21 ms·

> First 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. https://newrepublic.com/article/165341/fox-news-vaccine-cana https://newrepublic.com/article/165341/fox-news-va

• swayvil 5y ago
  Around here the only people who wear the mask are the obvious crazies and the ones being forced by the boss. And that second class doffs the rag every chance they get. But I live in the sticks. Social pressure is much lower here compared to the city. In the city. Yeah. The city is rough. All those people crammed together. It changes reality.
  • jonnycoder 5y ago
    Not as much as you think. Just look at the Super Bowl, in LA, and all the celebrities not wearing a mask.
    • swayvil 5y ago
      Maybe that's how it's going to go. Exposed face and unimpeded breathing only for the aristocracy.
• pas 5y ago
  > oppose vax mandates why? could you explain your stande on other mandates/requirements and what's this vax mandate does that makes it so different? (eg. you need a passport/visa-like thing to enter, you need clothes, if you arrive by car that needs papers and a valid safety profile, you need to use the seatbelt, and so on)
  • x3n0ph3n3 5y ago
    All government mandates are enforced at the barrel of a gun.
    • lalaland1125 5y ago
      Are you opposed to all vaccine mandates? Including for diseases like measles?
      • refurb 5y ago
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3216452/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3216452/ This is a nice article about immunization requirements in Canada a decade before Covid hit. In 2011, only 3 provinces had mandates for students and also had plenty of exceptions. And this is for vaccines with decades of use and highly effective at preventing transmission and disease.
    • jleyank 5y ago
      I’ll get shot if I drive without a license and insurance? Damn….
      • mwint 5y ago
        For sure. You may get a ticket the first couple times, then they'll take you to jail (where you cannot drive). If you insist on continuing to drive, that means you have to resist going to jail. Resisting going to jail is an excellent way to have force used on you, up to and including guns. Heck, if the right country wants you in jail for the right reasons, you could flee somewhere else and have the _Air Force_ used against you.
      • feanaro 5y ago
        No, but you'll get detained and then you'll like your freedom back so you'll try to walk away, but they won't let you. If you insist, you'll eventually get shot.
        • mortenlarsen 5y ago
          Really? Where I live, cops only shoot if necessary, and someone getting away is not a valid reason. Maybe in some very extreme case they would, but it is better that someone escapes custody than someone (including the suspect dying). Then again, just a cop drawing a weapon or firing a weapon usually makes the news.
  • chrissnell 5y ago
    Because we are free individuals and can make medical decisions for ourselves and our abilities to feed our families should not depend on upon our willingness to take a medication that does not appear to stop the spread of Omicron COVID. The mandates also make no exception for natural immunity which DOES appear to at least slow the spread of Omicron COVID.
    • jbay808 5y ago
      This answer seems to be a mix of principles and practicals. I'm curious which matter more to you. Hypothetically, in an alternate reality where the vaccine is super effective at reducing transmission of Omicron, and where Omicron is super deadly, would you support a vaccine mandate? Or is it the principle that matters more, where regardless of the vaccine's effectiveness or the dangerousness of the virus, you believe you should be free to decide for yourself whether to get a vaccine, without it impacting your employability?
      • throwawaythekey 5y ago
        I'm not the parent but you have posed a funny question. > in an alternate reality where the vaccine is super effective at reducing transmission of Omicron, and where Omicron is super deadly If either of these were true then mandates would be far less required because people would be far more willing to take them voluntarily. Instinctively though I do want to answer yes, I would support mandates more under higher risk scenarios. In an ideal world though I would probably prefer if communities could self select by risk tolerance i.e it's possible to live/work/party somewhere nearby with like minded people.
        • u801e 5y ago
          >> in an alternate reality where the vaccine is super effective at reducing transmission of Omicron, and where Omicron is super deadly > If either of these were true then mandates would be far less required because people would be far more willing to take them voluntarily. I don't know whether that would necessarily be the case. We have seen how easily people are manipulated via misinformation campaigns.
  • buscoquadnary 5y ago
    If you really want to know why I oppose them honest to God? Because whenever the government does something, or is given the ability to do something, whether de jure, or de facto, I ask myself "Would I feel comfortable with my worst political enemy having the power to do this?" EDIT: The answer I was responding to edited his answer before I finished posting, so the original question was just. "Why do you opposse vax mandates?" My answer still stands.
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      I'm personally not sending my kid to any school that doesn't require the standard vaccines: here it is Hepatitis B, DTaP, IPV, MMR and Varicella. It is weird that vaccines mandates didn't gather as much resistance for the last century, but I guess things are just way more political now.
