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Discriminatory attitudes against the unvaccinated during a global pandemic

71 points by tokai 4y ago

autokad 4y ago
some of the things I heard people say: "It angers me that people like this are able to vote" "why should I have to share restaurant space with someone who doesn't care about others"
- bmelton 4y ago
  I thought it was mostly an online phenomenon wherein medical professionals were entertaining the idea of refusing medical care to the unvaccinated, right up until I heard it repeated by a friend of mine who is a nurse admin.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    I kinda get it: they're intentionally and knowingly hurting others (those with legitimate medical reasons they can't get the vaccine). I saw some folks who did not get vaccines (I know this because they called those of us who got vaccines "sheep" and other derogatory terms) conspicuously cough near others.
    - autokad 4y ago
      > "they're intentionally and knowingly hurting others" this is an unproven claim, one that was never actually tested. and quite honestly, its very clear the 'vaccine' does not prevent spread, nor even you getting it. "but it lowers the chances of death!" Ok... so why are you mandating others getting it because 'hurting others'.
jgeada 4y ago
- chomp 4y ago
  When my children were born, my father and his mother refused to get the TDAP. I refused them access to my house to see my newborn before they got vaccinated. They eventually relented and got the vaccination. There's a friend of a friend that I know that is anti-vax re: measles, that I refuse to let my children around. I have no interest or time to risk our health (yes, even for 0.01%) for people who refuse do basic medical self-upkeep (allergies aside, my brother is allergic and I make an exception for him).
  - eastbound 4y ago
    There is a large difference between old vaccines and the Covid one in terms of trust.
    - jfengel 4y ago
      A fact that has essentially nothing to do with the safety or efficacy of the COVID vaccine. There has been a deliberate ideologically-driven campaign to undermine that trust. Ask a COVID anti-vaxxer to explain their position, and it will almost immediately include at least one outright falsehood. Not a "difference of opinion" or "interpretation" or "risk tolerance", but just an outright lie. And correcting that will not result in any reconsideration of their stance. Most people don't really understand any of the vaccines they're taking, but they put their trust in a medical system that has largely justified that trust. Some people have suddenly decided to disagree with the entire scientific and medical establishment, seeking out specific individuals for their ideological agreement. There is a large difference in trust, but it's not founded in science. It's founded in a bias, and that's dangerous.
      - jiggawatts 4y ago
        I love the “it hasn’t been tested!” argument… when a billion people have taken it! Just how big a sample size do you want!?
        4y ago
adamrezich 4y ago
how's everyone else from the control group doing these days? things were never really that bad, discrimination-wise, here in South Dakota, but what was/is it like everywhere else? (edit: wow I thought we were, as a collective, Largely Over It now—guess that's not the case! I'm glad things aren't as bad as they are in this thread where I live! one has to wonder though: how long will this deep-seated emotion-based discrimination go on for?)
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  Two doctors told me the vaccine may not be safe for someone with my rare condition (There's a list of medications and interventions as long as my arm that I can't take because they could literally kill me). In spite of this, neither doctor was initially willing to put their opinion on paper so I could keep my job because of the immense pressure on them to get everyone vaccinated. Thank God, the specialist I saw came back in the room with a change of heart and wrote me the letter. Interacting with society during this whole time felt quite upsetting. It really felt as if society in general would rather see me risk dying as long as it kept them safer. Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. I really feel for people who've had to deal with that sort of thing for longer than the brief period of time I have.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    > Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. Try having a non-visible disability. It's a pretty common thing, actually. It even kinda falls in the same category - one of the workplace duties is to be vaccinated, and you have extenuating circumstances which require an affordance since you can't meet that duty. School teachers, for a very long time, were required to be vaccinated against TB. There's a long history of requiring vaccinations if you work or are exposed to other vulnerable folks.
