[HN Gopher] Unvaccinated workers who lose jobs ineligible for un...
___________________________________________________________________
Unvaccinated workers who lose jobs ineligible for unemployment
benefits (Canada)
Author : peteradio
Score : 123 points
Date : 2022-01-01 14:10 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (edmontonjournal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (edmontonjournal.com)
| PopeUrbanX wrote:
| Good. Take away their free healthcare, too, so that they stop
| taking up ICU beds that smarter people might need.
| MiroF wrote:
| No. People are stupid along many different axes.
|
| I am not in favor of sentencing people to death just because
| their stupidity happened to lie on the vaccination axis, while
| other stupid people get to live.
| razius wrote:
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| Good.
|
| Do fat people, smokers, and drinkers next.
| Reichhardt wrote:
| Paradoxically, those people actually use _fewer_ healthcare
| resources, and pension resources, since they die earlier
| after retirement.
|
| Healthy people with long, drawn-out illnesses use the
| greatest healthcare and pension resources.
|
| https://taxfoundation.org/new-study-shows-smokers-and-
| obese-...
|
| Vitamin D and air quality is the major underlying factor
| behind COVID severity - its why the virus exhibits such
| seasonality. Pushing vaccines doesn't address underlying
| public health problems.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I would like to push against moral judgement being used to
| determine if treatment should be offered at all. (To be clear:
| I'm a fully vaccinated and boosted person that masks
| consistently.)
|
| My understanding is that the field of medicine is heavily
| against this because they have historical cases where moral
| judgement to deprive care have resulted in human rights abuses
| and medical neglect due to bigotry. It might end up
| disproportionately affecting the homeless, those afflicted with
| addiction, single mothers, and the poor.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| I agree with this comment and am fully vaccinated as well,
| and would like to just comment on the
|
| > (To be clear: I'm a fully vaccinated and boosted person
| that masks consistently.)
|
| Dear COVID scientogists, if you engage in a public discourse
| where your opponents have to write a disclaimer like this to
| prevent getting downvoted, you have failed at civic
| discourses and even if all vaccines were 100% effective and
| had 0 side effects, your behaviour would still be abhorrent.
| MiroF wrote:
| I agreed with GP sentiment (and wrote a similar comment
| myself), but absolutely disagree with your sentiment.
|
| Being able, but unwilling, to get vaccinated substantially
| shifts my priors of where your comment is coming from. It
| is useful information, and I appreciate when people
| disclose it.
|
| If you replace vaccination with an analogous, more
| politically one-sided limit case (say [not being a
| Nazi]:[supporting a policy of Hitler] - in typical
| Godwinian fashion), you can see why this sort of
| information would be useful.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Your line of thinking is a typical ad hominem; you should
| evaluate an argumentation based on its merits, not what
| the meatball behind the online handle happens to do in
| his free time.
| MiroF wrote:
| From a Bayesian perspective, the provenance of the
| information you are basing a decision on is of obvious
| relevance to how you shape your beliefs.
|
| Ad hom is only fallacious if the information really is
| irrelevant to the argument [0][1]
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem [1]: https:
| //www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/e01b9z/is_ad...
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Beware what you wish for. There is no bottom to this rabbit
| hole. _Everyone_ does something potentially harmful to their
| bodies. Drivers, airplane travelers, meat eaters, people who
| stress themselves too much, suicide attempt survivors, people
| who live next to a polluting industrial plant even if they
| could afford to move elsewhere.
|
| There is a reason why the Hippocratic oath does not have
| exceptions for currently unpopular groups. Even captured Nazi
| war criminals weren't denied medical care in prison.
| cmmeur01 wrote:
| Vaxxed in the US here, can you direct me to the free
| healthcare? Thanks.
| PopeUrbanX wrote:
| This post is about Canada.
| [deleted]
| mannanj wrote:
| Its more of the same tactic in politics as used by chief nazi
| propagandists: "Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of
| aggression by specifying the targets for hatred."
|
| It still surprises me how efficiently all our worlds leaders
| shifted blame from them for our shitty covid health response to
| the unvaccinated as though the vaccine was available from the
| beginning.
| theodorejb wrote:
| It seems we are heading in a direction where those who don't take
| the jab will be blocked from receiving government services,
| prevented from patronizing various businesses, and even
| restricted from traveling and the ability to work. Are most
| citizens really okay with this medical apartheid, or are they
| afraid of speaking out against it?
| moh_maya wrote:
| So I don't think we are anywhere close to what you are
| suggesting.
|
| But if it comes down to it, I'm actually completely ok with
| such an approach.
|
| How is this any different than mandating the small pox vaccine,
| or the polio vaccine?
|
| The vaccine dramatically lowers the probability of a severe
| infection; reduces the burden on healthcare systems - which in,
| in many countries apart from the US (for instance, Canada) is a
| public good. And therefore enables hospitals to provide care
| for patients with other diseases; patients who need urgent
| surgical procedures.
|
| Even where there is private healthcare, it still is a public
| resource.
|
| One possible symmetric response to people who refuse to get
| vaccinated is to deny them access to healthcare if they get a
| covid infection and need medical care - But I think that is far
| more draconian and inhumane, and is arguably more akin to
| medical apartheid, than denying those who chose to remain
| unvaccinated (without broadly accepted medical reasons) access
| to public goods when they do not accept their responsibility
| towards public welfare.
| casuaobserv wrote:
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I personally have no issue with this for the well-being of the
| majority and the medically vulnerables, and to make sure our
| healthcare system isn't overwhelmed with COVID cases that could
| otherwise be avoided or at least won't require hospitalization.
| bmeski wrote:
| Hospitalizations are up because the governing health agencies
| are actively making it difficult to access proven
| prophylactic treatments.
|
| (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2021/12/23/us-
| paus...)
|
| Odd thought: Even if ineffective against omicron, why would
| the government pause distribution of any, safe medicine?
| Doctor's should still be allowed to use it as they see fit,
| no?
| [deleted]
| middleclick wrote:
| > blocked from receiving government services
|
| Quite the hyperbole: not all government services, just
| employment insurance and that too if you were only fired for
| not receiving the vaccine. A reminder that in many of these
| jobs, there was already a requirement for getting a set of
| vaccines so this is not new. Though for some people, this
| vaccine is "different" but once you ask them to explain why
| they can't. So no new rules. You needed vaccines for most of
| the jobs and this just an additional one.
|
| You will still receive employment insurance for other stuff,
| irrespective of your vaccination status.
|
| > prevented from patronizing various businesses
|
| You are not prevented from accessing essential businesses and
| no one checks your vaccination status or even asks for one.
|
| > even restricted from traveling and the ability to work
|
| You are still free to drive to work or take local public
| transit.
|
| The difference between ICU rates of unvaccinated and vaccinated
| people in Ontario for example tells us that the vaccination is
| working:
|
| https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2...
|
| ^ Please see the above graph.
|
| If you cannot participate in society moving forward, then you
| should not expect society to cater to your needs.
| zo1 wrote:
| > "You are still free to drive to work or take local public
| transit."
|
| Then the whole point of this thing is pointless. We're
| selectively punishing people. We don't prevent or punish
| _positive cases_ from going around to work, public transport,
| etc and infecting others, yet we punish people that choose to
| simply not vaccinate.
|
| > "If you cannot participate in society moving forward, then
| you should not expect society to cater to your needs."
|
| Just like to point out that you can use the same line of
| reasoning for a host of other things, even unrelated to
| medical themes. Like say allowing facial recognition cameras
| in all homes to prevent domestic violence and child abuse.
| Yet most people supposedly stand on principle against it,
| despite the "pragmatism" of it. Likewise we should be
| standing here on plain old and impractical "body autonomy"
| and protecting people's personal medical choices.
|
| It just depends on how far you want to take the hyperbole and
| how far you want to extrapolate the doomsday predictions that
| flow from this. E.g. How about state-mandated abortions for
| down-syndrome? Or preventing pro-creation of known carriers
| of genetic disorders? Look at how we tip-toed around aids
| after we eventually acknowledged it.
|
| As a side note, we should all be worried about how this
| entire world-incident is allowing laws and understandings
| that we've had and worked on attaining for decades if not
| centuries to be simply and casually bypassed under some
| banner of "safety", "science" and pragmatism. There has to be
| a better way to deal with this and as you say, move society
| forward instead of backward.
| middleclick wrote:
| > Then the whole point of this thing is pointless. We're
| selectively punishing people. We don't prevent or punish
| positive cases from going around to work, public transport,
| etc and infecting others, yet we punish people that choose
| to simply not vaccinate.
|
| It's not pointless. Unvaccinated people are far far more
| likely to occupy the hospital and the ICU -- see above. How
| is that pointless? I am not talking about positivity as
| that is not relevant. See the official numbers above.
|
| Your hyperbole is not valid as these jobs already required
| vaccinations so I am not sure what the new outrage is.
| mthoms wrote:
| >Then the whole point of this thing is pointless. We're
| selectively punishing people. We don't prevent or punish
| positive cases from going around to work, public transport,
| etc and infecting others, yet we punish people that choose
| to simply not vaccinate.
|
| Simply not true. Defying a public health order is illegal.
| dontcare007 wrote:
| 14 wrote:
| Health care worker here in Canada. It's complete BS. I can't
| believe it. Where are the protests I want in. Sadly if you have
| ever visited r/Canada it is full of people who believe this
| kind of thing is the right thing to do. I have to believe it is
| a state campaign with dozens of fake accounts promoting a
| narrative. This is too messed up for January 1st 2022.
| mindslight wrote:
| I for one would be speaking out against it, but I'm tired of my
| tolerance for regressive views being taken advantage of. The
| anti-vax thing was cute when it was maybe 5% of the population
| and created the occasional localized outbreak. I'm still a
| libertarian, but the biggest destruction of my freedom here
| (apart from Covid itself) has been top-down political
| disinformation campaigns absolutely derailing the public health
| response. They're playing off the flaws of our society to herd
| people into utterly destructive directions, and I'm not going
| to argue that people being taken in by nonsensical propaganda
| are somehow being virtuous.
| vidarh wrote:
| It's incredibly offensive to compare differences in treatment
| based on some people's choice to knowingly putting others at
| risk with oppression on the basis of something people could not
| change.
| bmeski wrote:
| I work for a major news organization in the US and am willing
| to lose my highly paid job to assert my rights.
|
| I desperately urge others who are also capable to take such a
| hit to follow suit.
|
| Edit: Note, I'm also vaccinated. J&J March 2020.
| mwattsun wrote:
| Could you elaborate a bit on what right you are asserting? I
| don't think I'm alone in not understanding what right you are
| fighting for. You're asking me to take a stand without
| telling me what I'm taking a stand for.
| bmeski wrote:
| Mandated COVID-19 vaccination of individuals with the
| current EUA approved vaccines.
|
| The devil is in the details. The EUA designation was pushed
| through because there was no other, "obvious" treatment
| (despite proven efficacy of a combination of prophylactic
| treatments).
|
| They are testing this thing on us. Even if it works I do
| not consent to be tested on.
| scrollaway wrote:
| As someone who actually tested a vaccine in phase 3
| voluntarily, please do not put yourself in the same group
| as me.
|
| You got a jab hundreds of millions of people got. I got a
| jab a few thousand of people got.
|
| I got to install an app and log all sorts of things on it
| every couple days. You didn't have to do that.
|
| You received a QR code to allow you to participate in a
| variety of things. I didn't, and had to even-more-
| experimentally mix and match my untested vaccine with an
| EMA approved one so I could get a Covid safe ticket.
|
| I'm fine by the way.
| mwattsun wrote:
| Where do you derive your right to consent or not? I could
| say I have the right to not have my body put in jail, but
| I have no basis for that.
| bmeski wrote:
| Item 1 of the Nuremberg Code.
|
| "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely
| essential. This means that the person involved should
| have legal capacity to give consent; should be so
| situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice,
| without the intervention of any element of force, fraud,
| deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of
| constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient
| knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the
| subject matter involved, as to enable him to make an
| understanding and enlightened decision. This latter
| element requires that, before the acceptance of an
| affirmative decision by the experimental subject, there
| should be made known to him the nature, duration, and
| purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which
| it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards
| reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his
| health or person, which may possibly come from his
| participation in the experiment."
| dekhn wrote:
| The current application of the vaccine at scale is not
| being done with "human subjects" (that research was
| already done, on consenting subjects). It doesn't apply
| in situations where the legal authority has authorized
| the treatment.
|
| Trotting out the nuremberg code for a vaccine intended to
| help reduce world suffering (that is being used in a
| moral ways) is in poor taste, in my opinion. It was
| written because Nazis were using Jewish and other people
| in scientific experiments that make vaccine trials look
| pleasant.
|
| Also, all the necessary information for you to make a
| decision according to the code has already been provided
| to you, and the US government (not sure about others) has
| a constitutionally supported right to mandate that you
| take a vaccine.
