People don’t want to take the vaccine because others are trying to force them to.
They would say “it’s not FDA approved!” not as the core of their hesitancy, but because they were trying to be appeal to pro-vax peoples decision making framework.
I don’t think we should be able to require them to.
To many of you here: imagine the Trump admin trying to require you to take the vaccine in November of last year. Cities would have burned over it.
And honestly: I was one of the first to take it, but the desire to almost force me to take a booster, and the weird, Orwellian ways that the government talks about it, has turned me against the booster.
It ends up feeling less like the decisions are guided by science and more like they’re guided by petty tyrants wanting to control what others do.
Anybody who has ever lived under an HOA will recognize this.
Let's apply that logic to everything, then, and see how it works out. You're fat or obese and have health outcomes stemming from those choices? Enjoy your heart attack, fatty. You get injured doing something "non-essential?" Your mountain bike accident sounds like your problem. You're a smoker and get lung cancer? Sorry, no treatment is available for you.
You don't get to dictate the health choices of others. And if we're going down that road (which you seem to embrace) a vaccine against a disease with such a low death rate hardly seems a logical place to start. But that's presuming logic is the starting point, a conclusion lacking evidence.
I don't support denying healthcare based on choices. But I heard that some hospitals in Texas have started using it during triage. And there is certainly precedent for that. E.g. try getting a transplant if you are still engaging in the behavior that caused you to need one in the first place. So if a hospital has only one bed available and two people to take it, one of whom is vaccinated experiencing a severe breakthrough case, and another is someone who chose not to get vaccinated, the hospital has to make a choice on who is most likely to survive.
Smoking is already banned in places where it can give other people lung cancer. Cycling and driving is also regulated to reduce risk to other road users and pedestrians.
Putting lives of other people at risk is not your "health choice".
But you're forgetting that currently these vaccines are not really doing a great job at decreasing hospitalizations in at-risk populations. Look at Israel. Thanks.
> CLAIM: The newest Israeli data on COVID-19 infections indicate a complete vaccine failure on every level. The data from Israel shows that nearly all serious cases and deaths are among the vaccinated.
> AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. The claim ignores the fact that Israel has only a fraction of the COVID-19 cases that it had in January, before vaccines were widespread. Furthermore, the majority of adults in Israel are now vaccinated with two Pfizer shots. No vaccine is perfect at preventing breakthrough cases, but the data shows vaccines are reducing the number of people who are severely ill, hospitalized or die from the virus.
we don't require anyone to take the vaccine, and we will never require anyone to take the vaccine. What we should and will do is restrict what someone who is not vaccinated can do to limit the harm they will cause to others. No one is going to bang down your door and force a vaccine into your arm, but if you do not want to get vaccinated you will need to change your life because you will be restricted from participating in many things where you are a danger to others.
Compare: "You can murder someone, but then freedoms will be taken from you, because you could hurt someone with these freedoms. You won't get brainwashed out of it, but if you do commit murder, your freedoms are taken away."
Not arguing against the policy, but it in practice, it _is_ the same.
Society is coercing people into taking the vaccine by requiring it for any activities outside the home. Want to go to the grocery store? Get a vaccine or wear a mask. Want to go to Disneyland? Get a vaccine or wear a mask. Want to attend a conference? Get a vaccine or take a test and wear a mask. The mask and testing mandates are an effort to wear down anti-vaccine people instead of letting them be.
The mask mandates are universal -- everyone is required, vaccinated or not. When they were only advised, it was advised that the unvaccinated wear them. And whether you can go into a privately owned store, privately owned Disneyland, or privately owned conference -- these are private businesses, the gov't should not tell them they cannot require vaccination.
That’s not the case in California. Mask wearing is only required for the unvaccinated. Theme parks and other entertainment venues must follow that mask requirement. Similarly, events of a certain size will require vaccine proof.
Your post sounds pretty good, especially when you don't conclude on what we are allowing by "letting them be", which is to continue the spread of a deadly disease.
There’s a vaccine that has an effective rate of well over 99.9% and is free for everyone in America. The “continued spread of a deadly disease” is among those who choose not to vaccinate. The vast majority of people getting seriously ill and dying in America chose to not get vaccinated AND not changing their habits.
I think it's relatively important to recognize both the right of (the people who make up) a society to decide the rules for interacting in society, and the limits we have imposed on ourselves and the rules we make.