    - TrevorJ 4y ago
      Yeah, I definitely realize many people have had to deal with this sort of thing longer than I have. It was certainly eye-opening.
barbariangrunge 4y ago
I have a friend who is allergic to many vaccines. A bad reaction as a kid led to him needing years of rehab. He's also high risk for Covid. He's pro-vaccine in general I guess I should add, but his doctor told him to not get the covid shots because the risk was too high Whenever I mention that it's cruel to exclude people like him from society, due to vaccine requirements, when people like him are presumably what all these rules were meant to protect, a little mob came together to denounce the idea and say that he absolutely should never be allowed in public again. Almost everybody was safe from covid -- it was a handful of high risk people who we were trying to protect. In theory. But instead, all the low risk people wanted to throw the high risk people under the bus to save themselves. Eg, healthy people couldn't go to movie theatres, but my grandma's care home had outbreak after outbreak, with no resources spared to isolate people like her. Or an other friend who was high risk, but worked in retail -- zero resources available to keep her away from all the sick people (this was back before everyone was quadruple vaxed). It was disgusting
- epgui 4y ago
  I'm deadly allergic to eggs, and the only flu vaccine easily available to me is made with eggs, so I don't take it. There are many other medically valid reasons to not take a vaccine. There are even some (a very small number) of people whose religious convictions are a valid reason to get an exemption. The issue is that the overwhelming majority (>99%) of people who choose not to vaccinate, do so for bad reasons, which amounts to making an uninformed medical decision, and one that adversely impacts other people in addition to themselves. These people are what the controversy is actually about. Anyone bullying people who have medical issues is a bad person and needs to chill.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    More importantly, their uninformed medical decision disproportionally hurts the minority groups you called out above. It's not the vaccinated population who I'm concerned about, but those who have legitimate medical reasons to not take the vaccine.
    - 4y ago
DoreenMichele 4y ago
When I was growing up, they counted anyone who got vaccinated against something as a "success." So if 80 percent got vaccinated for X, they bragged about that. These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices. It's a dramatic change in attitude and it's very scary stuff because people are increasingly fine with "We shall just force the minority to get vaccinated and make their lives hell if they continue to resist." It's really, really scary stuff and most people don't seem to recognize how and why it's scary stuff.
- throwaway22032 4y ago
  In my view it's tantamount to abuse, because ultimately what it does is erodes trust. If you're shouting at someone to do something over and over again, eventually they just stop listening to you and try to get away from you. The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. Otherwise you're acting as a parent. You're not treating them as an equal. I'm sure that some people will take issue with my specific use of the term "abuse", but it meets the definition as far as I can tell. It even goes down to the point that people (who disagree) just stop talking about it completely because they're always walking on eggshells. People flip out, tell you you can't go to XYZ or do XYZ, etc. It's just like, okay, whatever man, I'll say whatever you want me to say for an easy life. Doesn't mean I believe it or trust you.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    > The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. The problem is, at least for many societies, that we don't operate on "you get to choose, but you have to live with the consequences". If you choose not to get vaccinated because you want to avoid becoming a walking 5g transmitter programmed by Bill Gates, and you get sick and need emergency care, you're not going to be denied because you made the choice and knew the risk, which has implications for everyone else, because emergency care is limited etc etc.
teddyh 4y ago
As soon as a new subset of people have been designated as part of the outgroup, they are basically fair game for everybody to get their kicks in¹. And boy howdy do people love some fully justifiable carnage. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33802663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33802663
christkv 4y ago
- wavesounds 4y ago
  Please don't spread misinformation. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z
  - christkv 4y ago
- chrsig 4y ago