| mwattsun wrote:
| _The Code has not been officially accepted as law by any
| nation or as official ethics guidelines by any
| association. In fact, the Code 's reference to
| Hippocratic duty to the individual patient and the need
| to provide information was not initially favored by the
| American Medical Association._ Wikipedia
|
| First, you would have to find a jurisdiction that
| officially accepted the Nuremberg code and move there,
| second you would have to prove that the Covid vaccination
| program was a medical experiment and third you would have
| to explain why you accepted prior vaccinations that were
| part of a public health program (such as polio
| vaccinations)
|
| I reject your call to take a stand because I don't think
| there's anything to stand on or any right that I'm
| losing.
| [deleted]
| some-guy wrote:
| egberts1 wrote:
| theodorejb wrote:
| sto_hristo wrote:
| I'm pretty fine with that. I'm also fine with taking driving
| rights away from people caught driving drunk.
| leeoniya wrote:
| i've always wondered how anti-vaxxers would feel about sending
| their children to schools exclusively for anti-vaxxers. is this
| something they would feel no hesitation in doing, or do they
| actually appreciate that their unvaccinated kids are surrounded
| by others' vaccinated kids?
|
| and also does there exist a sufficient amount of medical
| professionals to agree to service an all-anti-vaxxer school
| without complaint?
| bmeski wrote:
| Within my family, they weigh the risks of what they believe
| the side-effects are and the disease.
|
| They all live in very remote areas with few people so the
| risk is low to begin with. They aren't entirely
| "unintelligent", and I respect their decisions.
| leeoniya wrote:
| the problem is
|
| 1. infectious disease that can kill others. it's great that
| they are remote, but they still interact with others
| sometimes. no one requires them to wear warning signs. as
| numerous others have pointed out, it's like drunk driving.
| drinking while driving is not just personal choice, even if
| it seems like just you minding your own alcohol.
|
| 1a. even if the disease itself is not sufficient to kill
| people but causes them to seek medical attention, beyond
| the capacity of the healthcare system, this means worse
| outcomes for those who could not have avoided ending up in
| the hospital.
|
| 2. ask what doctors think about treating them when they get
| polio or things we havent seen in many generations.
|
| even intelligent people are terrible at assessing risk in
| areas where they are not professionals. see how many
| doctors are antivaxxers, how many security professionals
| click on https://chase.myaccount.com links, etc.
| jquery wrote:
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Yes, I am ok with society not supporting those who choose to
| actively work against its well being. This isn't a slippery
| slope situation, let's not get carried away with that. Either
| do your patriotic duty, or do the selfish thing and suffer the
| consequences.
| mynameishere wrote:
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| apartheid was a racist policy that discriminated against people
| based on their skin color... you're comparing this to mandating
| a vaccine that dramatically reduces the hospitalization rate
| during an international pandemic that has killed more than 5
| million people in 2 years
| peteradio wrote:
| > dramatically reduces the hospitalization rate
|
| When administered to the at risk population. When required
| for young, hospitalization system impact would be marginal.
| middleclick wrote:
| Not correct. Here is the official source:
|
| https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/12/2...
|
| Please cite your sources.
| torstenvl wrote:
| Your link does not address age-specific hospitalization
| effects of vaccination. As a result, it is non-responsive
| to the GP's position. If you posted the wrong link and
| meant to post one that addresses GP's point of view,
| would you mind fixing the link? On the other hand, on the
| off chance it was intentional, please try to engage with
| more honesty and more in good faith.
| middleclick wrote:
| torstenvl wrote:
| middleclick wrote:
| torstenvl wrote:
| I'm feeling more and more confident that your comments
| are intentionally snide and personal, so I'm going to bow
| out. Happy New Year to you and I hope 2022 brings you
| much joy and happiness.
| middleclick wrote:
| So no rebuttal, again.
|
| I hope the people reading this thread can make it out for
| themselves what our positions are.
|
| Enjoy your day.
| dang wrote:
| Please do not propagate flamewars on HN. We don't want
| this kind of thing here.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and
| taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart,
| we'd be grateful.
| dang wrote:
| Please do not propagate flamewars on HN. We don't want
| this kind of thing here.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and
| taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart,
| we'd be grateful.
| [deleted]
| peteradio wrote:
| That is all people lumped together. Like I said remove
| "at-risk".
| middleclick wrote:
| Cool.
|
| https://health-
| infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s...
|
| Which groups are not "at-risk" here? What age? Because it
| seems like there is a significant % of the population in
| groups other than 80+ that are in the hospital.
| peteradio wrote:
| Under 50 has 20% of ICU cases (how many are incidental
| and without comorbidity?).
| middleclick wrote:
| You are the one who made the claim that age is relevant
| to this when it is not as if the ICUs are full, it
| impacts everyone.
|
| So maybe find the source and share it here since you are
| the one who made the argument? Burden of proof is on you,
| not me.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| You don't need to share your results, but try to find the
| answer to that question. I have done so and it's a
| terrible uphill battle and, for most data points, left
| only to anecdotal evidence.
|
| In my case I was looking for covid case data in children
| broken down by age. The only data I found was over 18 and
| under 18. It wasn't until recently when 0-4, 5-12 and
| 12-18 age group data was shared. So while I understand
| your point, it's doing a disservice to the actual problem
| at hand and thats enabling others to make advised
| choices.
| peteradio wrote:
| middleclick wrote:
| So still no source, just your anecdotes and feelings. Got
| it.
|
| How scientific.
|
| https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/vaccinated-workers-
| shed-l...
|
| > Vaccinated people with breakthrough COVID infections
| had lower viral loads
|
| So to summarize:
|
| 1) Vaccinated people are far less burden on the
| healthcare system than unvaccinated and far far less to
| occupy an ICU.
|
| 2) Vaccinated people have lower viral loads
|
| 3) The people suddenly upset about COVID had to get many
| other vaccines to be even eligible for the job but
| somehow this is "political"
| dang wrote:
| You posted a bunch of flamewar comments in this thread,
| and have broken the site guidelines in other ways too.
| That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do it. I don't
| want to ban you, so if you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and
| stick to the rules from now on, we'd appreciate it.
| peteradio wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please do not post flamewar comments to HN, and please
| omit personal swipes from your posts here. We've had to
| ask you this more than once before.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| FourthProtocol wrote:
| I've been vaccinated 3 times. But. 5m out of 7 billion on
| Earth. The WHO is making rumblings of downgrading pandemic to
| endemic. Your body is all you _really_ have so if someone
| chooses to not get vaccinated I believe that to be their (and
| my) right. I won 't have that decision made for me and I
| won't make that decision for another, except my boy, who is
| too young to decide for himself. Just like my parents
| vaccinated me against Polio without asking me first.
| MiroF wrote:
| You are free to make that decision. You are also free to
| not have a source of income.
| yostrovs wrote:
| MiroF wrote:
| seneca wrote:
| This is absurd authoritarian double talk. That's like
| saying you're free to speak your mind, but you're also
| free to be executed for it.
|
| The government punishing you for an action you take
| (including indirectly, but purposefully) is a pretty good
| starting point for a definition of not being free to do
| it.
| ukj wrote:
| That is pretty absurd anti-authoritarian double talk
| also. Comparing mandates with executions.
|
| The government isn't punishing you in their capacity of
| law enforcer. They are disassociating themselves from you
| in their capacity of your employer.
|
| There is literally nothing the government (in any of its
| capacities) can do to you which would toggle your
| vaccination status without your consent. They will
| (dis)incentivise you accordingly but they can't stick a
| needle in your arm.
|
| Irrespective of how you define "medical freedom" the
| government NOT handcuffing you and sticking a needle in
| your arm against your will is precisely how I expect my
| medical autonomy to work in practice.
| christofosho wrote:
| The vaccine is not mandatory in Canada.
| PixyMisa wrote:
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Jdndjdork wrote:
| middleclick wrote:
| [deleted]
| finite_jest wrote:
| Not de jure, but it seems they are trying to make it so
| de facto.
| mannanj wrote:
| Are you really straw manning the poster? to say "racism"
| cannot be compared to covid discrimination and that making
| the comparison makes him or his argument any "less than" is
| an emotional character assassination based argument not
| merits based one.
|
| If you're looking for a response to your numbers that you
| pulled out, we still have many worse diseases and our leaders
| economic policies during covid impacted and hurt more people
| than the "5 million dead"
|
| I also didn't see you or anyone complaining about the
| obesity; diabetes, car crashes; depression and other far
| worse epidemics that we've had induced by our same shitty
| health agencies that sell us the covid cure today.
| ukj wrote:
| So many wannabe martyrs.
|
| So few hills to martyr yourself on.
|
| The universe doesn't care about your rights - asserting them
| doesn't end pandemics.
| iqanq wrote:
| Taking the current COVID vaccines won't end any pandemics,
| either.
| ukj wrote:
| Do you have a better strategy, or are you just practicing
| fallacies?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
| dazilcher wrote:
| "We must do something. This is something."
| iqanq wrote:
| I am responding to your comment - you say that asserting
| your rights by not taking the vaccine won't end the
| pandemic, while I am saying that taking it won't end it
| either.
| ukj wrote:
| Almost as if reducing mortality/hospitalization is an
| irrelevant metric to you.
|
| Almost as if an abstract social construct as "rights" is
| more important to you than actual health.
| iqanq wrote:
| Yes, personal freedom is to me infinitely more important
| than the health of others.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Is your freedom primary?
|
| Like if a group of people banded together and said that
| they didn't want to associate with unvaccinated people,
| should they have the freedom to do that without
| interference from the unvaccinated?
| variola wrote:
| I suppose you also think Typhoid Mary got a raw deal?
|
| What on earth makes you think your personal freedom is
| more important than the health of others?
|
| You have no right to harm others.
| ukj wrote:
| If that were true, and you were willing to allow me the
| same level of freedom as you demand for yourself then
| surely my freedom to harm you trumps your well-being?
| iqanq wrote:
| Your freedom to attack me physically? No, because you
| don't have to do anything not to attack me - you just
| don't.
|
| Your freedom not to get vaccinated? Evidently, since
| getting vaccinated is a medical procedure. I can't force
| you to go through it.
| ukj wrote:
| Freedom *noun* the power to act, think and speak as one
| wants.
|
| I can physically attack you if I want to and in your very
| own words my freedom is infinitely more important than
| your health.
|
| What is confusing you?
| vidarh wrote:
| And our personal freedoms are worth enough to us to
| justify limiting our exposure to people like you. You
| have no right to impose yourself on us.
| bmeski wrote:
| You seem to misunderstand the entire reason the U.S. was
| created.
|
| Don't like it, leave. Seriously.
| dekhn wrote:
| Note that the Supreme Court validated Jacobson vs.
| Massachusetts, supporting the right of the government to
| mandate vaccines (remember, George Washington mandated
| vaccines for his troops) and showing that the power of
| the state ultimately trumps the freedoms of people.
|
| Honestly, you're making arguments (in multiple comments)
| that make you look petulant, rather than providing a
| reasonable argument againt vaccine mandates.
| spaginal wrote:
| The Supreme Court also validated slavery and other
| actions that proved to be incredibly damaging to the
| society.
|
| As for George Washington, if you are attempting to make
| the argument that the government has a right to inoculate
| it's military soldiers during war time against a disease,
| so be it, there is your precedent to argue upon.
| Furthermore, Washington has a habit of requiring many
| things, including the Militia Acts which required every
| able bodied male to own a military firearm. I don't
| currently see an argument to enforce that idea. Pick and
| choose.
|
| But using his small pox inoculation program from the
| 1700's and a tiny military of rag tag farmer soldiers as
| a basis to go after an entire free and educated society
| of hundreds of millions in the 2000's for an experimental
| vaccine, you are stretching this further than it could
| go.
|
| The information is out there for people to make decisions
| now. They've made it, make a better argument.
| dekhn wrote:
| If you're referring Dred Scott, I agree the Supreme Court
| validated slavery (this is at least one of the causes of
| the Civil War). That is, the decision had such
| consequence that the nation was nearly split, and after
| the war, several amendments were added that overrode the
| Court.
|
| I don't see anybody gearing up to have a civil war over
| vaccines, just a bunch of "make a better argument for why
| you have the right to tell me I have to do this, with
| economic or social consequences if I don't" responses.
| The military already exited folks who didn't comply with
| COVID vaccines, and the Biden administration has already
| requested that the SC officially rule on workplace
| mandates (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21A24
| 4/206997/2021...).
| xyzzyz wrote:
| The case you're quoting supported an insubstantial fine
| as a penalty for not vaccinating, not instituting medical
| apartheid.
| dekhn wrote:
| The penalty in the case is irrelevant to the nature of
| the government's power. Also equating vaccines to
| apartheid is unrealistic and in poor taste.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| No, it is very much relevant. And, systematic denial of
| employment, education, access to government services etc
| to a group based on a medical condition very much is
| apartheid. It is in poor taste to deny it, but I guess
| the apologists in South Africa were legalistically
| talking about "nature of the government's power" too.
| ukj wrote:
| As it happens I am a naturalized South African - married
| to a black woman who had to endure apartheid.