We have made up a huge number of arbitrary rules, some at a very broad scale (for instance, that you must shoes and shirts to go into most businesses), others idiosyncratic and basically between one person and another (no cats in this apartment). They all restrict our choices and our freedom and our actions.
We have also set specific limits on what sort of rules we can make up. You can say "no cats" in an apartment, fine, but you can't say "no pregnant women". You can fire someone for showing up at work one day with a face tattoo but not for changing their religion.
"Not wanting to get a vaccine" or "not wanting to wear a face mask" is not currently a recognized protected class (although not being able to because of a medical condition probably is, but hey, of the many many things I am not, I am not a lawyer). There's nothing saying it couldn't be -- we didn't used to have a concept of "protected class", we just had to make it up at some point -- but that's one way to frame this discussion.
That line of thinking gets pretty interesting when you realize that African-Americans are one of the lowest vaccinated groups. Congratulations, you just reintroduced segregation.
It's not really about you. It's about preventing other, more vulnerable people from getting sick. Living in a society means giving up some of your freedoms in exchange for security, and getting vaccinated as a way to help other people should be part of that exchange.
If you have a suppressed immune system from other medications, then other illnesses like the common cold and the flu can kill you.
This is why people who take immunosuppressants typically avoid going out in public, and when they do they wear serious masks intended to protect them from others.
Immuno-compromised people aren't some isolated hobbit species, they're people like you and me that have jobs, run errands, learn in schools, consume food, often live with other humans who have to go out in public, etc. And new folks with sub-par immune systems are born or created every day.
Many vaccine-resistant folks will throw this population away from the entire risk analysis equation, treating them as a mere error term. At least, this has been my observation. In my opinion they should just admit they don't care about the fate of others beyond the 'thoughts and prayers' passive level.
You're just making things up. Lots of drugs screw with your immunity to various degrees and for the most part they live normal lives. This difference now is we have a very contagious and much more deadly disease.
I think some countries (such as the UK) recognize religious and ethical reasons. For example you can say that you're a vegan and can't take the vaccine because they're tested on animals.
But I'd rather be injected with a litre of smallpox than go vegan.
I don't agree with this, in general. We shouldn't give up our freedoms. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Benjamin Franklin) We should be motivated by a desire to help one another, and resist when freedoms are removed. That being said, if businesses want to exercise their freedoms to make life more difficult for the unvaccinated, so be it.
I think this is for the most part what the person above you is suggesting. B2E and B2C relationships being severed over not getting vaccinated.
In addition like previous precedents, public schools would not allow the unvaccinated in the future. These things all combined would mean individuals would be having to change their lifestyle since they’re choosing not to participate in a way that’s safe for others.
That's a nice thought, but I can't cosign, unless Ben happens to also have an informed opinion on societal life under the tyranny of communicable diseases.
Exactly. Any business can choose to restrict unvaccinated. Any business can fire their employees for being unvaccinated if they want to.
The problem is New York will fine any businesses not checking vaccine passes and are forcing them to turn away unvaccinated.
Ok - so can the unvaccinated start their own restaurants of only unvaccinated? Can we open up our own hospitals with the nurses that were fired from mandates? Can we setup our own public transportation? Why not?
Is it because of the scare mongering about variants? Well people who took the vaccine are also causing variants, actually their supposedly super-high levels of vaccine antibodies are not stopping breakthroughs that much - so they are putting evolutionary pressure on the virus to mutate and evade those antibodies. It makes no sense to blame the unvaccinated for that. So why take away unvaccinated freedoms to setup their own restaurants, services etc? That's not liberty for a business or anyone really, that's fascism.
should the government prescreen all potential romantic partners to stop these vulnerable populations from contracting hepatitis or chlamydia?
surely sexual freedom and bodily autonomy can be put on the bench if more people can be kept safe without them
I may be misunderstanding your meaning, but I think you mean that half of the country does not like Biden, and Biden is requiring everyone to get the vaccine?
Is that happening? I cannot find any federal law of any kind (let alone stemming from the oval office) requiring individuals to get the vaccine.
> I cannot find any federal law of any kind (let alone stemming from the oval office) requiring individuals to get the vaccine.
Does it need to be a law to be compulsory? How many Americans, including employees of numerous branches of the federal government that have said mandates, have the luxury of walking away from their jobs? Things like...