      • deleted 5y ago
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      • SamReidHughes 5y ago
        Those vaccines were for diseases that were highly lethal, and also highly lethal to children (well, not varicella), and they had years of research behind their safety. Mass vaccination also effectively stopped transmission. Schools also allowed medical and religious exemptions, with California's recent removal of that option being very controversial.
        • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
          The polio vaccine was mandated five years after it was invented, and that was in the early days of the field. Mass vaccination is the only way to stop transmission, of course, you just can’t have some people vaccinated and others not, vaccines don’t work like that. The exemptions have never been very deep (very few takers each year), but if they exceed something like 5%, then an adjustment must be made. Washington state for example, revoked personal and philosophical exemptions for MMR vaccines after an outbreak. Religious exemptions are still allowed, but those have a much higher bar than a philosophical exemption. Medical exemptions are always allowed, they are one major reason why most everyone else needs to get vaccinated in the first place (because people who can’t get the vaccine are at risk from transmission). I guess one could argue that everyone that wants to should get vaccinated to better protect those who don’t want to be vaccinated. That makes sense, but hardly seems fair.
  • brandonmenc 5y ago
    None of your examples are "inject this medication to keep your job." Very, very different, and unprecedented for the general public.
    • Filligree 5y ago
      Unprecedented? What? How do you think we eradicated Smallpox?
      • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure we did not eradicate smallpox by firing people for not getting the vaccine...
        • mmastrac 5y ago
          Montreal did in fact have a mandate for the Smallpox vaccine in the past.
        • deleted 5y ago
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        • whoisburbansky 5y ago
          It's hilarious you say that, since that's exactly how we eradicated smallpox: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/
      • selcuka 5y ago
        > I'm pretty sure we did not eradicate smallpox by firing people for not getting the vaccine... Yes we did: > In 1901 a deadly smallpox epidemic tore through the Northeast, prompting the Boston and Cambridge boards of health to order the vaccination of all residents. But some refused to get the shot, claiming the vaccine order violated their personal liberties under the Constitution. > One of those holdouts, a Swedish-born pastor named Henning Jacobson, took his anti-vaccine crusade all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's top justices issued a landmark 1905 ruling that legitimized the authority of states to “reasonably” infringe upon personal freedoms during a public health crisis by issuing a fine to those who refused vaccination.
  • 015a 5y ago
    I am not the OP, but hold a similar stance, primarily for the reason that the mandates represent a "the last 20% takes 80% of the time" inefficiency in what should be a global effort to dampen the pandemic, and the massive resources invested in first world countries to claw every last hundredth of a percent of the population to get vaccinated could be invested to see much greater effect in second & third world countries.
    • throwaway48292 5y ago
      (UK) At some point it started to feel like stirring division for its own sake, since everyone will be exposed to the virus regardless of whether we get another 0.1% vaccinated. Luckily it seems to be calming down now.
    • fishidns 5y ago
      True, but the problem, at least in Canada, isn't the spread from/to the remaining 20%, but the strain and cost to the public healthcare system. The spread from them is a small part of it too, but not the primary factor. Canada is kind of in a difficult place, because refusing medical treatment is an even bigger taboo then forcing vaccination. But the publicly funded medical system is having to pay a high price both in cost and in capacity due to that remaining 20%. This is why people are looking for ways to reduce that. Refusing medical care is not currently seen as a viable option, thus vaccine incentives are being explored, like restricting what someone can do if unvaccinated.
      • ROTMetro 5y ago
        Those restrictions being earning a living or shopping.
        • Ensorceled 5y ago
          There are no vaccine mandates for shopping, it's masks only. "Earning a living" is only an issue in certain occupations such as healthcare.
  • daenz 5y ago
    >You need clothes This kind of lunacy, where nothing has meaning, since everything is "just like everything else" has got to stop. There's a big difference between the accepted norm of wearing clothing and being forced to inject your body with drugs. Expecting people to explain it to you is a bad faith attempt to let them say enough words so that you can argue semantics endlessly with them.
    • walterbell 5y ago
      Speaking of semantics, CDC definition of "vaccine" was changed in 2021 and WHO definition of "pandemic" was changed in the late 2000s.
  • rkk3 5y ago
    Because at this point it's not a particularly effective solution & is just political theater. It's also not just needing a vaccine you also need a non expired government-ID and a smart-phone to partake in society. And in 20 years these things will still be around, just like TSA and the Patriot act.
  • karmakaze 5y ago
    They shouldn't be necessary if enough of the relevant population is vaccinated and given the risk profiles of current variants. Or if they are necessary, show me the data that supports it. Reaching for a mandate 'just because', is poor government.
    • oceanplexian 5y ago
      > Reaching for a mandate 'just because', is poor government. This is exactly what happened with the TSA. If people don’t stand up against mandates, like people failed to do after the War on Terror, we’ll still be wearing masks at airports and proving our vaccine status decades from now.