|
| I recited your argument to her and I am quoting her
| response in saying... "you are a f-ing idiot - I had no
| choice in being born black and I had no way of becoming
| white to avoid the consequences of apartheid. The
| unvaccinated have a choice - they are just choosing not
| to exercise it."
|
| You have falsely equated the two scenarios by abstracting
| away the thing which matters most: the choice to improve
| your situation.
| josephcsible wrote:
| If discrimination is only wrong because of lack of choice
| of the discriminated trait, then why is it wrong to
| discriminate based on people's religion? Or would you say
| that it isn't?
| ukj wrote:
| I would say that there is not a single non-religious
| human being on this planet.
|
| Human rights are a religion - they don't exist. We made
| them up so we can coexist; and so that we can improve the
| quality of our lives.
|
| What makes discrimination wrong is that it diminishes the
| well-being of the discriminated against.
|
| So you are welcome to insist that your well-being is
| being diminished by vaccine mandates but it would be a
| peculiar argument since most people are choosing to
| vaccinate because it improves their well-being.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| It is still your choice to choose a religion over
| another, even if we assume all humans are religious.
| Going by your train of thought, everything you said could
| apply to discriminating against Muslims not because they
| are religious but because they are specifically Muslim.
| They can chose not to be at any moment, and I as a Muslim
| can become Christian and still be religious. That
| definition of discrimination is so weird too, as if it's
| tailored to enable someone to arbitrarily pick and chose
| what they feel like is discrimination or not.
|
| Like you realize most of those who champion
| racial/religious/etc argue it's for the well-being of
| people? That's literally the basis for "separate but
| equal", and reminds me of those who say that a racially
| homogeneous europe is better not only for Europeans but
| also but for the immigrants if they stay in their
| country.
|
| And by the way, no one is saying voluntary vaccination
| shouldn't be allowed, so again your last point is not
| really relevant. Those who don't want to vaccinate also
| choose to do so because it improves their well-being
| (which is a very subjective metric)
| ukj wrote:
| You seem to be struggling with the fact that objective
| morality is a social construct.
|
| It's not about WHO makes the decision. It's about the
| inherent quality of the decision being made irrespective
| of who makes it.
|
| Of course it's your choice to drive your car into a wall
| at 200km/h, but in the way society uses the word
| "objectively" and "true" it is objectively true that
| driving into a wall at 200km/h is detrimental to your
| well-being. And it is objectively true that in doing so
| you are making a bad decision.
|
| In the same way that is objectively true that seatbelts
| save lives, it is objectively true that vaccines save
| lives. Therefore not doing what's conducive to your well-
| being is a bad choice.
|
| The metrics, measurements and methods used to arrive at
| these conclusions are as objective as empiricism allows
| for.
|
| >Those who don't want to vaccinate also choose to do so
| because it improves their well-being
|
| Yes. They using the exact same words. Are you convinced
| by their arguments? I am not.
|
| What I am convinced of is how intellectually dishonest
| they are in parroting words without bringing evidence to
| the table.
| ukj wrote:
| You seem to misunderstand the entire reason humans form
| societies.
|
| Strength in numbers. Economies of scale. Division of
| labour.
|
| The collective well-being of individuals.
|
| If you don't like all the social perks and safety nets
| you are enjoying - go be a hermit.
| evgen wrote:
| The reality of the situation seems to be that we have all
| decided upon the proper collective course of action and
| you are the one who is in denial.
|
| You are the one who seems to have no clue why nations
| form, why this particular nation came into being, and
| what demands it has made over and over upon its citizens
| for the benefit of their fellow Americans. If you do not
| like it then you are the one who should leave. We, the
| many, are happy to show you the door and will help you
| pack your bags. Seriously.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Covid is now endemic - that is the scientific consensus.
|
| Are you suggesting that we permanently give up our right to
| decide what medications to take?
|
| Taking a vaccine is a forced medical procedure for the benefit
| of someone other than the individual. I'm fully vaccinated and
| boosted, but I recognize that effectively forcing this upon
| people by denying them fundamental rights and services, is not
| ethical, and sets an intolerable precedent.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Several vaccines are already mandated for a variety of travel
| to countries, jobs etc.
|
| Covid is not new in that regard and all this nonsense about
| an "intolerable precedent" is ridiculous. The precedent has
| been around with us for a long time and we've been fine with
| it. The only reason this comes up now is because of increased
| visibility on it.
| bmeski wrote:
| The issue is much more nuanced.
|
| I will gladly take an FDA approved vaccine like any other
| for such reasons.
|
| None of the available ones right now are. Yes even Pfizer
| isn't as the approved Pfizer vax (Comirnaty) is not the
| same exact vaccine as the one currently available/being
| used.
|
| Edit: In short, many of us fear that the regulatory
| processes that govern our healthcare have been hijacked by
| corporate interest. We all know this leads to corners being
| cut as that's inevitably how businesses are run.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Why do you think specifically this has to do with
| corporate interests?
|
| Doesn't Occam's razor say that it's just the fact the
| pandemic is destroying society and there is immense
| pressure from everywhere to accelerate usually very slow
| and bureaucratic processes because the risk reward ratio
| is completely different than the one for a vaccine for
| more contained diseases?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamewar comments like this. It just takes
| threads further into flamewar hell--exactly what we don't want
| here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| (We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29758995.)
| egberts1 wrote:
| More healthcare professionals for the United States (or as some
| would say, Red States).
| yostrovs wrote:
| I've been asking friends that believe in such punishments whether
| they would have punished gay people in the 1990s that got AIDS.
| Condoms are extremely effective at preventing transmission.
| Invariably no one wants to go there. Gay people with AIDS that
| didn't use a condom are to be cried over in our society, while
| those with COVID that didn't take the vaccine are to be punished.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| onos wrote:
| In USA at least vaccination rates strongly correlate with
| class and so races with more poverty have higher unvaccinated
| rates - blacks and Hispanics. But the advocates here seem to
| follow the meme that the unvaccinated are all trump
| supporting deplorables...
| MiroF wrote:
| Beyond the other obvious problems with your comment, you're
| also missing the fact that many of the people dying of AIDS
| died 10+ years after contracting the virus, substantially
| before any of the science on HIV spread was settled.
| yostrovs wrote:
| By the 1990s you would have had to live under a rock not to
| know to use condoms.
| MiroF wrote:
| Dying in the 1990s of AIDS likely means you acquired the
| disease in the early to mid 80s, you clearly are unaware of
| the science behind the disease.
| scott_w wrote:
| You can't spread HIV just by sitting next to someone. Your
| analogy also doesn't hold at all because countries DO punish
| people for knowingly infecting others with HIV.
| yostrovs wrote:
| You can spread HIV by having sex with someone and not using a
| condom. You might not even know you have HIV, so using a
| condom is essential in any case.
| scott_w wrote:
| You can spread Covid to an entire roomful of people just by
| sitting in it. The two things aren't even remotely
| comparable. To suggest otherwise is to repeat the
| homophobic prejudices of the original HIV pandemic.
| ausbah wrote:
| you don't transmit AIDS, you trasmit HIV
|
| and not sure who you're hanging with, but as a sexually active
| gay man I've never heard of no condom usage for _anyone_ being
| seen as acceptable unless there is consent between all parties
| crisdux wrote:
| Lots of people in this thread are arguing the "do the vaccines
| reduce spread thing" as justification for or against this policy.
| I don't think that even matters.
|
| These vaccines have risks that are not being opening discussed.
| There is an unprecedented systematic campaign of censorship,
| deception and propaganda aimed at people who question anything
| about these vaccines. Vaccine injuries are real. The performance
| of these vaccines are not meeting expectations. They should not
| be mandated, full stop. We need a system based on informed
| consent, not coercion.
| simonh wrote:
| There have been extensive studies of the risks of these
| vaccines, both during their trials and after public use, and
| these studies are continuing.
|
| The regulators on several counties including the US have even
| publicly registered concerns about several of the vaccines,
| particularly the J&J single dose vaccine. None of these studies
| have been suppressed or censored, and they are ongoing and I
| see debate about them going on in the press and on forums like
| this all the time.
|
| Some social media platforms ban provably false statements on
| this and other topics, and sometimes those restrictions go too
| far. That is not the same thing as banning all public debate.
| crisdux wrote:
| There have not been extensive studies. The original long term
| safety studies from the vaccine trials were stopped. There
| are huge issues in the original trials, they were not done
| with the rigor that we've come to expect from previous
| vaccines.
|
| There are plenty of examples of people who have disagreed
| with current vaccine policy and them being censored or
| destroyed- and have the bills to show for it! We even have
| emails from leaders of the federal government that show they
| engage in these tactics routinely. Honestly I don't know how
| people don't see these tactics being played every day.
|
| Your "side" is led by a man who claims "he is science" and
| anyone who disagrees with him is "disagreeing with science."
| Give me a break.
| peteradio wrote:
| > That is not the same thing as banning all public debate.
|
| It is throwing water on discussion at critical times
| simultaneous to strong government intervention which resets
| the discussion to the new overton window. You don't need to
| ban public debate you just play talk to the hand and call
| anyone who disagrees with you probably racist and or russian
| dissonance.
| occz wrote:
| peteradio wrote:
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Well, when you invent a slur and define it to mean whatever you
| want you can find many examples of it.
|
| I have had three coronavirus jabs. I think mandates are
| hysterical and counterproductive and I resist surveillance.
|
| Being anti lockdown, anti surveillance, anti discrimination...
| generally just anti hysteria, is the only correct choice.
| theduder99 wrote:
| 14 wrote:
| This is complete BS and I say that as a vaccinated health care
| worker. They are now considering putting sick but vaccinated
| workers back to work instead of not sick but unvaccinated. How
| can they justify that? It seems pretty obvious they are not
| worried about public health but rather some sort of control over
| people. Do as we say or you will be punished. I am feeling
| disgraced as a Canadian. And am sorry for my fellow workers who
| choose not to get vaccinated and lost their jobs.
| kstenerud wrote:
| To clarify for non-Canadians:
|
| EI benefits are generally only given if you lose your employment
| through no fault of your own (didn't quit or get fired). What
| this policy does is clarify that losing work hours or your job
| due to vaccine refusal after a workplace vaccination mandate
| (outside of medical exemptions) does NOT count as "through no
| fault of your own", and instructs employers to indicate as such.
|
| So: For the duration of the pandemic, if your workplace mandates
| COVID vaccination and you refuse and then get fired over it,
| you're not eligible for EI any more than you would be if you got
| fired for cause.
| LaunchAway1 wrote:
| That's an interesting point to make and defendable but these
| declarations mentioned in another comment, I will assume to be
| true, coming from Trudeau, Canada's president:
|
| "They don't believe in science/progress and are very often
| misogynistic and racist....This leads us, as a leader and as a
| country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?"
|
| I have taken both shots, and will take the third but these
| declarations are appropriate for a mad man, not a country
| leader.
| [deleted]
| finite_jest wrote:
| FYI, Canada does not have a president. Trudeau is the prime
| minister. However, you are right in that his quote (which I
| think was in French originally) is just awful name-calling.
| criticaltinker wrote:
| Yes and this type of doublespeak is coming from the top down
| in many countries.
|
| It's alarming because "they don't believe in science" has
| become a divisive weapon that hand waves away all scientific
| nuance.
|
| The vast majority of young healthy people are completely
| asymptomatic, they don't need a vaccine, nor would it be a
| wise investment of limited doses.
|
| Also, previous infection confers protection that is at least
| as effective as vaccination. This has been consistently
| observed since the beginning of the pandemic.
|
| Vaccines can save the lives of many vulnerable people though;
| it's an amazing tool and its use is certainly justified by
| science.
|
| But using economic and financial engineering to force
| _everyone_ to get vaccinated? There is no scientific evidence
| supporting that decision, and the second and third order
| consequences are completely unstudied. (evolution of viral
| resistance is one example; many experts are aware of the
| phenomenon but commenters here have been misled to believe
| that an airborne virus circulating the planet can be
| eradicated 'if only everyone got vaccinated')
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _The vast majority of young healthy people are completely
| asymptomatic, they don't need a vaccine, nor would it be a
| wise investment of limited doses._
|
| Of course they need a vaccine. Just because you don't have
| symptoms does not mean (a) that you're not carrying it, and
| (b) can't infect someone who may not be as healthy as you.
|
| Further it's difficult to predict ahead of time how an
| individual will react to being infected. A 20-year-old
| takes up an ICU bed just as effectively as a 40- or
| 60-year-old: they're less _likely_ , but it can still
| happen. Which is why people in higher risk profiles get
| priority. But just because certain folks may get things
| first doesn't mean other shouldn't later.
|
| COVID can also mutate just as well in a young person as an
| older person.
|
| > _But using economic and financial engineering to force_
| everyone _to get vaccinated? There is no scientific
| evidence supporting that decision, and the second and third
| order consequences are completely unstudied._
|
| The unvaccinated make up the vast majority of hospital and
| ICU admissions. And by "majority" we're talking about
| 90-100% in many places. "Unvaccinated 60 times more likely
| to end up in ICU with COVID-19, Ontario data shows":
|
| * https://globalnews.ca/news/8230051/covid-vaccine-
| hospitaliza...
