance to contain it early on, thanks to those that tried to spare the economy at the cost of 'a few lives' Illusion of control. The chance was never there. Even countries who are way more suitable for isolation like australia didn't manage to keep the virus out. Attributing that to "those that tried to spare the economy" is just another toxic blame game.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        They didn't manage because the rest of us fucked up. It's like a fire. If your house is the only house in a row of houses that is well prepared against fire then you're going to go down, in spite of all of your preparations. The fatalism that many people exhibit is a self fulfilling prophesy: we won't be able to do it so we're not even going to try. But you know what? Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and China showed that it is possible.

Yeah, but then the unvaccinated would only be risking their own lives. The most prominent argument for compulsory vaccination right now is that they're taking away scarce ICU beds.

jacquesm 5y ago

It's a factor, but not the whole story. A lot of people are immunocompromised and for them just getting infected immediately raises the risks to unacceptable levels. We all owe the weaker people in our societies (from a health perspective) to take care of them, and if that requires us to get vaccinated to create a cordon of safety then so be it. That there are a bunch of egoists that would rather have us all fend for ourselves doesn't change that, and usually those are exactly the people demanding we take on their burdens when the situation is reversed. It's called a social contract for a reason: taxes, vaccination against communicable diseases where possible, compulsory education and so on, it's the flipside of the coin, you get a lot of rights, but you also have some (sometimes moral) obligations.

stormking 5y ago
> We all owe the weaker people in our societies (from a health perspective) to take care of them, and if that requires us to get vaccinated to create a cordon of safety then so be it. Too bad current vaccines don't achieve that.
nzk 5y ago
The dead comment is unfortunately correct, there will probably be no herd immunity with these vaccines. That's what I hear from every virologist/epidemiologist lately anyways, and the real world data with highly vaccinated countries having record surges appears to confirm it. I agree that it would be a much stronger argument. However, I also find it cruel to force people into an injection that they do not want, and would probably still oppose a universal vaccine mandate for that reason. I'd be okay with a mandate that allows people who really don't want the vaccine to opt out. I'd even be okay with that for the COVID vaccines if it wasn't for the 2G stuff and the awful rhetoric against unvaccinated people that preceded it. Enacting the mandate now makes the whole thing feel too much like "we'll get you somehow". Like I said, I find it cruel. It's not my idea of a humane society.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Vaccines by themselves won't do miracles. But vaccines combined with some reasonable level of restrictions can get us through this to the point where we've caught up with the virus to a degree that we have other means to reduce the number of serious cases. Keep in mind that there is plenty of precedent for mandatory vaccinations, in almost every developed country and in plenty that are not young children are vaccinated against a whole raft of diseases that would otherwise cause serious problems. The only people that are exempt are those that do not want any vaccinations for religious reasons because it apparently interferes with 'gods plan'. If you want to deal with this at the same level of ignorance then that's fine with me but I personally have absolutely no problem with a mandate and I also would not have a problem with rescinding the exemption for religious purposes.
mythrwy 5y ago
While I don't disagree with what you are saying in the abstract, there are limits and the demands really should be rational. I don't see that with this series of vaccines. They do not stop transmission. The ICU issue cannot be addressed fairly without addressing the other causes that put large numbers of people in ICUs. We pay every year as a society in deaths for the assumption of some risk. We manage it, make laws, or just leave it alone and some people die (for example, we don't ban cars or eating too many calories or swimming pools). In my estimation we are going a bit overboard demanding everyone take a novel injection, most especially when it appears the health authorities either didn't understand or didn't communicate the effectiveness over time of the injections. There's a point were everything can't be all about what someone at the top proclaims is for the social good. Otherwise we wind up in corruption and dictatorship.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > In my estimation we are going a bit overboard demanding everyone take a novel injection This was the same with every vaccine in the past, very few vaccines have received as much scrutiny as these, the biggest risk is the long term one and even there we have a fairly good idea of what the possibilities of materializing are. None of these weigh up against the damage that a COVID-19 infection does. If you think mandatory vaccination equates corruption and dictatorship then I am not sure we are on the same wavelength regarding the meaning of those terms.
  - mythrwy 5y ago
    I think, (or hope rather) that the mandates are well meaning, no I don't think this is dictatorship, rather I'm addressing your more "meta" point about social responsibility and the perils of one group being able to dictate to others without input. As in, we can't just say "We have some social responsibilities so you must XX per the authorities" when XX is self serving, counterproductive, useless or harmful. We have an individual right, and responsibility, to weigh the dictates we are given at some point, perhaps not on all issues, but on some. Other vaccines were not taken in to market in this manner. It is a novel vaccine.
dbankl 5y ago
Many immunocompromised people have made personal choices that led to that situation. I do not see why people should be forced to take experimental non-sterilizing vaccines that don't even provide herd immunity, just to pretend that it saves this group. If you take a forced vaccine and get a vaccine injury, no one will care about you. You'll end up in Hartz 4 and that's it. There won't be any HN thread in support of you, because it isn't mainstream.
nradov 5y ago
I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, however in the long run that won't protect the immunocompromised. The virus is so contagious that there will be no significant herd immunity effect. Everyone will be exposed eventually. https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's true. We missed our chance to contain it early on, thanks to those that tried to spare the economy at the cost of 'a few lives' which has now harmed our economy for a much longer period than an initial effort at containment would have caused, not to mention that at that time we didn't know exactly how bad it would get (it could have been a lot worse than it was). But reducing the amount of active infections does have a beneficial effect because even though everyone will likely be exposed that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody will also get the disease (even the the worst diseases viral do not necessarily spread to 100% of the population), and there some chance that later strains may become milder. And if fewer people are ill at the same time that should increase the level of care available. But it's a rearguard action at this point.
  - stormking 5y ago
    > We missed our chance to contain it early on, thanks to those that tried to spare the economy at the cost of 'a few lives' Illusion of control. The chance was never there. Even countries who are way more suitable for isolation like australia didn't manage to keep the virus out. Attributing that to "those that tried to spare the economy" is just another toxic blame game.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      They didn't manage because the rest of us fucked up. It's like a fire. If your house is the only house in a row of houses that is well prepared against fire then you're going to go down, in spite of all of your preparations. The fatalism that many people exhibit is a self fulfilling prophesy: we won't be able to do it so we're not even going to try. But you know what? Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and China showed that it is possible.