  You get that the hospitals were being overrun by people dying of covid, right? It was to the point where emergency care wasn't available because hospitals were full. I doubt your claim, but even then, there are plenty of other reasons why having such a high unvaccinated population is a problem.
  - DeetrixDotter 4y ago
  - christkv 4y ago
    I’m vaxed by the way and yes I’m aware of the problems but you are not addressing what I said at all. The unvaxed person was or vaxed person spread and is spreading the virus at the same rate. The irrationality of treating unvaxed people now differently from vaxed persons is absurd. I’m more worried about the serious mental health issues people obsessed with the virus are having. I keep seeing people on the street with n95 mask walking alone.
    - throwthroyaboat 4y ago
      > I keep seeing people on the street with n95 mask walking alone Those people might be sick (either with covid/the flu/cold etc) and using the mask as a signal to others "please don't come near me I'm sick".
BitwiseFool 4y ago
What surprised me the most was just how vicious and cruel the people in my life could be towards the unvaccinated. It went beyond mere schadenfreude. Many of my otherwise tolerant and empathetic friends eagerly ate up any and all news about anti-vaxxers suffering or even outright dying. I don't know how much of this was a result of them getting caught up in the social media bandwagon (Twitter, r/HermanCainAward) or because this was the most significant and close to home "us vs. them" situation in our lives up until this point.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  - DeetrixDotter 4y ago
    - TOMDM 4y ago
      How many people have died to the vaccine vs how many people died to COVID who might have been saved by the vaccine? Look at the COVID death rates of the vaccinated vs unvaccinated. Can you bridge that gap with vaccine deaths?
      - TrevorJ 4y ago
        Death rate from Covid among the vaccinated definitely does paint a picture that the vaccine does help prevent Covid deaths, you are right. What troubles me is the VAERS data.
        TOMDM 4y ago
        VAERS data is a fantastic place to look for early warning signs about what should be investigated. However given it's self reported nature, and the rampant conspiricism we see today, I think we should only see those VAERS reports as a signal of what to study, not what conclusions to draw. At this stage though, there are billion dollar incentives to prove those VAERS claims correct, and yet there are no studies to that effect. Competing biomed companies could seriously disrupt their competition by proving their vaccine has issues. Russia is looking for any reason to malign the US and it's partners. China and it's zero COVID policy would love to embarrass the US and it's partners over their COVID policy. And yet they don't jump to do so because they have no proof. There's every incentive, every mean to do so, and no data, no study. I can't prove a negative but in a world that has every mean and motive to prove the positive, it sure makes me wonder at the absence.
adamiscool8 4y ago
It’s frightening how easily the framing of a very individual risk assessment with collectivist “do the right thing for everyone” messaging can prompt discriminatory attitudes. The threshold to trigger this herding behavior is far lower than I would have thought pre-pandemic, as is the ease with which fear engineering can enhance credulity and dismantle higher order thinking at scale. These triggers also reward a sense of complacency towards fundamental rights, and it seems likely more of these mass cognitive warfare experiments will be seen to intentionally probe for exploits of our current system.
ArmandTanzarian 4y ago
So everyone on HN feels like the unvaccinated are part of an oppressed caste? I really don't understand the comments I am reading here. There are large groups of people who are unvaccinated by choice, not because of genuine health concerns. A friend of mine is unable to get vaccinated due to serious health concerns, and she is furious that do many people refuse to get it, as it continues to prevent her from living a normal life.
- ohCh6zos 4y ago
  As someone who has a vaccine and all the available boosters. They are absolutely maligned and their freedoms were unreasonably restricted.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    It was during a pandemic and in many (all?) countries, an active health crisis which resulted in literally millions of dead (what are we at now, 6 million?). All of us had our freedoms restricted at various levels - lockdowns, travel restrictions, work rules, masks, vaccines. Some of us understood the (potential) gravity of the situation and accepted that, knowing nobody was doing it for fun. Others threw fucking tantrums and refused to follow even elementary rules. It's easy to say in retrospect that some things were unreasonable, but in the middle of a pandemic it's probably better to overreact than underreact. Failing to comprehend that, and the incapability of the smallest of gestures from so many people made me a) despair for humanity in the face of the upcoming crisis such as climate changes and the Russian invasion of Ukraine; b) have very little respect or sympathy for those people. They made the choice to ignore the majority, i make the choice to not give a shit about them or their freedoms