|
| And then if someone who _is_ vaccinated perhaps has a
| serious (car) accident or heart attack and there are no ICU
| beds for them.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's so weird. For a website whose audience largely works
| in tech, where thinking _in terms of systems_ is part of
| our education and career training, there is a shocking
| lack of systems thinking here when it comes to COVID.
| While it might not make sense individually for a
| particular person to get vaccinated, it does make sense
| when you think in terms of the societal system. We are
| faced with a society-sized problem that requires
| collective coordinated action, and it 's not going to be
| solved thinking only in terms of what makes sense for
| each individual in a vacuum.
| leereeves wrote:
| > and there are no ICU beds for them
|
| According to the CBC, the lack of available hospital beds
| pre-dates Covid and exists even when Covid case counts
| are low. From _Why Ontario hospitals are full to
| bursting, despite few COVID-19 patients_ :
|
| _" The data suggests many hospitals have returned to the
| overcrowding levels seen before the pandemic, when CBC
| News revealed hospitals filled beyond capacity nearly
| every single day, with patients housed in hallways,
| conference rooms and cafeterias not as exceptional cases,
| but as a matter of routine.[1]"_
|
| It's unfair to scapegoat the unvaccinated for systemic
| failures that aren't really due to Covid at all.
|
| 1: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-
| hospital-occu...
| throw0101a wrote:
| Saying that adding more load to an already overloaded
| system is fine isn't as helpful to the argument as you
| think...
| leereeves wrote:
| I'm not claiming it's fine. I'm vaccinated and I try to
| convince others to get vaccinated.
|
| But many people contribute to the problem with a variety
| of unhealthy life choices, and blaming one particular
| group for the problem, and writing policies to punish
| that group (many of whom also happen to be the PM's
| political opponents), is the worst kind of politics.
|
| And suggesting that the lack of healthcare in Canada is
| caused by the unvaccinated is simply dishonest.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _But many people contribute to the problem with a
| variety of unhealthy life choices, and blaming one
| particular group for the problem, and writing policies to
| punish that group (many of whom also happen to be the PM
| 's political opponents), is the worst kind of politics._
|
| Most other unhealthy life choices are low-moving train
| wrecks and can be accommodated for: it's not like the
| obesity and diabetes rates go from 15% to 40% in the span
| of six months. A good portion people's choices can be
| accommodated for 'simply' by looking at trend lines and
| planning accordingly.
|
| > _And suggesting that the lack of healthcare in Canada
| is caused by the unvaccinated is simply dishonest._
|
| Any problems that _any_ healthcare system in the world
| had were (and are being) exacerbated by the sudden surge
| of COVID patients. The unvaccinated-by-choice are
| needlessly making things worse for a whole lot of people
| who need a hospital /ICU bed through no fault of their
| won.
| bsaul wrote:
| We never had that many people vaccinated, and we also
| never had that many cases. Still trying to prove that
| mass vaccination will prevent the epidemic spread doesn't
| belong to a scientific forum. It is becoming anti-
| experimental at this point.
| bserge wrote:
| Radim wrote:
| random314 wrote:
| Radim wrote:
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _TL;DR: Little known but Nazis dressed their prosecution of
| wrong-groups in health concerns. Both linguistically and
| visually: "social parasites", "vermin", "plague", "taking
| resources away, from normal-law-abiding-science-respecting
| Germans", etc._
|
| Yeah:
|
| > _The vaccine passport is exactly like the Nazi yellow star -
| if the Nazi yellow star meant that the recipients had received
| life-saving medicine at no cost to themselves and with maybe
| some free lottery tickets as a side bonus._
|
| * https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1437045106121625613
|
| (David Frum, former speech writer for Bush43, is Jewish.)
| Radim wrote:
| Do you contest the timeline I posted? Or the sources about
| Nazi propaganda methods?
|
| Please do so directly and concretely. If you post in good
| faith, I'll be happy to engage.
|
| Your glib one-liner adds nothing, throw0101a. It's just a
| non-sequitur, to score shallow points by a "former speech
| writer of Bush43".
|
| For others reading along, feeling "But surely this is
| different!" in their gut like maybe you are, an honest
| question:
|
| _At what point would you go "I'm not OK with actively doing
| this to a group of fellow humans, no matter how much of a
| vermin / plague / waste of resources for the society I feel
| they are"?_
|
| If the end of my timeline (Dec 21, 1938) doesn't do it for
| you - _which of the ensuing WW2 years would? What 's the line
| in the sand you would not cross?_ I realize vaccine passports
| may not be it for you, that's fine with many - _but which of
| the next (inevitable) steps will be too much?_
|
| (Please answer internally, no need to respond to me)
| dang wrote:
| Please do not take HN threads into flamewar hell. This is way
| over the top.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29758807.
| Radim wrote:
| What can I say. It's your site, your rules.
|
| But I disagree strongly with your "way over the top" Daniel -
| that's just rude.
|
| Mine was an on-topic factual response, substantiated with
| relevant links, articulated in a perfectly civil manner.
| Along with my sibling responses.
|
| I bet you many people were not aware of these facts, or the
| broader historical context. All perfectly appropriate given
| the thread topic. I'm kinda sad this information (it really
| took effort to compile) is now invisible :(
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| And should people who crash in cars without wearing their
| seatbelt not get any government benefits from their injuries?
| dahart wrote:
| Personally, I don't think so, but I do think it's worth asking
| the question and exploring the space a little bit. There is a
| certain hypocrisy to refusing to accept safety measures from
| the government while expecting emergency treatment from the
| same people when not abiding by the safety measures causes
| predictable and avoidable harm.
|
| There are cases where people are injured while accidentally not
| having a seatbelt on, and there are cases where people
| dogmatically refuse to wear seatbelts and refuse to accept the
| safety statistics. Maybe it makes sense to differentiate
| between those kinds of cases somehow? Maybe people who
| consciously _choose_ to refuse safety measures should still be
| treated but should be prioritized lower than people who are
| accepting safety measures?
|
| One of the problems with people who refuse to accept safety
| policies is they make emergency treatment more expensive for
| everyone, and they reduce the probability that someone who's
| been safe can get emergency treatment in a timely manner. Part
| of the question is why it's fair for people who've accepted the
| safety measures to have a non-zero chance not being able to get
| emergency treatment because someone who refused to be safe got
| hurt and is already in the only ER/bed left in the hospital.
| dontcare007 wrote:
| guidovranken wrote:
| In other festive COVID news from Canada:
|
| >Canada's Justin Trudeau on the unvaccinated:
|
| >"They don't believe in science/progress and are very often
| misogynistic and racist....This leads us, as a leader and as a
| country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?"
|
| https://twitter.com/KevinBardosh/status/1476838517007257600
|
| My patience with COVID cultists is starting to run quite thin.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Edit: Whoops, Privacy Badger had deleted the embedded video.
| Check that if you're not seeing it.
|
| OK, so he said that we all know people who are hesitant to get
| the vaccine and we'll be considerate of them, but there is also
| a small group that is unequivocally opposed to the vaccine (who
| don't believe in science, who are often racist, mysoginist
| etc). About them we have to make a choice: Do we tolerate them,
| or do we say look, most people are vaccinated, we want to go
| back to the things we like doing, and these people are blocking
| us.
|
| So yeah, throwing in the racist and mysoginist thing was in
| poor taste. Hardly Watergate material, though.
|
| Edit 2: Whoops, deleted the video link, but it's already in
| another comment.
| https://westernstandardonline.com/2021/12/trudeau-calls-the-...
|
| Edit 3: I had originally said there was no video to look at.
| Please don't downvote the respondent.
| pen2l wrote:
| There is a video in your first link. Trudeau does in fact say
| that, though in French (and as someone who speaks French and
| has just listened to the first-hand recording, yes, the
| translation is _more or less_ correct).
|
| I'm inclined to give him more leeway than the rest of the
| commenters here, as I think the unvaccinated do need to be
| censured, and in developed countries where information is
| abundant suggesting that it is safe and everyone should take
| it, it is increasingly unforgivable and intolerable for folks
| to be unvaccinated. As someone below quite aptly said: "If
| they want to 'protect' themselves from the vaccine they have
| that right, absolutely, but the rest of us also have the
| right to protect ourselves from them."
| moralestapia wrote:
| >"They don't believe in science/progress and are very often
| misogynistic and racist [...]
|
| Whew, hyperbole of the year.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Lumping all the people you hate makes, and assuming they all
| share all the same negative characteristics, makes it easy to
| hate just anyone who doesn't agree with absolutely everything
| you say.
|
| It's just another modern flavor of intolerance and
| authoritarianism.
| Spivak wrote:
| slibhb wrote:
| Virtually everyone I know voted for Biden, doesn't hate black
| people or women, and is tired of covid measures. The virus
| isn't going anywhere, we're all vaccinated, it's time to move
| on. Even if the 10-20% of the population that isn't
| vaccinated gets vaccinated it would not make the virus go
| away. There is a optimal amount of risk like there is an
| optimal amount of dirt in my home.
|
| Trudeau's rhetoric is shocking. Biden would never stoop to
| that level nor would have Obama. It's "deplorables" all over
| again and in addition to being cruel it's poor politics.
| bradlys wrote:
| Okay? But this isn't about your liberal vaccinated friends.
| This is about people who aren't vaccinated...
| slibhb wrote:
| "My liberal friends" show that this is not a wedge issue
| as the previous poster suggested. They are "anti-
| lockdown" and to a large extent "anti-mask" but they
| don't hate women, blacks, or science.
| bradlys wrote:
| But the point is that anti-vaccine people tend to be the
| hateful ones. Vaccines are a wedge issue. Lockdowns
| aren't as much - if you're already vaccinated.
|
| Honestly - almost no one really disagrees with that
| statement either. We all know it might not be helpful to
| get people vaccinated but we also know it's true.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >But the point is that anti-vaccine people tend to be the
| hateful ones.
|
| Hi Trudeau! Listen, the issue here is that you cannot
| clump two uncorrelated issues together, and even if they
| were correlated, it wouldn't be fair as for sure there's
| people that (please sit down, this may me quite shocking
| to you) do not want to get the vaccine BUT are also not
| part of whatever group you refer to as "the hateful
| ones".
| Spivak wrote:
| Nowhere does "vaccines, masks, and lockdowns became a
| wedge issue picked up by large groups of people largely
| associated with hate" and "anyone who is anti-vax must be
| a part of that group."
|
| You absolutely can clump unrelated issues together when
| they're specifically adopted by people who organize under
| a common banner or label. You don't think that issues
| that make up "the liberal agenda" are reasonably well
| defined? Does it mean that literally every single liberal
| cares about all of them with the same fervor? Hell no,
| but it strongly predicts the views of someone who uses
| the label and the issues are cut so cleanly you can even
| make statements like "the typical person who cares
| strongly about native peoples identifies as a liberal."
| random314 wrote:
| kif wrote:
| This person gives very good arguments why antivaxxers exist:
| https://twitter.com/YossiGestetner
|
| Even he admits he doesn't believe stuff he writes sometimes,
| but he does it to show why there's dissent.
| random314 wrote:
| I am not going to read his entire Twitter history. His top
| pinned tweet did not age well at all! So no good arguments
| at all!
| iqanq wrote:
| Here is the video source, in case someone doesn't believe that
| he said that (I didn't, at first):
| https://westernstandardonline.com/2021/12/trudeau-calls-the-...
