5 ms·

You are correct, of course, that vaccination should be completely apolitical. However you can’t deny that covid vaccines have become the favored political bludg

You are correct, of course, that vaccination should be completely apolitical. However you can’t deny that covid vaccines have become the favored political bludgeon in the last couple of years.

gremlinsinc 5y ago
ONly to those who've made it such... it's a public health concern. If you're going into the military you're often required to get vaccinated.. nothing different. I think it's pretty sad when you can be a huge rock star, and die anti-vax and anti-mask with covid, and that's all you'll ever be remembered for. (I'm talking about Meatloaf). All because some people decided "science" is a political issue. No. It's not. The vaccines work. They save lives. It's stupid not to use them.
- pm90 5y ago
  For celebrities, it’s really easy to be surrounded by sycophants and not realize how kooky you are. Then their fans ape them blindly. Thus a stupid movement is born. It felt really good to see Djokovic ejected from AO. What a complete fucking moron.
jokoon 5y ago
I'm pretty happy to see people being filtered out by vaccines. This guy is on the "top of the food chain", yet to me he is not smart enough to get a vaccine. It's well deserved.
woodruffw 5y ago
Regardless of any bludgeoning you might perceive: one's decision to get the vaccine can be entirely apolitical and is a civic imperative. The GP's failure is a failure to perform their civic duty.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- makomk 5y ago
  The current Covid vaccines are reasonably effective at protecting the person being vaccinated from dying, but that makes a really poor basis for a mandate - the idea that everyone is obligated to minimise their personal risk of dying only exists in dystopian fiction. Instead, the push for vaccine mandates is based on partisan lies about how vaccinated people don't spread Covid, how it could all be over now and we could have herd immunity if it wasn't for the evil people not getting vaccinated, how all the anti-vaxers in the US are the partisan opponents of the current leader and it's the previous president's fault for not supporting vaccines (when we all saw the same people attacking Trump for pushing for vaccines), and so on.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Ireland has a 96% vaccination rate amongst adults and about 75% boosted. Yesterday, the government removed all social distancing and hospitality restrictions. It's not purely because of the vaccines but they are a major factor. The risk of deaths and hospitalisations overwhelming the health services have been the primary driver of restrictions and vaccines help massively in preventing this.
  - manuelabeledo 5y ago
    But vaccines do lower transmission rates. That’s not a lie.
    - makomk 5y ago
      Not by enough to stop pretty much the entire population being infected, which makes it a very questionable benefit. Mostly they just spread out the period over which everyon gets infected and that has some obvious downsides itself - the effectiveness of the vaccines against both infection and death declines rather too quickly, meaning that delaying infections can in theory lead to more deaths. As I understand it slower spread should make it easier for more infectious and vaccine-evading variants to evolve too since each intermediate step in their evolution has more of a chance to get established and outcompete the existing variant, but vaccination is still sold as a solution to the problem of new variants as well.

You are correct, of course, that vaccination should be completely apolitical. However you can’t deny that covid vaccines have become the favored political bludgeon in the last couple of years.

gremlinsinc 5y ago

ONly to those who've made it such... it's a public health concern. If you're going into the military you're often required to get vaccinated.. nothing different. I think it's pretty sad when you can be a huge rock star, and die anti-vax and anti-mask with covid, and that's all you'll ever be remembered for. (I'm talking about Meatloaf). All because some people decided "science" is a political issue. No. It's not. The vaccines work. They save lives. It's stupid not to use them.

pm90 5y ago
For celebrities, it’s really easy to be surrounded by sycophants and not realize how kooky you are. Then their fans ape them blindly. Thus a stupid movement is born. It felt really good to see Djokovic ejected from AO. What a complete fucking moron.

jokoon 5y ago

I'm pretty happy to see people being filtered out by vaccines. This guy is on the "top of the food chain", yet to me he is not smart enough to get a vaccine. It's well deserved.

woodruffw 5y ago

Regardless of any bludgeoning you might perceive: one's decision to get the vaccine can be entirely apolitical and is a civic imperative. The GP's failure is a failure to perform their civic duty.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
makomk 5y ago
The current Covid vaccines are reasonably effective at protecting the person being vaccinated from dying, but that makes a really poor basis for a mandate - the idea that everyone is obligated to minimise their personal risk of dying only exists in dystopian fiction. Instead, the push for vaccine mandates is based on partisan lies about how vaccinated people don't spread Covid, how it could all be over now and we could have herd immunity if it wasn't for the evil people not getting vaccinated, how all the anti-vaxers in the US are the partisan opponents of the current leader and it's the previous president's fault for not supporting vaccines (when we all saw the same people attacking Trump for pushing for vaccines), and so on.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  Ireland has a 96% vaccination rate amongst adults and about 75% boosted. Yesterday, the government removed all social distancing and hospitality restrictions. It's not purely because of the vaccines but they are a major factor. The risk of deaths and hospitalisations overwhelming the health services have been the primary driver of restrictions and vaccines help massively in preventing this.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  But vaccines do lower transmission rates. That’s not a lie.
  - makomk 5y ago
    Not by enough to stop pretty much the entire population being infected, which makes it a very questionable benefit. Mostly they just spread out the period over which everyon gets infected and that has some obvious downsides itself - the effectiveness of the vaccines against both infection and death declines rather too quickly, meaning that delaying infections can in theory lead to more deaths. As I understand it slower spread should make it easier for more infectious and vaccine-evading variants to evolve too since each intermediate step in their evolution has more of a chance to get established and outcompete the existing variant, but vaccination is still sold as a solution to the problem of new variants as well.