    - ohCh6zos 4y ago
      Shame is you might actually get what you are asking for. Edit: Morally why would someone be obligated to pay attention to the majority? Morality isn't up for mob rule.
      - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
daVe23hu 4y ago
- TOMDM 4y ago
  A vaccine that adjusts every year to target a mutating virus is completely normal. It's been done for ages for the flu. The flu vaccines are also only mitigations not immunities. Do you have the same feelings towards the flu vaccine?
  - daVe23hu 4y ago
    Flu vaccines do not cause miscarriages , myocarditis
    - TOMDM 4y ago
      You know what also causes myocarditis at a far higher rate than the mRNA vaccine? COVID. I haven't seen anything suggesting miscarriages caused by mRNA vaccines, do you have any sources?
      - daVe23hu 4y ago
        https://rumble.com/v1y4u78-foot-long-blood-clots-from-mrna-says-pathologist-dr.-ryan-cole-w-dr-kelly-v.html https://rumble.com/v1y4u78-foot-long-blood-clots-from-mrna-s... https://rumble.com/v1wpgms-mrna-adverse-reaction-data-suppressed-by-cdc-dr.-harvey-risch-w-dr.-kelly-v.html https://rumble.com/v1wpgms-mrna-adverse-reaction-data-suppre... https://rumble.com/v1sm1gq-ed-dowd-sudden-adult-deaths-increased-in-2021.-what-changed-w-dr.-kelly-vic.html https://rumble.com/v1sm1gq-ed-dowd-sudden-adult-deaths-incre... Case 1:21-cv-00008-MJT Document 65 Filed 08/22/22 Page 1 of 46 PageID #: 1946 Brook Jackson whistle blower case on testing process This is an interesting case as Brook Jackson worked in the drug trial industry many years and with this RMNA approval process she witnessed so many abuses in process she took on the career ending process of "blowing the whistle" Please send me the references to your assertion "You know what also causes myocarditis at a far higher rate than the mRNA vaccine? COVID."
anenefan 4y ago
The discrimination was IMO, little different to a community facing a common disaster, to that of someone feeling safe, didn't care or not their problem who elected to sit back refusing to contribute to the effort to overcome the disaster, even if it was something simple and not much of a task, like keeping an eye out for an arsonist doing nature a favour and burning dead dry forest who didn't care if some had built right up in amongst it. In regard to covid-19, complicating the simple discrimination issue were the many dogs in the fight not to vaccinate against covid-19 - those I'm aware of, most pulling the strings were part of a privileged exclusive small demographic. The noisiest were the group IMO were the "Here, all you've gotta do is take this cheap little pill and keep on working, no worries ... " Sadly many who were unable to be reassured by their doctor that their medical condition would not interact with the new vaccines, started grasping for "bad to vaccinate" straws I feel most of the population around my way understood some people were going to be unable to be vaccinated. There were concerns that some people even if they did get vaccinated, due to medical issues would not be greatly protected. However at the end of the day, as I once read, it's good to have a practice run before the real thing. With this pandemic, it became to hard to explain to the public being vaccinated against the fast mutating coronavirus wasn't just about saving time and money spent in hospital wards, but if most of the community that could vaccinated, it significantly removed "run time" for covid-19 to recombine whilst it was inhabiting in a human body, and re-emerge as a new threat -- it was already hard enough to ask people to vaccinate if they could to save hospitals from being run over, something I found quite frankly, shocking.
notacoward 4y ago
It's worth highlighting that there is an "absence of evidence" of discrimination the other way except in Germany and the US. I think a lot of people are skipping over the fact that in the US the contempt goes both ways, overlapping to a significant degree with discriminatory attitudes or behaviors tied to factors other than vaccine status. Those who are quick to discriminate in very tangible ways themselves don't get to cry victim the one time they're the one on the receiving end of an unfriendly look.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Individuals lost their jobs, were ostracized from their communities, attacked and vilified for not getting the vaccine… Truly a cruel period in American history.
cryptonector 4y ago
This one should not be flagged.
ls15 4y ago
@dang: can this be unflagged?