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| There is no science if doubts aren't allowed.
| [deleted]
| egberts1 wrote:
| There is no science if the facts are not allowed either.
| atoav wrote:
| Slight change:
|
| There is no science if _reasonable_ doubts aren 't allowed.
|
| The thing with this pandemic is, that the time where you
| could have a _reasonable_ doubt in the vaccines are over for
| a while now. We vaccinated half of earths population. If
| there would have been horrible side effects they would have
| shown. The more data we gather the clearer the picture
| becomes and the less reasonable certain doubts become.
|
| The thing about doubt is that one can _always_ doubt
| anything. You can doubt that a stone in your hand falls to
| the ground if you let it go, but no amount of doubt will
| change the outcome if you actually do it. Physical reality
| for the most part doesn 't care for our feelings. If you are
| a brilliant physicist you could doubt is the _explainations_
| why the stone falls to the ground, but you cannot reasonably
| doubt the fact that it does accelerate towards the ground,
| because this is what is observed.
|
| You could have the feeling the universe is holographic and
| all this falling does not occur, however if you cannot create
| an experiment that would falsify existing, simpler
| explainations it remains just a interesting feeling and not a
| reasonable doubt.
| salawat wrote:
| Myocarditis.
|
| I know several mothers squeamish on risking their children
| to continual rolling of the dice w.r.t the mRNA vector
| vaccines. Also, I can unequivocally state that no other
| vaccine have I ever seen that has to be continually boosted
| to maintain it's efficacy, which sounds to me like a
| deficiency in memory cell formation. The bigger issue
| there, is that in spite of that being an interesting quirk
| of these vaccines to do research on, no one will, because
| having "this year's model" of vaccine is a jackpot to
| Pharmaceutical companies. Dat Annual Recurring Revenue
| producing nothing but upsides for them.
|
| -New repeatably, and reliably recurring business -Relaxed
| or increasingly streamlined approval processes to be
| lobbied for the next time they want to sneak something
| through
|
| And the downsides being safely (to them) externalizable
|
| -increased attrition of horseshoe crab populations and
| concomitant environmental knock-on effects -accumulating
| social costs in the damage done by implementing the
| infrastructure for implementing things like vaccine
| passports, which can be adapted to non-public health use
| cases.
|
| I mean, I get where you're coming from. However, I've
| researched the supply chains, and the stuff that is relied
| upon for QC'ing this stuff (horseshoe crab blood) is not
| inexhaustible, and the incentives we're manufacturing are
| not at all ideal. Just because you've stopped analyzing the
| problem at the physiological effects on the patient does
| not mean there isn't reason for concern. Everything is
| interconnected.
| peteradio wrote:
| You need to justify the marginal benefit of force
| vaccinating young healthy people. That conversation never
| properly happened. First it was "that's not even being
| talked about, fuck off antivaxxer" then the next it was
| "are you kidding me we already decided this for you, fuck
| off antivaxxer". You can believe that vaccines are
| beneficial at preventing serious illness while doubting if
| they ought be required to a recovered young populous.
| MiroF wrote:
| q1w2 wrote:
| These policies are punitive - they are not based on
| science.
|
| There is no science demonstrating that withholding
| unemployment reduces transmission rates.
| MiroF wrote:
| There is social science indicating that employment
| mandates increase vaccination rates. There is science
| indicating that vaccines reduce transmission rates.
|
| Regardless, this is a different point than the original
| comment.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| > vaccines reduce transmission rates
|
| With current experience from UK and France, this line
| (even though true up to a point) is irrelevant.
| ekianjo wrote:
| simonh wrote:
| No, they can believe what they want as far as I'm concerned.
| Completely physically excluding them from society is enough.
| If they want to 'protect' themselves from the vaccine they
| have that right, absolutely, but the rest of us also have the
| right to protect ourselves from them.
| [deleted]
| leereeves wrote:
| Isn't the vaccine supposed to provide that protection from
| (catching Covid from) them?
| random314 wrote:
| Vaccines have an efficacy of 90% -not 100% and don't work
| for the immunocompromised and those who have sulphate
| allergies.
| simonh wrote:
| Unvaccinated people are a threat to the public on many
| grounds. Many of these points are already all over this
| discussion here, but you're asking so here they are.
|
| Unvaccinated people with covid on average have the
| infection for longer and have higher viral loads, so they
| are more likely to spread the virus to others than
| vaccinated people are. They are much more likely to need
| hospitalisation, putting a burden on the health system
| which hurts health care workers, and uses up health care
| resources needed by others.
|
| People with non-covid illnesses, or people with covid
| because they can't be vaccinated for various legitimate
| reasons, are dying in some cases because health care
| systems are so busy caring for sick or dying vax deniers
| with covid.
|
| So these people are a clear danger to the public, and our
| health care systems in particular. Their choices are
| putting unreasonable and unfair demands on health care
| workers, and even killing people.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| We have a terminology problem, and nobody seems to notice
| or care. Everyone is using sloppy language and has been
| for most of this thing.
|
| In reality, there are more bits here than just vaccine
| status, and even that isn't binary, unless you start
| talking about the moving target of "fully vaccinated".
|
| An unvaccinated person who has been infected and
| recovered is not at all the same as a person who has not.
| Yet here you are righteously and confidently proclaiming
| that "these people are a clear danger to the public".
|
| Your statement is a serious accusation, and it is sloppy
| and imprecise, and plain wrong for some significant chunk
| of the people it is being lobbed at. Yet not many people
| will bat an eye, because its the same sloppy language
| everyone else is using.
| leereeves wrote:
| I haven't seen data for Canada, but in the US, at no time
| in the past two years have more than 80% of ICU beds been
| occupied. At no time have more than 25% of ICU beds been
| occupied by Covid patients. And the impact of Covid on
| overall inpatient hospitalization has been negligible.
| [1]
|
| Are you sure Trudeau isn't gaslighting you into believing
| the problems with Canadian healthcare are due to the
| unvaccinated, and not due to a failing health care system
| whose problems pre-date Covid?
|
| In _Why Ontario hospitals are full to bursting, despite
| few COVID-19 patients_ the CBC reported:
|
| > The data suggests many hospitals have returned to the
| overcrowding levels seen before the pandemic, when CBC
| News revealed hospitals filled beyond capacity nearly
| every single day, with patients housed in hallways,
| conference rooms and cafeterias not as exceptional cases,
| but as a matter of routine.[2]
|
| 1:
| https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-
| trend
|
| 2: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-
| hospital-occu...
| ekianjo wrote:
| It is, but some vaccinated people apparently have a hard
| time understanding how things work and who is actually at
| risk.
| ls15 wrote:
| > the rest of us also have the right to protect ourselves
| from them
|
| How does your right to protect yourself lead to a right to
| exclude someone else from society?
| bradlys wrote:
| We have prisons - don't we?
| ls15 wrote:
| Yes, for people who provably committed crimes.
| jrs235 wrote:
| So you're willing to pay to keep anti-vaxxer's alive
| right? You're willing to pay for their housing, food,
| healthcare, etc. so long as you can keep them away from
| everyone else?
|
| Honest question.
| strangus wrote:
| rayiner wrote:
| My dad spent his life working in public health, including
| vaccinations. "Doesn't believe in science and progress" and
| "very often misogynistic and racist" is how Trudeau would
| describe your typical villager in Asia or Africa--the people my
| dad spent a lifetime serving. But Trudeau's unrelated moral
| crusades are utterly irrelevant to the issue of public health,
| and he's deeply damaging the public health effort by trying to
| tie them together. This is public health 101. You don't use
| health as a vehicle for ideological issues because that
| destroys trust. E.g. if your Muslim villager won't see a female
| doctor you find a male doctor. If pregnant women in Bangladeshi
| villages don't trust western educated doctors, you build
| referral relationships with traditional midwives. (That one is
| a true story.) Health is the first and last consideration.
| mannanj wrote:
| Its more of the same tactic in politics as used by chief nazi
| propagandists: "Propaganda must facilitate the displacement
| of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred."
|
| It still surprises me how efficiently all our worlds leaders
| shifted blame from them for our shitty covid health response
| to the unvaccinated as though the vaccine was available from
| the beginning.
| klyrs wrote:
| Probablem being that Trudeau is a politician, not a
| healthcare worker. This shouldn't be a political issue.
| Unfortunately, it's politicized to hell.
| q1w2 wrote:
| He's making the same mistake we see all over social media
| these days. The collective assumption that everyone who
| disagrees with any ONE popular narrative, must also disagree
| with ALL other popular narratives.
|
| Anti-vaxxers must also be climate change deniers and racists
| and anti-abortion, etc...
|
| It makes it easier to hate people you disagree with if
| they're fundamentally evil in all the same ways. It saves you
| from having to have discussions with them, from having to
| think for yourself, and from any ethical dilemma when you
| mistreat them.
| rayiner wrote:
| It also doesn't matter what people's beliefs are. In my
| (Muslim) home country homosexuality and abortion are
| illegal. But they're still entitled to public health
| services. For public health, and science more generally, to
| be trusted, it must be above all the other political,
| religious, etc., debates.
| Spivak wrote:
| There's more nuance to this than you're portraying because
| wedge issues exist. Once groups take sides on an issue the
| predictive power of knowing what someone thinks on one
| issue implying their stance on every issue skyrockets.
|
| It's not about thinking for yourself more than it's a
| consequence of people being good at mounting a defense for
| their own ideas whatever they are or wherever they
| originate. The more "research" you do on an issue the more
| likely you'll come away with nothing more than better
| arguments for your existing stance.
|
| And I'm not claiming to be above it, you can play this game
| with me too. I am exactly the bleeding heart snowflake
| liberal.
| mercy_dude wrote:
| Where is the court system? The court system has been very much in
| lines with these stupidities we have been seeing around mandates
| and so on, which makes me make a much more cynical claim. Leaders
| like Justin Trudeau don't give a damn about science/progress and
| public health and well being for example. If they did, we
| wouldn't be this far along the crisis and still be talking about
| this. My thinking is they are setting these things as a precedent
| (through legislative and court system rubber stamping these
| policies) for the next crisis. Could it be a looming debt crisis
| and using that crisis as a pretext to have more control on
| property rights and other basic rights in the constitution? Who
| knows. But if one thing, if a set of "experts" (who have been
| proven wrong in many instances and have done a terrible job in
| public communication) calls something a crisis then all your
| basic rights in constitution can be annulled using that as a
| pretext. That precedent has been established clearly and sadly
| court system has done nothing but rubber stamping this.
| Radim wrote:
| It's pretty short-sighted, too.
|
| I was born and lived under one rule of tyranny (communist
| Czechoslovakia), and the legal & judicial professions suffered
| tremendously there. In fact, they were among the first to go,
| replaced by something truly heinous.
|
| Like, what do these judges and lawyers who keep silent expect
| will happen, once basic civil liberties & human rights are
| disbanded? (no matter whether disbanded directly or through
| some bullshit round-about "we didn't kill you, we just hired
| mercenaries / didn't let you live / work / travel; if you don't
| like it why didn't you emigrate?")
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Indeed, and one of the legacies of the Czechoslovak Socialist
| Republic is lingering distrust towards authorities even 30
| years after the regime collapsed.
|
| Past injustices cast long shadows.
| bsaul wrote:
| The scariest part of all this hysteria is that the exact same
| arguments can be found in (almost) every country. France is
| turning crazy, germany was, austria, etc. Everybody applies the
| same << non-vaxxed are a threat to vaxxed >> almost absurd
| statement, without blinking.
|
| It really really makes you wonder if western governments are
| trying to prove conspiracy theoricians right.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| The social consequences of this policy overwhelmingly outweigh
| the benefits. Incredibly harmful action.
| iqanq wrote:
| A year ago this would've been called a conspiracy theory. Saying
| that this would happen on Facebook or Twitter would've been
| called misleading or even got you banned.
| scrollaway wrote:
| A year ago, the thought that so many people would reject
| vaccines that can help end the pandemic was unrealistic.
|
| Soooo...
| grepfru_it wrote:
| Nope, all of that was discussed here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBuP40H4Tko
| guilhas wrote:
| Wrong, a year ago all countries vaccination target was lower
|
| Initially started with the medicine standard herd immunity of
| 65%, which includes vaccinated and recovered
|
| And now even 90% vaccinated is supposedly unacceptable
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56722186
| Daishiman wrote:
| Because the disease has changed. Are you ignorant of that?
| brightball wrote:
| I'm sure this precedent will lead to no future consequences or
| abuse.
| chippy wrote:
| When a culture loses it's faith it loses it's morality. We are
| seeing the lack of belief in a progressive culture happening
| here. Why shouldn't the poor be demonized if not through some
| kind of belief in the fundamental right of all humans to have
| access to healthcare? These fundamental "rights" are not innate
| and can be destroyed, they have to be believed in and acted upon
| to survive. Canada is showing that they don't believe in
| progress, or liberalism... however it's likely that the courts
| will and do believe in this, so after the damage is done, it will
| probably be reversed.
|
| The courts, and lawyers understand what the social contract is
| about, it's about faith in something.
|
| The reason the powers of states in the west were limited to a
| degree - it was because the person was held as sacred. Most of
| the old judges deeply understand this. The politicians don't.
| throemdiwo wrote:
| MiroF wrote:
| > The reason the powers of states in the west were limited to a
| degree - it was because the person was held as sacred. Most of
| the old judges deeply understand this. The politicians don't.
|
| This conception is more mythos than reality. You should look at
| some of the early laws passed in many of these countries if you
| think we had a tradition of "strong" natural rights that are
| only being abrogated in our modern era.
|
| It used to be illegal to publish content critical of the
| government [0], not to mention the fact that the franchise was
| restricted to those holding property, and _definitely_ not
| considering ongoing active slavery.
|
| I don't understand your connection to demonization of the poor.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
| kif wrote:
| I can understand why the push for vaccines even though they don't
| stop spreading and catching it. They seem to improve chances of
| survival and lessen chances of severe disease.
|
| That said, if the government takes away benefits, then it should
| give back all the taxes withheld on one's salary before it does
| that.
|
| On another note, personally I don't see any other solution to the
| pandemic, other than everybody/most people gaining some kind of
| natural immunity. Places requiring some form of green pass are
| none other than VIP superspreader events, where the Green Pass is
| the VIP ticket. People holding the Green Pass, will then go to
| meet others who may or may not be vaccinated, but who will
| eventually catch Covid.
| scott_w wrote:
| > they don't stop spreading and catching it
|
| Not true, they do reduce infection and spread.