> The Mayor will also be initiating a “Key to NYC Pass,” which is like the Covid-19 passport talked about a few months ago. It's a carrot-and-stick approach, as people will be required to show that they are vaccinated if they want to go to restaurants, gyms and other events. No vaccinations, no entrance. “If you want to participate in society fully, you’ve got to get vaccinated,” de Blasio proclaimed. “If we’re going to stop the Delta variant, the time is now,” said the mayor. “This is going to make clear, you want to enjoy everything great in this summer of New York City? Go get vaccinated.”
> In an interview with MSNBC, de Blasio dialed up his frustration over the unvaccinated. “We’ve got to shake people at this point and say, ‘Come on now.’ We tried voluntary. We could not have been more kind and compassionate. Free testing, everywhere you turn, incentives, friendly, warm embrace. The voluntary phase is over,” de Blasio said last week. “It’s time for mandates, because it’s the only way to protect our people.”
De Blasio is talking about restricting access to entirely optional events and locations based on vaccine status, not mandating anyone get it or else.
Covid is a disease that overwhelmingly targets the obese.
But you can't go to a gym.
Do you consider working out an "optional" endeavor?
Not only is it essential to beating covid, but, working out keeps people sane. More young people have died from increased alcohol abuse, suicide, and drug overdoses than Covid. This all coincides with the insane push to de-humanize humans. We are social creatures. We are active creatures. For the past year and a half we have been denied these human needs. What is optional to you, is essential to others.
Personally, I don't care too much about losing the prospect of eating out, or hanging out in a bar. For others, especially young people seeing their entire social prospects evaporate before their eyes- this is life ending. For me, working out keeps me sane and not suicidal. I don't have the luxury of a home gym.
I chose to continue working out during the pandemic, training at "secret" gyms. For my health and my sanity.
All my other friends in my age group have put on weight and are more unhealthy than they've ever been. How does this help fight the pandemic?
body weight exercises, running, walking, biking, or just getting vaccinated are all options.
Beyond that, I agree that mental health services are essential and should be provided at no cost to anyone who needs it, especially when precautions against a pandemic have a negative affect on mental health.
"Optional events". This isn't how I want to spend the rest of my days. I can't believe my children will have to grow up in this cyberpunk hell hole. These vaccine passports will certainly expand to a full on social credit system. Why not just add more key/value pairs to it and gain nearly total control over the population?
The Department of Homeland Security saying "opposition to COVID measures" makes someone a "potential terror threat" is about as knee-deep in Orwellian propaganda as you can get.
"Through the remainder of 2021, racially- or ethnically-motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists will remain a national threat priority for the United States. These extremists may seek to exploit the emergence of COVID-19 variants by viewing the potential re-establishment of public health restrictions across the United States as a rationale to conduct attacks. Pandemic-related stressors have contributed to increased societal strains and tensions, driving several plots by domestic violent extremists, and they may contribute to more violence this year.
Foreign and domestic threat actors, to include foreign intelligence services, international terrorist groups and domestic violent extremists, continue to introduce, amplify, and disseminate narratives online that promote violence, and have called for violence against elected officials, political representatives, government facilities, law enforcement, religious communities or commercial facilities, and perceived ideologically-opposed individuals. There are also continued, non-specific calls for violence on multiple online platforms associated with DVE ideologies or conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud and alleged reinstatement, and responses to anticipated restrictions relating to the increasing COVID cases."
Why should a University Professor (or some benefactor) have to spend (hundreds? tens) of thousands of dollars defending their naturally derived antibodies? The result of that effort didn't even result in a University making broad exception for those with "suitably up-to-snuff immunities", they just let the one guy teach.
I'm under the impression that the vast majority of mandates have exceptions for existing immunity, no?
This has got to be one of the dumber arguments I've seen made in the media and especially here.
Kamala was saying that if the only person telling her she should get vaccinated was Donald Trump, then no, she would not take it.
The (very clear) implication is that she would prefer that people who actually know what they are talking about (i.e. virologists, doctors, nurses, scientists, the FDA, the CDC, NIH...etc) recommends getting the vaccine, then she would get it enthusiastically.
Is this really too hard to understand or are you really trying to use this extremely flimsy argument to accuse her of hypocrisy?
Why did you omit the first part of the quote? “If the public health professionals … tell me to take I will absolutely take it. But if Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it.”
I think this is a reasonable message of caution when talking about someone pushing HCQ and drinking bleach on the daily.