71 points by tokai 4y ago

some of the things I heard people say: "It angers me that people like this are able to vote" "why should I have to share restaurant space with someone who doesn't care about others"

bmelton 4y ago
I thought it was mostly an online phenomenon wherein medical professionals were entertaining the idea of refusing medical care to the unvaccinated, right up until I heard it repeated by a friend of mine who is a nurse admin.
- falcolas 4y ago
  I kinda get it: they're intentionally and knowingly hurting others (those with legitimate medical reasons they can't get the vaccine). I saw some folks who did not get vaccines (I know this because they called those of us who got vaccines "sheep" and other derogatory terms) conspicuously cough near others.
  - autokad 4y ago
    > "they're intentionally and knowingly hurting others" this is an unproven claim, one that was never actually tested. and quite honestly, its very clear the 'vaccine' does not prevent spread, nor even you getting it. "but it lowers the chances of death!" Ok... so why are you mandating others getting it because 'hurting others'.

jgeada 4y ago

chomp 4y ago
When my children were born, my father and his mother refused to get the TDAP. I refused them access to my house to see my newborn before they got vaccinated. They eventually relented and got the vaccination. There's a friend of a friend that I know that is anti-vax re: measles, that I refuse to let my children around. I have no interest or time to risk our health (yes, even for 0.01%) for people who refuse do basic medical self-upkeep (allergies aside, my brother is allergic and I make an exception for him).
- eastbound 4y ago
  There is a large difference between old vaccines and the Covid one in terms of trust.
  - jfengel 4y ago
    A fact that has essentially nothing to do with the safety or efficacy of the COVID vaccine. There has been a deliberate ideologically-driven campaign to undermine that trust. Ask a COVID anti-vaxxer to explain their position, and it will almost immediately include at least one outright falsehood. Not a "difference of opinion" or "interpretation" or "risk tolerance", but just an outright lie. And correcting that will not result in any reconsideration of their stance. Most people don't really understand any of the vaccines they're taking, but they put their trust in a medical system that has largely justified that trust. Some people have suddenly decided to disagree with the entire scientific and medical establishment, seeking out specific individuals for their ideological agreement. There is a large difference in trust, but it's not founded in science. It's founded in a bias, and that's dangerous.
    - jiggawatts 4y ago
      I love the “it hasn’t been tested!” argument… when a billion people have taken it! Just how big a sample size do you want!?
      - 4y ago

adamrezich 4y ago

how's everyone else from the control group doing these days? things were never really that bad, discrimination-wise, here in South Dakota, but what was/is it like everywhere else? (edit: wow I thought we were, as a collective, Largely Over It now—guess that's not the case! I'm glad things aren't as bad as they are in this thread where I live! one has to wonder though: how long will this deep-seated emotion-based discrimination go on for?)

TrevorJ 4y ago
Two doctors told me the vaccine may not be safe for someone with my rare condition (There's a list of medications and interventions as long as my arm that I can't take because they could literally kill me). In spite of this, neither doctor was initially willing to put their opinion on paper so I could keep my job because of the immense pressure on them to get everyone vaccinated. Thank God, the specialist I saw came back in the room with a change of heart and wrote me the letter. Interacting with society during this whole time felt quite upsetting. It really felt as if society in general would rather see me risk dying as long as it kept them safer. Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. I really feel for people who've had to deal with that sort of thing for longer than the brief period of time I have.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. Try having a non-visible disability. It's a pretty common thing, actually. It even kinda falls in the same category - one of the workplace duties is to be vaccinated, and you have extenuating circumstances which require an affordance since you can't meet that duty. School teachers, for a very long time, were required to be vaccinated against TB. There's a long history of requiring vaccinations if you work or are exposed to other vulnerable folks.
  - TrevorJ 4y ago
    Yeah, I definitely realize many people have had to deal with this sort of thing longer than I have. It was certainly eye-opening.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