|
| > That said, if the government takes away benefits, then it
| should give back all the taxes withheld on one's salary before
| it does that.
|
| That's not how government, taxes or being part of civil society
| works at all.
|
| > personally I don't see any other solution to the pandemic,
| other than everybody/most people gaining some kind of natural
| immunity
|
| This is scientifically illiterate as Omicron bypasses all
| "natural" immunity whereas a vaccine gives stronger protection.
| What's to stop future variants doing exactly the same?
| peteradio wrote:
| > vaccine gives stronger protection
|
| Maybe if youre boosted and its been 14 days but not greater
| than 45 days. But citation needed anyway. Natural immunity
| was not totally bypassed. South Africa kicked Omicron's ass
| with regard to case fatality rate.
| scott_w wrote:
| Citation? I literally just watched the deputy chief medical
| officer for England (Van Tam) explain how infection and the
| vaccines work on BBC iPlayer last night.
| sh4un wrote:
| The problem in Canada is that the health care is so bad that
| people are worried that if something goes wrong you are screwed.
|
| My son broke his arm and he has to wait 3 weeks for a cast. I've
| been waiting for a general doctors appointment for 6 months yet,
| been waiting 4 years to have a compressed disc looked at. It's
| sad.
|
| To make it worse it's almost impossible to find the vaccine and
| when you do it's a several hour wait and often it runs out.
|
| I think there is more to it than everyone is a racist homophobe
| trump supporter. Most people who say things like that are often
| an abortion that failed.
| timbit42 wrote:
| I live in the poorest province in Canada and this doesn't even
| happen here. You go to Emerg and you get a cast.
|
| Canadians don't have to worry that if they get sick that they
| are 'screwed'.
|
| If you haven't had a compressed disc looked at in 4 years,
| you're not trying. Even if you don't have a family doctor, it's
| not difficult to get referred to a specialist.
|
| As for the vaccine, everyone is in a mad rush for it right now
| because of Omicron, so there is a delay. I live in the poorest
| province and made an appointment Thursday to get my booster
| this Tuesday. This is what I did last summer and they weren't
| run out when I got there.
| xxpor wrote:
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| sh4un wrote:
| lizkm wrote:
| Pretty arrogant of you to assume that liberals aren't arming
| themselves to protect against people that have been
| threatening violence and advocating for coups to overturn
| democratic results.
| sh4un wrote:
| Pretty arrogant of you to think jumping on the bandwagon at
| the last second would help.
|
| Fortnite is not great training material chump. It's rich to
| see the same people crying about taking people's guns now
| want guns. Better to think liberals gun owners that have
| never used a gun talk about life long gun owners whose kids
| could even smoke you. Lol. Rookie.
| ekianjo wrote:
| so tiring to see vaccinated people not understanding the
| science and the fact that they transmit the virus just as well.
| low information comments.
| [deleted]
| lostmsu wrote:
| > just as well
|
| citation needed for the full cycle: healthy -> contracted ->
| transmitted
|
| My current understanding is that at least the first step is
| hindered. See e.g. https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiO
| TAzYzY0NjktMWYwNC0... shows approximately 4.5x reduction of
| the chances to contract (and therefore to spread further).
| ekianjo wrote:
| you will have to explain how high vaccination countries
| suddenly get huge outbreaks of infections.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Will I? Show me the data for high vaccination outbreak
| size == low vaccination outbreak size. I think your
| opinion is based on unrelated data.
| ekianjo wrote:
| You can't do a comparison like that because there are
| absolutely no 2 countries like each other and how they
| count cases is also different so that data does not
| exist.
|
| You can however look at what's happening in a single
| country despite the vaccination: Portugal, with close to
| 90% vaccination rate, is getting the highest rates of
| infection ever as we speak. https://www.worldometers.info
| /coronavirus/country/portugal/
|
| For a vaccine that's supposed to slow or stop the spread,
| sorry but that kind of trend is not very convincing.
| lostmsu wrote:
| This argument is scientifically (which you wanted) void:
| since you are not making a comparison with a low
| vaccination country, it does not make any sense. Try
| harder.
|
| I'll give you an example: Russia with relatively low
| vaccination rates has close to the highest number of
| excess deaths per capita. Portugal you mentioned is not
| even close.
|
| > are absolutely no 2 countries like each other
|
| fortunately there are like 200+ of them, so one should be
| able to see a trend. Even the 50 US states would work.
|
| From what I see you are the one not understanding science
| and ignoring facts here. You just dismissed my first link
| based on an irrelevant claim that countries with high
| vaccination rates still have outbreaks (duh).
| ekianjo wrote:
| > You just dismissed my first link based on an irrelevant
| claim that countries with high vaccination rates still
| have outbreaks (duh).
|
| you mentioned the first step is hindered. Which is
| completely not proven by the fact that countries with
| high vaccination rates should effectively have a R
| trending towards zero if the vaccines even worked half as
| well as they should. Instead you see major outbreaks
| which completely contradicts the "hindrance" you refer
| to.
|
| > From what I see you are the one not understanding
| science and ignoring facts here.
|
| Ad-hominem attacks won't get you points here.
| lostmsu wrote:
| You started with an ad-hominem attack.
|
| And you just made a new claim with 0 backing in numbers.
|
| I don't know if you are arguing in good faith here, but
| definitely in low quality. Show us the numbers supporting
| your point. You just implied R is not affected by
| vaccination status, but you have provided 1 data to back
| this.
|
| Whereas I provided a cumulative of thousands of cases,
| that directly support my point.
| bmeski wrote:
| or spooks?
| MiroF wrote:
| welcome to HN, please read the guidelines.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> they transmit the virus just as well
|
| Then we do not have a vaccine, by the pre-vaccine definition
| of vaccine.
| ekianjo wrote:
| yeah, vaccine is marketing-speak. We should call these
| shots something else, because that's not what people
| typically understand by the word "vaccine". But that ship
| to fight on the name has sailed for a long time.
| [deleted]
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Except literally everyone who interacts with the outside will
| get coronavirus regardless of whether 100% of us are vaccinated
| or not.
|
| So no, it doesn't. You may as well say that exhaling CO2 is
| causing global warming.
| dang wrote:
| Please keep tedious generic flamewar off this site. It's
| repetitive and usually turns nasty. No one does it out of
| curiosity, therefore it's off topic here - see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29758737.
| bmeski wrote:
| LaunchAway1 wrote:
| tonfreed wrote:
| It's amazing that the unvaccinated are being blamed for the
| vaccine not working.
|
| I mean, look at BC in Canada where the most at-risk people have
| a vaxx rate of 99%+ and overall rate of ~90% for the rest of
| the eligible population, the government still saw fit to shut
| it all down 3 days before Christmas. Compliance doesn't ensure
| freedom.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| That's because hospitals are still too full. If my
| grandmother has a heart attack, or your brother gets hit by a
| drunk driver around New Years, that person will need
| healthcare.
|
| And while ~80% of the eligible population has been
| vaccinated, the 18% of the population that's unvaccinated is
| responsible for 67% of hospitalizations, and nearly 80% of
| ICU admissions [0]. Note for the source - while it's fun to
| play with and look around, I'm sourcing my numbers from the
| Doughnut Charts section
|
| [0] http://www.bccdc.ca/health-professionals/data-
| reports/covid-...
| hrhrhrhrhr wrote:
| Violating NAP requires taking some action, you can't just
| "aggress" by not doing anything.
| MiroF wrote:
| good thing we don't run our society based on the NAP
| jquery wrote:
| hrhrhrhrhr wrote:
| No, NAP is pretty clear. It's just some people treat it as
| a silver bullet, when it's only a fundamental building
| block. Libertarians are not against having contractual
| jurisdictions which would mandate being vaccinated on a
| certain territory, as long as you can quit that
| jurisdiction at any time.
|
| It's not clear that getting vaccinated would stop you from
| spreading the virus though.
| jquery wrote:
| > as long as you can quit that jurisdiction at any time.
|
| Nobody is going door to door and arresting unvaccinated
| people. It's not like the anti-choice law in Texas that
| criminalizes two people working together to stop a woman
| from being pregnant against her will. You still have your
| freedom under the NAP. But as soon as you present a
| threat to infect other people by being unvaccinated,
| there are reasonable restrictions in place.
|
| Edit: I'm seeing replies saying the NAP is strictly about
| physical violence.
|
| To that I ask, are bioweapons fine to use in
| libertarianland? Can I hold a city hostage with
| weaponized anthrax because the libertarianism is, at its
| root, a cover for voting Republican and not a coherent
| political philosophy?
| hrhrhrhrhr wrote:
| NAP is about physical violence. The problem with your way
| of thinking is that it lets you interpret whatever you
| feel like as "violence".
|
| Should infecting others with a flu also be considered
| violence? What about blasphemy? What about just being
| mean?
|
| People have very varying opinions on whether spreading
| COVID should be considered violence, hence contractual
| jurisdictions.
| variola wrote:
| > Should infecting others with a flu also be considered
| violence?
|
| How is it not violence to infect others with a serious
| disease? It causes bodily harm.
|
| It is assault to knowingly expose others to a
| communicable disease.
|
| However, using the flu as an example isn't very good as
| spreading the common cold doesn't carry criminal
| consequences. If you are referring to Covid as a "flu"
| then it's another matter.
| zo1 wrote:
| The NAP is very basic and fundamental (in stark contrast to
| all the laws we have on book). And in order to be so and
| not open to too-much interpretation, it has a very narrow
| and explicit scope that has emergent properties. If you
| expand it you're back into "government" and
| "interpretation" territory and have made the NAP
| meaningless.
|
| Just look at this thread and all the disagreement about
| vaccine policy; even without the NAP at play and with
| supposed "social contract" and "laws" and "constitutions"
| and "UN Declaration of human rights" we still can't agree
| how to coexist and deal with this pandemic. Meanwhile, the
| authoritarian CCP/Chinese government is handling it just
| fine, and probably laughing their asses off right now at
| the rest of the world's inability to deal with this. The
| rules are currently stacked in favor of bullies, whether
| that's an overreaching government like Canada in this case,
| China and international law that allows it to not be
| punished for this _world-scale disaster_ , or everyday
| bullies that are effectively victim-blaming people who are
| discriminated against because of their medical choices.
| razius wrote:
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Does vaccination still offer a public health benefit?
|
| To be clear vaccination is good, people should be vaccinated, I
| have been vaccinated three times, etc, etc but does vaccination
| still offer a public health benefit vs just being a good idea for
| your own personal health?
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| At least in Washington state, unvaccinated people have Covid at
| 3x the rates at minimum (the most robust cohort). This effect
| is more exaggerated the older someone is. Deaths are similar.
| Depending on your definition of benefit, it might be beneficial
| still.
| b3nji wrote:
| I don't understand, if the vaccines work then why the issue?
| However the vaccines don't stop you catching or spreading the
| virus, so why is this banning of the unvaccinated a thing?
|
| Very odd.
| tdrdt wrote:
| simonh wrote:
| This is obvious dangerous rubbish. Most people contracting
| the virus don't do so in offices anyway, so this can't
| possibly be true even if it eliminated office transmission
| completely.
| darknessmonk wrote:
| Vaccines reduce spread because of lower viral load. Also
| reduces severity.
|
| Antivaxxers can be execrated for all I care - dumbest way to
| enforce your freedom
| cft wrote:
| I was sick with 101.5F for a week, excruciating headaches,
| confirmed by a positive PCR after Moderna vaccination. My
| girlfriend as well, two months after the second dose. How
| much higher would our viral load be without Moderna?
| scott_w wrote:
| It's hard to say, maybe the vaccine didn't work on you.
|
| Or maybe it saved yours and your girlfriend's life.
|
| It's hard to say on a case-by-case basis which is why we
| depend on population-level data.
| cft wrote:
| My girlfriend is 29. Maybe it saved her life, but the
| COVID mortality at that age is very very low.
| jquery wrote:
| Whatever your experience with the virus was, it would've
| been a lot worse if you were unvaccinated.
| xienze wrote:
| > Vaccines reduce spread because of lower viral load. Also
| reduces severity.
|
| And yet, case counts have never been higher than now, a year
| into vaccines and infections.
|
| Ah, but Omicron you may say. Well doesn't that imply that the
| vaccine isn't terribly effective against that strain? Yet the
| answer seem to be "just keep getting more injections of the
| same vaccine formulation."
|
| Perhaps one or more of our fundamental assumptions are wrong.
| Maybe the vaccines aren't actually that effective (Israel is
| on dose number 4 within a calendar year...). Or maybe PCR
| tests cranked to an absurd number of cycles aren't actually
| detecting what we think they are (an actual infection versus
| some dead cells in the nasal passage).