  • oceanplexian 5y ago
    Pretty simple to answer this. Passports work. Car safety regulations work. Seatbelts protect you. COVID vaccines, however, are not effective at preventing the transmission of COVID, this is well established science at this point. So, that said, why the mandate?
    • Tiktaalik 5y ago
      The vaccine mandates prevent unvaccinated people from accessing areas of higher risk transmission. Unvaccinated people (particularly the elderly) are more likely to end up dead or with a serious hospital visit if they catch the disease. At the moment hospitals are overwhelmed and so at this point the vaccine mandates are about keeping hospital admissions from exploding.
  • postingawayonhn 5y ago
    I'm vaccinated but I have no particular interest in forcing anyone else to be. And at this stage I'm not convinced that having a small percentage of the population unvaccinated will have a noticeable impact on transmission (or even that we should be worrying about transmission anymore).
• mabbo 5y ago
  On the surface, yes. But in reality this is the fringe far right using the vaccine as a reason to disrupt the country. My biggest concern with this all is the timing. The vaccine rules have been around for months, but right at the same time as Russia is preparing an invasion of a Canadian ally, we have unknown foreign money pouring into the country supporting an ill-defined movement with the sole goal of disrupting the country.
  • soupbowl 5y ago
    As a Canadian I disagree.
• fishidns 5y ago
  Just want to make sure everyone has the correct piece of data to think about this. The mandate says that non-Canadian truckers need to be vaccinated to enter the country. The mandate says that Canadian truckers, if they are not vaccinated, are not going to be exempt from the normal border entry measures, which is that they'd need to quarantine on entry unless they are vaccinated. The US has a similar mandate for Canadian truckers, they're not allowed to enter the US without being vaccinated. It's a little strange, because it effectively means that a trucker, either US or Canadian, who want to cross the boarder and then come back needs to be vaccinated because the other country forces them to do so. Each respective country doesn't force their own citizens Trucker to be vaccinated, but Canada does force them to quarantine on entry if not. That said, this doesn't really matter because to enter the other country they'll have to be vaccinated anyways. > I mean I am vaxxed and oppose vax mandates. How do you feel about paying for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated and need care to treat COVID?
  • oceanplexian 5y ago
    >That said, this doesn't really matter because to enter the other country they'll have to be vaccinated anyways. Obviously an unvaccinated trucker from Canada cannot enter the US and return until both the Canadian and US restrictions are lifted. It doesn’t matter in which order they are lifted, but both need to be. Since they are Canadian citizens obviously they are protesting the Canadian component of the travel restriction. On a side note: How does it make sense that an unvaccinated trucker in Canada can legally deliver goods in Canada, and an unvaccinated trucker in the US can legally deliver goods in the USA, but they cannot deliver goods between the US and Canada. What is the science behind this exactly?
    • verve_rat 5y ago
      The science says get vaccinated. It is not required to be vaccinated to deliver goods domestically because that would mean imposing the vaccine on citizens of their own respective countries, which is a can of worms neither government wants to open. But requiring foreign visitors to have certain vaccines is much less politically fraught. If you don't like it, tough, you don't get to enter said country. Asking what is the science behind these decisions is being disingenuous and you know that. Please stop.
• hiram112 5y ago
  Agreed. I was forced to get the vax due to my company's business dealings with the federal gov't. One of my developers, meanwhile, refused to get vaccinated, and so far the threat from my employer has just kind of stalled as different state and federal lawsuits have been going through the courts, while he walks on eggshells about his employment status and future career. My team works remote 99% of the time, btw. Engineers rarely deal with the customers either. Regardless, I think he's been treated poorly by the company as we explicitly denied him the ability to join us at a few on-site meetings and outings. I'm not sure anyone can credibly assert anymore that his un-vaccinated status puts anyone other than himself at increased risk. At this point, it's a form of psychological warfare against him for refusing to conform, and that's WRONG. I don't know if I would have gotten a vaccination without the threat of termination. I probably would have, but being forced has left me feeling anger towards both my employer and the gov't. And I've been with my employer for 8 years or so - I've enjoyed my time there.
  • cycrutchfield 5y ago
    You are mad at your employer for taking common-sense health measures to ensure that unvaccinated people like your coworker don’t spread the disease to other colleagues?
  • deleted 5y ago
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• HWR_14 5y ago
  It's not about any mandate, because there isn't one. If people don't want to get vaccinated they can quarantine for 14 days when they cross the US-Canada border. Or they can just move trucks domestically within Canada or the US. All those options are open to them. Truckers just no longer get a special cross-border exemption and have to play by the same rules everyone else has for a while when they cross the border (vaccinated or quarantine)