I have a friend who is allergic to many vaccines. A bad reaction as a kid led to him needing years of rehab. He's also high risk for Covid. He's pro-vaccine in general I guess I should add, but his doctor told him to not get the covid shots because the risk was too high Whenever I mention that it's cruel to exclude people like him from society, due to vaccine requirements, when people like him are presumably what all these rules were meant to protect, a little mob came together to denounce the idea and say that he absolutely should never be allowed in public again. Almost everybody was safe from covid -- it was a handful of high risk people who we were trying to protect. In theory. But instead, all the low risk people wanted to throw the high risk people under the bus to save themselves. Eg, healthy people couldn't go to movie theatres, but my grandma's care home had outbreak after outbreak, with no resources spared to isolate people like her. Or an other friend who was high risk, but worked in retail -- zero resources available to keep her away from all the sick people (this was back before everyone was quadruple vaxed). It was disgusting

epgui 4y ago
I'm deadly allergic to eggs, and the only flu vaccine easily available to me is made with eggs, so I don't take it. There are many other medically valid reasons to not take a vaccine. There are even some (a very small number) of people whose religious convictions are a valid reason to get an exemption. The issue is that the overwhelming majority (>99%) of people who choose not to vaccinate, do so for bad reasons, which amounts to making an uninformed medical decision, and one that adversely impacts other people in addition to themselves. These people are what the controversy is actually about. Anyone bullying people who have medical issues is a bad person and needs to chill.
- falcolas 4y ago
  More importantly, their uninformed medical decision disproportionally hurts the minority groups you called out above. It's not the vaccinated population who I'm concerned about, but those who have legitimate medical reasons to not take the vaccine.
  - 4y ago

DoreenMichele 4y ago

When I was growing up, they counted anyone who got vaccinated against something as a "success." So if 80 percent got vaccinated for X, they bragged about that. These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices. It's a dramatic change in attitude and it's very scary stuff because people are increasingly fine with "We shall just force the minority to get vaccinated and make their lives hell if they continue to resist." It's really, really scary stuff and most people don't seem to recognize how and why it's scary stuff.

throwaway22032 4y ago
In my view it's tantamount to abuse, because ultimately what it does is erodes trust. If you're shouting at someone to do something over and over again, eventually they just stop listening to you and try to get away from you. The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. Otherwise you're acting as a parent. You're not treating them as an equal. I'm sure that some people will take issue with my specific use of the term "abuse", but it meets the definition as far as I can tell. It even goes down to the point that people (who disagree) just stop talking about it completely because they're always walking on eggshells. People flip out, tell you you can't go to XYZ or do XYZ, etc. It's just like, okay, whatever man, I'll say whatever you want me to say for an easy life. Doesn't mean I believe it or trust you.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. The problem is, at least for many societies, that we don't operate on "you get to choose, but you have to live with the consequences". If you choose not to get vaccinated because you want to avoid becoming a walking 5g transmitter programmed by Bill Gates, and you get sick and need emergency care, you're not going to be denied because you made the choice and knew the risk, which has implications for everyone else, because emergency care is limited etc etc.

teddyh 4y ago

As soon as a new subset of people have been designated as part of the outgroup, they are basically fair game for everybody to get their kicks in¹. And boy howdy do people love some fully justifiable carnage. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33802663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33802663

christkv 4y ago

wavesounds 4y ago
Please don't spread misinformation. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z
- christkv 4y ago
chrsig 4y ago
You get that the hospitals were being overrun by people dying of covid, right? It was to the point where emergency care wasn't available because hospitals were full. I doubt your claim, but even then, there are plenty of other reasons why having such a high unvaccinated population is a problem.
- DeetrixDotter 4y ago
- christkv 4y ago
  I’m vaxed by the way and yes I’m aware of the problems but you are not addressing what I said at all. The unvaxed person was or vaxed person spread and is spreading the virus at the same rate. The irrationality of treating unvaxed people now differently from vaxed persons is absurd. I’m more worried about the serious mental health issues people obsessed with the virus are having. I keep seeing people on the street with n95 mask walking alone.
  - throwthroyaboat 4y ago
    > I keep seeing people on the street with n95 mask walking alone Those people might be sick (either with covid/the flu/cold etc) and using the mask as a signal to others "please don't come near me I'm sick".