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Even in omicron, vaccinated people are less likely to catch
| Covid than unvaccinated people. It can be simultaneously
| true that vaccinated people are less likely to have Covid
| and that Covid vases are rising due to a highly infectious
| variant.
| MiroF wrote:
| > maybe PCR tests cranked to an absurd number of cycles
|
| c'mon, you're at least a year behind the conspiracy theory
| state of the art, we're on vaccine infertility now.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I guess you should email the NYT and ask them to stop
| peddling conspiracy theories:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-
| testin...?
| MiroF wrote:
| > Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too
| sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the
| University of California, Riverside. "I'm shocked that
| people would think that 40 could represent a positive,"
| she said.
|
| I'm a bit confused by this article. AFAIK PCR tests are
| only reporting a positive at 35 cycles. The author of the
| article is correct that it is run for 40 cycles often,
| but this is only because a positive between 36-40 cycles
| indicates "unclear result" and the test is repeated with
| a different assay targeting a different component of the
| virus. Positive is only reported at 35 cycles max.
|
| This should not pick up any "dead cells", it will pick up
| viral mRNA. There is a concern over picking up low loads,
| but the mRNA is still there.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| The vaccines _do_ work by diminishing severity of symptoms and
| thus reducing rate of hospitalization.
|
| The unvaccinated are banned as means to put social and
| financial pressure on individuals to get the vaccine. It is an
| unfortunate misconception that any of the currently-approved
| intramuscular vaccines reduce transmission to a meaningful
| degree.
|
| This social and financial pressure is placed on individuals
| because urban hospitals do not have the money or resources to
| deal with the rate at which they're admitting patients for
| severe Covid-19, and most of the patients they're admitting are
| unvaccinated.
| coolso wrote:
| > It is an unfortunate misconception that any of the
| currently-approved intramuscular vaccines reduce transmission
| to a meaningful degree.
|
| Even given the typical bias of the media it's still
| astonishing that Biden got a complete and utter free pass
| from the media for propagating this idea by basically giving
| everyone - vaccinated or not - a "mandate" that they no
| longer needed to wear a mask this past spring / late summer,
| all for PR points to make it look like the virus had been
| defeated.
| bhickey wrote:
| > The unvaccinated are banned as means to put social and
| financial pressure on individuals to get the vaccine. It is
| an unfortunate misconception that any of the currently-
| approved intramuscular vaccines reduce transmission to a
| meaningful degree.
|
| Vaccination reduces the infection rate. [0] You can't
| transmit the virus if you aren't infected in the first place.
| Other studies have shown that people with breakthrough
| infections have a shorter period in which they can transmit.
|
| [0] BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Mass
| Vaccination Setting
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2101765
| kitd wrote:
| _It is an unfortunate misconception that any of the
| currently-approved intramuscular vaccines reduce transmission
| to a meaningful degree._
|
| Vaccines absolutely _do_ reduce transmission from the
| vaccinated outward.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/22.
| ..
| MiroF wrote:
| your link does not work
| kitd wrote:
| Apologies. Try this one:
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-
| less-l...
| ekianjo wrote:
| Oh did we do a randomized double blind trial to prove that
| ?
| bhickey wrote:
| Here's the underlying study: Vaccine effectiveness against
| SARS-CoV-2 transmission to household contacts during
| dominance of Delta variant (B.1.617.2), the Netherlands,
| August to September 2021
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34738514/
| jashmatthews wrote:
| > It is an unfortunate misconception that any of the
| currently-approved intramuscular vaccines reduce transmission
| to a meaningful degree.
|
| This is another misconception. Our best evidence is that
| they're extremely effective. The problem is they're not quite
| effective enough to just go back to life as before since
| newer variants are extremely virulent.
| hannob wrote:
| Your problem seems to be that you don't understand the concept
| of probabilities. Something can work 80-90% of the time, but
| not 100%.
| superkuh wrote:
| And the greater problem with science communication regarding
| intramuscular vaccines, and the political theater surrounding
| it, is that neither "side" actually gives the full story
| because they worry nuance would be lost and facts without
| context used against them.
|
| Yes, intramuscular vaccines for sars-cov-2 work, for about 6
| months, to significantly reduce the likelyhood of serious
| disease in the internal organs. They do this by getting your
| body to produce serum igG antibodies against the shape of the
| spike protein produced, or delivered, by whatever mechanism.
| They also train your T cells to recognize more broad
| coronavirus epitopes that hold up longer against changes in
| spike coding.
|
| But the igG antibodies in the body serum produced by
| intramuscular vaccination do not appear in any useful
| quantity in the upper respiratory mucosa (a different immune
| compartment). And the T cells definitely do not get there.
| The upper respiratory mucosa is where respiratory viral
| diseases infect. Intramuscular vaccination does not protect
| against sars-cov-2 infection of the upper respiratory mucosa.
| It just means that your lungs, which have some serum igG
| antibodies seep in, are protected and your body organs are
| protected. You can and do still get infected and transmit the
| virus to others at the same rate as the un-intramuscularly
| vaccinated.
|
| The intramuscularly vaccinated should not be exempted from
| _any_ mask requirements and people really, really have to
| become aware of this if we 're going to stop the pandemic.
| It's either that or intranasal vaccination, the smart move,
| like India is pushing towards. Enough of the intramuscular
| boosters. We need intranasal to stop the spread.
|
| Pretending intramuscular vaccination is some be all end all
| that stops spread is stupid and deadly. It is only the first
| partial step.
| jrs235 wrote:
| This is also why if one wishes to mandate weekly tests,
| those tests should be required of everyone, not just the
| unvaccinated. Mandating tests for just the unvaccinated is
| more punitive than scientific and doesn't slow the spread.
| ekianjo wrote:
| The first ones that dont understand probabilities are
| politicians with their binary responses.
| casion wrote:
| Brakes on your vehicle don't stop you either. They just slow
| you down, hopefully when you want... but not always.
| scott_w wrote:
| This is incorrect. Vaccines DO reduce (to different extents
| based on people and variant) infection and transmission:
|
| 1. It's harder for the virus to enter your body 2. If it gets
| in, you will get less sick (lower chance of symptoms) 3. Your
| body will fight it off faster 4. The virus has a harder time
| replicating in your body
|
| Due to 2, 3 and 4, the ability to transmit virus to others goes
| down.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I don 't understand, if the vaccines work then why the
| issue?_
|
| Vaccines work the same way car seat belts and airbags do: they
| improve the/your odds. They make you much less likely to be
| infected, and because less likely to be infected, less likely
| to pass it on.
|
| > _If seatbelt-wearers outnumber non-wearers by four to one,
| but account for roughly the same number of deaths, it suggests
| seatbelt-wearers are about one-fourth as likely to die in an
| accident as non-wearers. That shocking statistic turns out to
| be not so shocking as all that._
|
| * https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-is-the-
| case-...
|
| * https://archive.fo/ayjkf (for paywall)
|
| "Unvaccinated 60 times more likely to end up in ICU with
| COVID-19, Ontario data shows"
|
| * https://globalnews.ca/news/8230051/covid-vaccine-
| hospitaliza...
| [deleted]
| scrollaway wrote:
| > _However the vaccines don 't stop you catching or spreading
| the virus_
|
| Vaccines reduce spread. Even if it doesn't stop spread
| completely it's still a significant factor.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Moving from 100% infected to 100% infected is not a
| reduction.
|
| At some point, there is no realistic difference between R=10
| and R=7. Everyone is getting this. Some of us have known that
| since March 2020.
|
| If your theory includes "avoid being infected with
| coronavirus" and you live in a democratic country it is a
| flawed theory. Only full home isolation or hazmat suit
| rituals will suffice.
| jquery wrote:
| Overwhelmed ICUs and hospitals beg to differ that reducing
| transmission rate is useless. Reducing virulence is
| absolutely worthwhile even if eventually everyone will get
| infected at some point.
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| In fact the opposite is true. If everyone gets
| coronavirus in a two week period, ICU is less overwhelmed
| for the rest of the year. A lot of susceptible people
| die, of course.
|
| If you attempt to spread it out and succeed, you're at
| 100% capacity basically all of the time, plus 99% of
| people get to deal with the fact that coronavirus
| restrictions are utterly miserable.
|
| Omicron has probably made all of this irrelevant anyway,
| it's so contagious that effectively everyone who goes
| outside is getting it this month. 1 in 15 in London right
| now and that's only the confirmed cases I believe.
| scrollaway wrote:
| I'm vaccinated and effectively boosted. I've been going
| out tons and not being careful at all. I kissed my
| girlfriend recently who had as it turns out Omicron at
| the time. I have yet to catch it.
|
| "Everyone" is a significant stretch. Yeah its seriously
| contagious but you, an engineer, should know better than
| deal with such absolutes. Viruses burn out long before
| they infect everyone, even without vaccines and even if
| they're extremely contagious.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Vaccines reduce spread.
|
| In this case, they don't.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Uh, source? Media very much likes to simplify these things,
| but if you think of this in a probabilistic/continuous
| manner, rather than a "yes spread vs no spread" approach,
| the vaccines obviously reduce spread?
| moralestapia wrote:
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-risk-of-
| vacci...
|
| You're right that there's no definite answer to this, but
| the general consensus among doctors is that it doesn't
| prevent the virus from spreading.
| scrollaway wrote:
| "Doesn't prevent" isn't the same thing as "doesn't
| reduce".
| moralestapia wrote:
| No one really knows, actually, and the reduction (if it's
| there) could be marginal.
|
| OTOH, the measures that are being implemented for
| vaccinated vs. unvaccinated are out of proportion based
| on the evidence we have.
| MiroF wrote:
| You really don't see how you're playing into exactly the
| fallacy they're critiquing?
| omarhaneef wrote:
| From the article you post:
|
| " In a November press conference, Tedros Ghebreyesus, the
| director-general of the WHO, said that the vaccines were
| 60 percent protective against spreading the virus prior
| to the arrival of the delta variant. That number has
| dropped to 40 percent post-Delta. Omicron may worsen the
| problem, if, as suspected, it is more transmissible and
| leads to many more breakthrough infections."
| calebm wrote:
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| you seem to be ignoring the fact that we've ended up with 2
| variants that are more contagious... with the purpose of
| implying vaccines are to blame? complete nonsense
| kolanos wrote:
| https://www.healthline.com/health-news/leaky-vaccines-
| can-pr...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| ok now where's the link that provides evidence of this
| happening with covid? or are you just guessing?
| kolanos wrote:
| I'm just pointing out that your claim that a vaccine
| making a virus more virulent being "nonsense" is not
| supported by >50 years of scientific research. Especially
| if that vaccine is leaky, which the current vaccines
| appear to be.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| it's nonsense on the current subject, which is covid...
| not sure we need the gymnastics of "technically it could
| happen" here
| simonh wrote:
| Omicron, which is incredibly infectious, came along after
| the vaccines did, ergo the infection rate went up after the
| vaccines were introduced. The two factors have nothing to
| do with each other though.
| calebm wrote:
| You're saying there is no chance that the vaccine
| facilitated the evolution of the variants (you know, like
| how not completing a round of antibiotics can foment
| evolution)?
| scrollaway wrote:
| Both Delta and Omicron came from severely and notoriously
| undervaccinated countries. They're prime examples as to
| why we need first world countries to help with equitable
| access to vaccines everywhere.
|
| Unmitigated spread accelerates evolution. Mitigating the
| spread slows it down.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| What kind of reasoning is this? Is this the sort of logic
| you would use on the job?
| crisdux wrote:
| It is fairly clear that is it not a significant factor, even
| before omicron. I don't know how these claims that lack a
| solid scientific basis still continue. You cannot attribute a
| capability to a vaccine that has not been confirmed through
| high quality evidence.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| https://khub.net/documents/135939561/390853656/Impact+of+va
| c...
|
| There are a number of studies both identifying a mechanism
| for covid to have reduced spread due to vaccine and
| verifying that this occurs empirically. The difference is
| decreased with newer variants but:
|
| 1. Hybrid immunity is even stronger at reducing spread and
| only possible with prior vaccination
|
| 2. There is still non-negligible reduced spread which can
| be impactful.
| xxpor wrote:
| it's not clear at all. Where I live, unvaccinated people
| are >7x likely to test positive.
| [deleted]
| andrewclunn wrote:
| "Odd" only if the policies are driven by public health
| concerns. Now ask for what motivations / goals would this
| approach not be "odd."
| Ardon wrote:
| If a seatbelt doest stop you from dying in 100% of car crashes,
| I don't understand why they're mandatory?
| q-big wrote:
| > If a seatbelt doest stop you from dying in 100% of car
| crashes, I don't understand why they're mandatory?
|
| While I do agree that wearing a seatbelt is in most cases a
| good idea, there still do exist people who are opposed to the
| mandatory seatbelt laws (even decades after they were
| introduced).