Does the first part matter in the context of what the OP was talking about? If Trump mandated it many would not take it on that basis alone. That’s the point I’m responding to.
“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the Doctors, tell us we should take it, I'll be the first in line to take it, absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it I'm not taking it.“
Note “But if…”. That programmers aren’t able to parse this if else statement is concerning.
With context it is obvious that she is just saying if Trump alone says take it, then she won't be taking it. Which is understandable in the context of the moment since I believe it had been recently revealed that trump was communicating with the FDA demanding that they approve it immediately.
That's an interesting quote and you're 100% correct. However you only gave a snippet of the quote. The full transcript is:
Commentator: If the Trump administration approves a vaccine before or after the election should Americans take it? And would you take it?
Harris: If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the Doctors, tell us we should take it, I'll be the first in line to take it, absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it I'm not taking it.
Harris is alluding to the fact that we should listen to people who actually have medical experience and know what they're talking about. You have to remember this was only a few months after Trump had tried to play doctor on TV by saying:
"So I asked Bill a question some of you are thinking of if you're into that world, which I find to be pretty interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're gonna test that too, sounds interesting. And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that. So you're going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we'll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it goes in one minute, that's pretty powerful."
She is absolutely right. If trump touts a vaccine but the medical community does not, she wouldn't trust it - and neither should you.
You have to remember at the time trump was recommending hydroxychloroquine as a preventative and miracle treatment for COVID-19. Sadly some of his followers still believe it (and now are looking at ivermectin as well).
> the weird, Orwellian ways that the government talks about it, has turned me against the booster.
You desperately need to take a step back and look at yourself and how you evaluate things.
You decided to go against the booster because of your feelings, not because of science. You want government decisions to be guided by science, and yet you are very clearly anti-science with your decision making.
> To many of you here: imagine the Trump admin trying to require you to take the vaccine in November of last year.
What vaccine? There wasn't a vaccine available until Dec 14th 2020.
Are you trying to say if Trump actually cut corners and made the vaccine available earlier than we should have, then people would be mad? Well... duh. The difference is that the left generally follows what the leaders in the scientific community have to say, not the POTUS. The scientific community would have been against cutting corners.
Agreed. Didn't feel orwellian or coerced at all to go to the doctor and get a meningitis shot before heading off to university. Nor did it feel orwellian to get a covid shot to protect my community.
> because of your feelings, not because of science.
For the unaware, there are multitudes of highly acclaimed scientists and academics around the world from top institutions including Nobel prize winners that are advising caution against the vaccine. You don't just get to choose which "science" you listen to. These voices are massively censored so the public doesn't really get to hear both sides of the argument. The whole "don't talk bad about the vaccine lest `vaccine hesitancy`" is evil and plain anti-science.
Yes this is a great point. The primary concerns & warnings are generally around vaccine induced immune escape, which is a realistic consequence of indiscriminate compulsory mass vaccination [1][2][3][4][5][6].
That said, there is general consensus in the literature that the vaccines are mostly safe for adults in the short term. However for certain sub-populations (eg pediatrics and pregnant women) there isn't enough evidence yet from clinical trials and longitudinal studies to conclude with certainty that the benefits of compulsory mass vaccination outweigh the risks.
Lots of down-votes and no replies tells me this is striking some nerves - anyone care to articulate why you disagree with or do not support these statements?
Almost no one on HN is qualified to take a group of medical journal articles/research papers and form an accurate opinion on the subject.
In fact, trying to do so for most on this forum would probably result in inaccurate views due to misunderstanding the articles and papers.
So people probably downvoted because you have a view on the subject, but no one is qualified to back or oppose it. And we don't know who you are, so how are we supposed to vet your view, or even begin to have a conversation about it?
I didn't downvote (or upvote), but that's my guess.
You're going to get some number of people against anything. 96% of doctors were fully vaccinated by June [1], for example. Does the 4% holdout actually worry anyone? It shouldn't.
You also have to double check beyond headlines. For example, I saw people talking about how the FDA EUA panel wasn't a consensus for Pfizer 16+ back in the day. Turns out, most of the people who were hesitant just wanted to start with 18+, not 16+. That's a huge difference from what some of the headlines were saying.
Given everything else is the same, I would support Trump doing the same vaccine requirements that Biden has done, if Trump hypothetically won the election.