BitwiseFool 4y ago

What surprised me the most was just how vicious and cruel the people in my life could be towards the unvaccinated. It went beyond mere schadenfreude. Many of my otherwise tolerant and empathetic friends eagerly ate up any and all news about anti-vaxxers suffering or even outright dying. I don't know how much of this was a result of them getting caught up in the social media bandwagon (Twitter, r/HermanCainAward) or because this was the most significant and close to home "us vs. them" situation in our lives up until this point.

hotpotamus 4y ago
- DeetrixDotter 4y ago
  - TOMDM 4y ago
    How many people have died to the vaccine vs how many people died to COVID who might have been saved by the vaccine? Look at the COVID death rates of the vaccinated vs unvaccinated. Can you bridge that gap with vaccine deaths?
    - TrevorJ 4y ago
      Death rate from Covid among the vaccinated definitely does paint a picture that the vaccine does help prevent Covid deaths, you are right. What troubles me is the VAERS data.
      - TOMDM 4y ago
        VAERS data is a fantastic place to look for early warning signs about what should be investigated. However given it's self reported nature, and the rampant conspiricism we see today, I think we should only see those VAERS reports as a signal of what to study, not what conclusions to draw. At this stage though, there are billion dollar incentives to prove those VAERS claims correct, and yet there are no studies to that effect. Competing biomed companies could seriously disrupt their competition by proving their vaccine has issues. Russia is looking for any reason to malign the US and it's partners. China and it's zero COVID policy would love to embarrass the US and it's partners over their COVID policy. And yet they don't jump to do so because they have no proof. There's every incentive, every mean to do so, and no data, no study. I can't prove a negative but in a world that has every mean and motive to prove the positive, it sure makes me wonder at the absence.

adamiscool8 4y ago

It’s frightening how easily the framing of a very individual risk assessment with collectivist “do the right thing for everyone” messaging can prompt discriminatory attitudes. The threshold to trigger this herding behavior is far lower than I would have thought pre-pandemic, as is the ease with which fear engineering can enhance credulity and dismantle higher order thinking at scale. These triggers also reward a sense of complacency towards fundamental rights, and it seems likely more of these mass cognitive warfare experiments will be seen to intentionally probe for exploits of our current system.

ArmandTanzarian 4y ago

So everyone on HN feels like the unvaccinated are part of an oppressed caste? I really don't understand the comments I am reading here. There are large groups of people who are unvaccinated by choice, not because of genuine health concerns. A friend of mine is unable to get vaccinated due to serious health concerns, and she is furious that do many people refuse to get it, as it continues to prevent her from living a normal life.

ohCh6zos 4y ago
As someone who has a vaccine and all the available boosters. They are absolutely maligned and their freedoms were unreasonably restricted.
- sofixa 4y ago
  It was during a pandemic and in many (all?) countries, an active health crisis which resulted in literally millions of dead (what are we at now, 6 million?). All of us had our freedoms restricted at various levels - lockdowns, travel restrictions, work rules, masks, vaccines. Some of us understood the (potential) gravity of the situation and accepted that, knowing nobody was doing it for fun. Others threw fucking tantrums and refused to follow even elementary rules. It's easy to say in retrospect that some things were unreasonable, but in the middle of a pandemic it's probably better to overreact than underreact. Failing to comprehend that, and the incapability of the smallest of gestures from so many people made me a) despair for humanity in the face of the upcoming crisis such as climate changes and the Russian invasion of Ukraine; b) have very little respect or sympathy for those people. They made the choice to ignore the majority, i make the choice to not give a shit about them or their freedoms
  - ohCh6zos 4y ago
    Shame is you might actually get what you are asking for. Edit: Morally why would someone be obligated to pay attention to the majority? Morality isn't up for mob rule.
    - 4y ago

