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This is a classic slippery slope argument. Losing weight is not the same thing as a pandemic like this. The two-fold reason that these measures are taken is A)

This is a classic slippery slope argument. Losing weight is not the same thing as a pandemic like this. The two-fold reason that these measures are taken is A) over-filling of hospitals and shut-down of all non-emergency services and B) extremely high death rate. Smoking or whatever scary slippery slope you think we're on is not the same thing as the ICU's filling up way over capacity and hundreds of thousands of people dropping dead that normally wouldn't. The idea that we should be against common-sense measures to promote herd immunity during a very real pandemic because "the government will make you stop smoking" is frankly an outrageously claim. It's long been held, since at least America began, that herd immunity is vital to the success and security of a nation. Our militaries require these vaccinations because a fighting force must be healthy. Our schools require these vaccines because sick kids and sick cities don't learn. The idea that a vaccine mandate is anything more than a century-old, bog-standard, completely required part of the human war against disease is a radical and anti-civilized position. Herd immunity is non-negotiable for our level of modern society to exist. I swear, we are killing ourselves. Dense civilization requires trade offs, and in the war against pandemic disease, that does include vaccination.

stirfish 5y ago
This thread doesn't deserve your patience, and yet we are still blessed by this comment. We could all (myself included) try to be more like you.
alea_iacta_est 5y ago
Ok so what about lockdowns then?
naasking 5y ago
> ICU's filling up way over capacity and hundreds of thousands of people dropping dead that normally wouldn't This claim is mostly overblown at this point. It was a legitimate concern early on, but it hasn't been true for some time. The vaccine claims are also misleading. Herd immunity by vaccination is not the only way to protect society, and the distinct lack of discussion or recognition of immunity from infection is conspicuous. COVID's infection fatality rate for certain cohorts is low enough that vaccination isn't strictly needed, and arguably taking a different tack on this could potentially have saved far more lives. For instance, consider if we had only isolated and vaccinated those at greatest risk of death and complications from COVID (40 and older, immunocompromised, comorbidities), and then shipped the remaining vaccine supply to the third world to suppress the emergence of variants. We might not have had Delta or Omicron at all. It's not at all clear that this would not have saved more people in the long run. Beating this vaccine mandate drum is blinding people to other rational solutions. It's not going to end well. This convoy is probably only the beginning.
- seized 5y ago
  As someone who works in a healthcare type field and with a nurse in the family... No, it's not overblown.
  - naasking 5y ago
    Availability of ICU beds here in Ontario has basically been flat since September, with a slight reduction recently due to Omicron: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations Furthermore, unvaccinated people are occupying fewer beds than vaccinated people in terms of numbers. Even if they all got vaccinated, we'd be basically in exactly the same place, so how do you expect vaccine mandates to help here?
    - tkamat29 5y ago
      The reason Ontario (and Canada in general) is doing well is because they have a much higher vaccination rate and a healthier population in general. In the US, the high numbers of hospitalization and death are overwhelmingly unvaccinated and/or extremely unhealthy individuals. Also, comparing absolute numbers is disingenuous when the vaccination rate is so high.
      - naasking 5y ago
        Yes, Canada does have a higher vaccination rate, but Canada and Ontario in particular has a very low number of ICU beds per capita compared to other nations in the developed world, so the picture presented by those numbers is actually pessimistic. That's also why we've had far more lockdowns here than the US, because our underinvestment in healthcare has come back to bite us. In any case, I think it's clear that the claim I responded to that "hundreds of thousands of people dropping dead that normally wouldn't" is overblown regardless of these numbers. The people dying are mostly the elderly and the sickly, which are exactly the people who we would in fact expect to die suddenly, and healthy people would not be dropping dead in those numbers even if the ICUs were overflowing.
- 5y ago

stirfish 5y ago

This thread doesn't deserve your patience, and yet we are still blessed by this comment. We could all (myself included) try to be more like you.

alea_iacta_est 5y ago

Ok so what about lockdowns then?

naasking 5y ago

> ICU's filling up way over capacity and hundreds of thousands of people dropping dead that normally wouldn't This claim is mostly overblown at this point. It was a legitimate concern early on, but it hasn't been true for some time. The vaccine claims are also misleading. Herd immunity by vaccination is not the only way to protect society, and the distinct lack of discussion or recognition of immunity from infection is conspicuous. COVID's infection fatality rate for certain cohorts is low enough that vaccination isn't strictly needed, and arguably taking a different tack on this could potentially have saved far more lives. For instance, consider if we had only isolated and vaccinated those at greatest risk of death and complications from COVID (40 and older, immunocompromised, comorbidities), and then shipped the remaining vaccine supply to the third world to suppress the emergence of variants. We might not have had Delta or Omicron at all. It's not at all clear that this would not have saved more people in the long run. Beating this vaccine mandate drum is blinding people to other rational solutions. It's not going to end well. This convoy is probably only the beginning.

seized 5y ago
As someone who works in a healthcare type field and with a nurse in the family... No, it's not overblown.
- naasking 5y ago
  Availability of ICU beds here in Ontario has basically been flat since September, with a slight reduction recently due to Omicron: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations Furthermore, unvaccinated people are occupying fewer beds than vaccinated people in terms of numbers. Even if they all got vaccinated, we'd be basically in exactly the same place, so how do you expect vaccine mandates to help here?
  - tkamat29 5y ago
    The reason Ontario (and Canada in general) is doing well is because they have a much higher vaccination rate and a healthier population in general. In the US, the high numbers of hospitalization and death are overwhelmingly unvaccinated and/or extremely unhealthy individuals. Also, comparing absolute numbers is disingenuous when the vaccination rate is so high.
    - naasking 5y ago
      Yes, Canada does have a higher vaccination rate, but Canada and Ontario in particular has a very low number of ICU beds per capita compared to other nations in the developed world, so the picture presented by those numbers is actually pessimistic. That's also why we've had far more lockdowns here than the US, because our underinvestment in healthcare has come back to bite us. In any case, I think it's clear that the claim I responded to that "hundreds of thousands of people dropping dead that normally wouldn't" is overblown regardless of these numbers. The people dying are mostly the elderly and the sickly, which are exactly the people who we would in fact expect to die suddenly, and healthy people would not be dropping dead in those numbers even if the ICUs were overflowing.
5y ago