If Trump succeeded at gutting the FDA and installing people like Scott Atlas in order to override the career officials and experts at the FDA, or something similar, then yes my answer would likely be different.
Again, the POTUS at the time has nothing to do with the decision making.
Please don't cross into personal attack on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. It's against the rules here and only makes things worse.
It was more of a plea than an attack, but I can see why it seemed that way. I'd edit it if I could.
And since you're here, why aren't you doing more to [flag/demote/whatever] content where people are saying that Covid booster shots and their requirements are nothing more than "petty tyrants wanting to control what others do."? Surely that's worse than a small attack on the person saying it?
If there are comments breaking the site guidelines that aren't getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see them. There are far too many for us to see them all.
Referring to authorities as "petty tyrants" or whatever probably doesn't count a personal attack unless the "petty tyrant" is personally in the room. I don't think those comments are very high quality, but this is the internet. Trying to raise comment quality is like trying to lift a tsunami. We do what we can.
I don't agree that personal attacks are "small". I think they are particularly poisonous to community.
I agree I could have been better at not attacking the poster. I'll try to do better (though I'm not allowed to fix my mistake due to site restrictions).
I also think that if vaccine misinformation (which includes that vaccine requirements are just petty tyrants controlling people and not based in science, which is the root post here if you couldn't find it) isn't currently against the current guidelines, then that's an issue.
>Anybody who has ever lived under an HOA will recognize this.
My HOA telling me to take Christmas decorations down in January doesn't really equate to the government trying to keep me and my community alive and out of the hospital. Don't like the HOA covenants? Move. Don't want the vaccine? Stay away from places that will now be allowed to require vaccination.
That will be everywhere. Do you not understand what happens when people feel completely subjugated like this? This is a path to total chaos, devastation and destruction.
Don't want the vaccine? Grow your own food. Going to the supermarket is optional.
Don't want the vaccine? Relocate to one of the designated vaccine-free zones.
Don't want the vaccine? Barter with others in the vaccine-free zones, since banking is only really necessary when participating in society.
Don't want the vaccine? Relocate to one of the vaccine-free camps since access elsewhere requires the vaccine. We can't have these underground bartering exchanges emerging.
Don't mind any of the fear-mongering, people, we're just trying to keep the community alive and out of the hospital. It's for everyone's safety and well-being. These undesirables had every chance to get antibodies from the sources we've deemed valid.
> To many of you here: imagine the Trump admin trying to require you to take the vaccine in November of last year. Cities would have burned over it.
It's very political. There's a bunch of screenshots and videos floating around of left-wing people who didn't trust the vaccine because they perceived it as coming from the Trump administration when it was in place. Now that we've swapped presidents, the side of that have flipped - now a bunch of right-wing people don't trust it because they don't trust the Biden administration.
Oddly, it doesn't seem to bother anyone in either of these camps that it was both developed and pushed through initial testing under the Trump administration, and ramped up to full production and usage and edging towards mandates under the Biden administration.
I agree about the politicization. But the two are not equivalent. Reticence to take a brand new vaccine on a brand new technology that is still untested is not even close to the people that are currently decrying it for safety concerns after 150m people have taken it and clinical trials have been completed.
Correction: there are a bunch of screenshots and videos about people saying they would not trust a vaccine just because President Trump said so. Given all of the awful advice that was common from the then-president (e.g.: hydroxychloroquine), that was perfectly reasonable.
You can probably find exceptions, but the widely spread examples I am aware of all then went on to talk about believing it when it came from the CDC and other authorities.
I would argue that there has been little flipping. Those who were not going to get the vaccine under President Trump are also not going to get it under President Biden. The recent "boo"ing of former President Trump at his recent rally when he recommended people get vaccines is just the latest evidence of that.
I don't think you're going to have that option regarding the booster. It is a critical step towards a social credit system that governments won't let go of. Just get the boost
They would say “it’s not FDA approved!” not as the core of their hesitancy, but because they were trying to be appeal to pro-vax peoples decision making framework.
I don’t think we should be able to require them to.
To many of you here: imagine the Trump admin trying to require you to take the vaccine in November of last year. Cities would have burned over it.
And honestly: I was one of the first to take it, but the desire to almost force me to take a booster, and the weird, Orwellian ways that the government talks about it, has turned me against the booster.
It ends up feeling less like the decisions are guided by science and more like they’re guided by petty tyrants wanting to control what others do.
Anybody who has ever lived under an HOA will recognize this.
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