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daVe23hu 4y ago

TOMDM 4y ago
A vaccine that adjusts every year to target a mutating virus is completely normal. It's been done for ages for the flu. The flu vaccines are also only mitigations not immunities. Do you have the same feelings towards the flu vaccine?
- daVe23hu 4y ago
  Flu vaccines do not cause miscarriages , myocarditis
  - TOMDM 4y ago
    You know what also causes myocarditis at a far higher rate than the mRNA vaccine? COVID. I haven't seen anything suggesting miscarriages caused by mRNA vaccines, do you have any sources?
    - daVe23hu 4y ago
      https://rumble.com/v1y4u78-foot-long-blood-clots-from-mrna-says-pathologist-dr.-ryan-cole-w-dr-kelly-v.html https://rumble.com/v1y4u78-foot-long-blood-clots-from-mrna-s... https://rumble.com/v1wpgms-mrna-adverse-reaction-data-suppressed-by-cdc-dr.-harvey-risch-w-dr.-kelly-v.html https://rumble.com/v1wpgms-mrna-adverse-reaction-data-suppre... https://rumble.com/v1sm1gq-ed-dowd-sudden-adult-deaths-increased-in-2021.-what-changed-w-dr.-kelly-vic.html https://rumble.com/v1sm1gq-ed-dowd-sudden-adult-deaths-incre... Case 1:21-cv-00008-MJT Document 65 Filed 08/22/22 Page 1 of 46 PageID #: 1946 Brook Jackson whistle blower case on testing process This is an interesting case as Brook Jackson worked in the drug trial industry many years and with this RMNA approval process she witnessed so many abuses in process she took on the career ending process of "blowing the whistle" Please send me the references to your assertion "You know what also causes myocarditis at a far higher rate than the mRNA vaccine? COVID."

anenefan 4y ago

The discrimination was IMO, little different to a community facing a common disaster, to that of someone feeling safe, didn't care or not their problem who elected to sit back refusing to contribute to the effort to overcome the disaster, even if it was something simple and not much of a task, like keeping an eye out for an arsonist doing nature a favour and burning dead dry forest who didn't care if some had built right up in amongst it. In regard to covid-19, complicating the simple discrimination issue were the many dogs in the fight not to vaccinate against covid-19 - those I'm aware of, most pulling the strings were part of a privileged exclusive small demographic. The noisiest were the group IMO were the "Here, all you've gotta do is take this cheap little pill and keep on working, no worries ... " Sadly many who were unable to be reassured by their doctor that their medical condition would not interact with the new vaccines, started grasping for "bad to vaccinate" straws I feel most of the population around my way understood some people were going to be unable to be vaccinated. There were concerns that some people even if they did get vaccinated, due to medical issues would not be greatly protected. However at the end of the day, as I once read, it's good to have a practice run before the real thing. With this pandemic, it became to hard to explain to the public being vaccinated against the fast mutating coronavirus wasn't just about saving time and money spent in hospital wards, but if most of the community that could vaccinated, it significantly removed "run time" for covid-19 to recombine whilst it was inhabiting in a human body, and re-emerge as a new threat -- it was already hard enough to ask people to vaccinate if they could to save hospitals from being run over, something I found quite frankly, shocking.

notacoward 4y ago

It's worth highlighting that there is an "absence of evidence" of discrimination the other way except in Germany and the US. I think a lot of people are skipping over the fact that in the US the contempt goes both ways, overlapping to a significant degree with discriminatory attitudes or behaviors tied to factors other than vaccine status. Those who are quick to discriminate in very tangible ways themselves don't get to cry victim the one time they're the one on the receiving end of an unfriendly look.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Individuals lost their jobs, were ostracized from their communities, attacked and vilified for not getting the vaccine… Truly a cruel period in American history.

cryptonector 4y ago

This one should not be flagged.

ls15 4y ago

@dang: can this be unflagged?