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Whatever one thinks about seatbelts and the ethics of
| seatbelt laws, they're a horrendously bad analogy for
| "vaccines". A seatbelt can always be removed after use. A
| "vaccine" cannot. If somebody is concerned about potential
| issues with the "vaccine" comparing it to a seatbelt feels
| disingenuous because the "vaccine" can never be undone.
| thakoppno wrote:
| A seat belt you can't take off.
| Orphis wrote:
| Your body is undoing the vaccine just fine. It's just ARN,
| it's discarded after a while. Didn't you learn that in your
| bio classes or did you think it would never be useful? The
| rest is just practice for that precious immune system.
| What's wrong about it? Don't you trust it to do the right
| thing?
|
| I personally don't because I know about autoimmune
| diseases, but hey, you seem to be of that "crowd" who only
| talks in quotes because they don't understand much.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > Your body is undoing the vaccine just fine. It's just
| ARN, it's discarded after a while.
|
| Let's not be willfully disingenuous here. Obviously, the
| types of "vaccine" injuries or potential long-term
| problems that many people are fearful about don't
| dissipate into the ether.
| finite_jest wrote:
| > If a seatbelt doest stop you from dying in 100% of car
| crashes, I don't understand why they're mandatory?
|
| Interestingly, your comparison is relevant, but you are
| responding to an argument which I don't think is being made.
| The OP is _not_ arguing that vaccines shouldn't be mandatory
| because they aren't 100% effective.
|
| On the contrary, the OP's argument is that since vaccines are
| relatively effective, one person's choice to not get
| vaccinated will not effect the others, and it should be up to
| them.
|
| Your seatbelt example is relevant, in that the same "no-harm-
| to-others" argument can be made in that case too.
| Orphis wrote:
| If some group of the population is responsible for 85 to
| 90% of the spread of a disease, then they are directly
| harming also all the other people who can't be vaccinated
| for health reasons, they are helping the virus spread and
| mutate more often to promote new variants that the
| vaccinated people might not be resistant to, and they thus
| are the main reason why we still need to have measures in
| most countries to limit the spread.
|
| If you're not seriously doing your part, then you are
| actively supporting the virus and working against all the
| rest of the population that is either unable to get
| critical care or just tirelessly working in the healthcare
| sector treating all those avoidable critical patients.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > [...] _one person 's choice to not get vaccinated will
| not effect the others, and it should be up to them._
|
| But it will effect others:
|
| > _But here's the thing. A crankish libertarian - I count
| myself as one - might understand that seatbelts save lives,
| and still object to being required to wear one, on personal
| freedom grounds. That's perhaps tenable when it comes to
| seatbelt laws, since the only life in peril from not
| wearing one is your own._
|
| > _But vaccines not only make it less likely that you will
| be infected, suffer or die: They also make it less likely
| that you will infect others, to suffer and die - and infect
| still more people - in their turn. (And yes, despite what
| you might have heard, the evidence[1] is also clear[2] that
| vaccines reduce transmission rates.) This is hardly a
| theoretical concern, in the midst of a pandemic that has
| already claimed nearly 30,000 Canadian lives._
|
| > _So if anything the case for vaccine mandates is even
| stronger than it is for seatbelt laws. The cost to personal
| freedom - a jab in the arm - is slight. The risk of adverse
| side-effects is negligible. The savings in human lives is
| provably enormous. How on earth could so many otherwise
| sensible[3] people have persuaded themselves otherwise?_
|
| * https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-is-the-
| case-...
|
| * https://archive.fo/ayjkf
| finite_jest wrote:
| Right, I agree, to some extent it does. I was trying to
| give a better outline of the general form of @b3nji's
| argument, as @Ardon's objection seemed to be based on a
| misunderstanding.
|
| There is a "pragmatic libertarian" argument too, which
| goes like this: The mandatory jab is much less costly to
| civil liberties than lockdowns, and if the virus is not
| quelled, the political support for lockdowns will only
| increase.
|
| There is a whole bunch of issues and trade-offs involved.
| [1] People have strong feelings on this [2], and
| discussion is often reduced to partisan "rallying cries".
|
| [1]: e.g. see my other comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29759089
|
| [2]: Which is somewhat understandable, some of us have
| lost loved ones, lost jobs, been down the dumps, felt
| like being in "house arrest", couldn't even hit the gym,
| witnessed all the paltering by the media etc.
| ttmb wrote:
| It's a great analogy because the no-harm-to-others argument
| doesn't apply in either case.
|
| In an incident, an un-seat-belted occupant can turn into a
| projectile and harm or kill others in the vehicle that
| might be wearing seatbelts.
| finite_jest wrote:
| Perhaps, I'm really not sure how often would that happen
| though.
|
| I actually think the analogy is a relatively good one.
| Parallels also also run for the question of how much
| "paternalism" do we want (the limits of "for-your-own-
| good" argument). Interests of insurance providers
| (whether social or private) is also involved in both
| cases.
|
| In the case of vaccines, immunocompromised people's
| health is also a consideration. And there is the issue of
| side-effects, especially for young people. And there is
| "bodily autonomy". And the stress on healthcare system,
| etc.
|
| I think there could reasonable discussion about these
| issues. However, the sad reality is that things quickly
| get reduced to repeating trite "rallying cries".
| MaxDPS wrote:
| Not wearing a seatbelt puts other passengers at risk. If
| you are t wearing a seatbelt you have a chance of being
| flung into someone, even if the other person is wearing a
| seatbelt. This can cause serious injury.
| [deleted]
| moralestapia wrote:
| No one is going to fire you, no store would deny you entrance
| for that, and no government will deny you basic services if
| you don't wear your seatbelt.
|
| That's the difference.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| >> No one is going to fire you for that
|
| https://www.hrreporter.com/labour/news/fort-mcmurray-alta-
| tr...
|
| >> No store would deny you entrance for that
|
| You can't really wear a seatbelt into a store but i can
| cite examples of being denied service for refusing to wear
| one (taxi, airplane, fun fair ride, etc.)
|
| >> No government will deny basic services to you for that
|
| You get fined by the government if you don't wear a
| seatbelt.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/wor
| l...
| tdrdt wrote:
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| <edit- my math is wrong and I retract this statement.>
| mkl wrote:
| You're off by a factor of 10: 800,000/330,000,000 [?]
| 0.24%. 2% would be 2x3.3e6 = 6.6e6.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Thanks for correcting me! I've retracted my statement.
| roganp wrote:
| 1% of the population dying a preventable death is alot of
| bodies.
| tdrdt wrote:
| Let's talk about eating unhealthy and heart diseases.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Earnestly, yes let's talk about unhealthy eating and
| heart disease! Let's talk about the food system, food
| education, food availability, pricing, and governmental
| subsidies. Let's talk about the socioeconomic factors
| behind unhealthy lifestyles.
|
| Let's talk about heart disease! Let's talk about racial
| and sex disparities in heart disease. Let's talk about
| class disparities in heart disease. Let's talk about why
| these disparities exist.
|
| Public health is super fascinating and very complicated.
| We should be talking about it more!
| tdrdt wrote:
| Especially because people who are overweight have a 70%
| more chance to get very ill from covid.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| Which aren't transmissible through the air.
| furgooswft13 wrote:
| They are mandatory only in the sense you might get a small
| fine if you happen to be caught and pulled over without one.
| You still keep your drivers license, and your car, and your
| job.
|
| Also you can take the seatbelt off when you get out of the
| car.
|
| It's still nonsense (click it or ticket laws), but you gotta
| pick your battles. Though I'm ready to murder the people who
| invented/mandated "beep incessantly if the seatbelt is not
| clicked, even if the car is stationary".
| newsclues wrote:
| Do we ban people from driving if they refuse to wear
| seatbelts?
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| In some places, yes (Northern Ireland), otherwise we just
| repeatedly fine.
|
| A better example would be driving drunk, given that you are
| at an increased risk of injuring _others._
| Orphis wrote:
| You can always lose your license in some places if you are
| not wearing a seatbelt repeatedly.
|
| Remember that a seatbelt also prevents your body from being
| a projectile that would be launched against other people in
| an accident, you're not just a danger to yourself when you
| don't wear one.
| drunkpotato wrote:
| You get a ticket, and too many of those tickets and you
| lose your license, so yes.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| You can if you rack up too many unpaid fines.
| scott_w wrote:
| In most places with seatbelt laws: yes
| [deleted]
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| ...yes? I thought that's what license penalties are for.
| messe wrote:
| Depending on country, yes?
| max_ wrote:
| Big American corporations have often made their money through
| subsidies.
|
| Enforcing everyone to take the jabs increases those subsidies
| (this enforcement is persistent in all countries submissive to
| USA). That's what makes sense.
|
| However, don't assert altruism because there isn't any. The
| 'save lives' campaign is just a coating to make things easy for
| the general public to swallow.
| MiroF wrote:
| yes, and the anti-vaxx crowd is funded by Big Hospital, which
| wants more people in the ICU so they can rake in those sweet
| sweet intubation $s.
| newsclues wrote:
| My understanding is that it's either, control, money or both.
| It is not logical public health policy so greed and tyranny are
| the other possible explanations.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Why is it "not logical" apriori?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| it's not logical health policy to enforce a mandate that
| reduces hospitalization rate? is today opposite day or
| something?
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| My understanding is that the vaccines aren't completely
| effective at stopping you catching/spreading, but they are a
| whole lot better than being immune naive altogether. Casual
| googling has given me some Washington state pdf data that says
| even in the most robust cohort (13-29 year olds) unvaccinated
| folks get Covid at 3x the rate of unvaccinated and the
| differences only get more dramatic from there.
|
| If you have more robust information though I'd like to know of
| it.
|
| Edit: please note this was published in dec 29 2021, with data
| up to that point, and therefore also incorporates omicron.
|
| https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/...
| NoblePublius wrote:
| There's an Antarctic research station of entirely triple
| vaxxed people that is on complete lockdown now because most
| of them have Covid. I know 22 people who have gotten positive
| tests in the last two weeks, all vaccinated. Sports leagues
| practically 100% vaccinated and dozens and dozens and dozens
| of players out for Covid. I do not believe for one second any
| public health data today claiming only 1/5 new cases are
| vaccinated.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Rip the nba has been decimated by the virus. At what point
| do we just accept it?
| klyrs wrote:
| Acceptance is not just giving up. Minimizing harm is the
| current goal.
| solarengineer wrote:
| Some months ago, I had to explain to some folks in my
| neighbourhood that a vaccine is not like some "magic
| shield" that we see in video games. A vaccine (mRNA or
| based on an inactive virus) teaches our body to create
| anti-bodies. The virus enters the body, the body creates
| anti-bodies, the virus is dealt with.
|
| The vaccine efficacy (how well it teaches the body) and the
| body's own anti-body efficacy (how effective the anti-
| bodies are against the virus) also have a role to play.
|
| Thus, a vaccinated person can still be infected, and can
| even spread the virus around. The sooner the virus is dealt
| with within their body, the sooner they no longer have a
| virus to spread. Isolation helps sooner, too. It is
| therefore possible for a triple vaccinated person to still
| get infected and to test positive for the infection.
|
| Among various benefits of being vaccinated are the lowered
| load on hospital staff. The number of hospital beds and
| even oxygen cylinders does not matter as much as the
| availability of hospital staff. This pandemic helped
| highlight that around the world, there are already only a
| limited number of doctors and nurses, and that both of them
| are already over-worked. For e.g., I did not know that
| 30-hour shifts are considered normal. It got me thinking
| that I wouldn't want to risk receiving care from an over-
| worked and tired medical care giver whose judgement might
| have been impaired from sheer exhaustion.
|
| Many of us vaccinated people are now able to safely isolate
| at home when we are infected with the Covid virus. We rush
| to hospitals only when the anti-bodies that we create are
| unable to deal with the Covid 19 virus. Over-worked
| hospital staff thus focus on a far lesser number of
| patients. There are now more beds available for those who
| need them. These included those vaccinated but ill enough
| to require external medical care, not-yet vaccinated,
| vaccine-hesitant, those who can't be vaccinated, those who
| won't be vaccinated.
|
| Really, this pandemic won't truly end until we isolate and
| end the spread of the virus. Being vaccinated planet-wide
| and reducing the load on the hospital is our next best bet
| to ensure that those who need the medical care have less-
| overworked staff and beds and oxygen cylinders.
|
| The various successful track record of anti-vaxx
| conspiracies, the true stories of the greed of medical
| companies/hospitals, the CIA messing with the polio vaccine
| in Pakistan + Afghanistan, the might-is-right approach by
| which some countries grab vaccines and waste them while
| other countries do not receive even a single dose, the
| hiding of data to save "face" and reputation, the political
| attacks based on data, politicians speaking up instead of
| scientists, scientists not knowing how to speak to media,
| media irresponsibly reporting news - all of these
| contribute to a general decline in the acceptance of
| vaccines.
|
| In my lifetime, polio was almost-eradicated. Smallpox was
| eradicated even earlier. I am hopeful that in time, we'll
| all pull up our socks and eradicate Covid-19 as well.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| "i've heard of ~100 cases therefore statistical data feels
| irrelevant"
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Wait, do I understand this correctly that because you have
| heard of cases happening in vaccinated people, without
| studying them as broad populations, you think there isn't a
| statistical difference in vaccinated and unvaccinated
| people as a population?
|
| Why?
| dekhn wrote:
| While I understand where you are coming from, pretty much
| all the observational evidence is pointing to vaccines
| not being particularly effective against omicron, which
| seems to explain the data we are seeing (massive surge in
| infections and hospitalizations). That alone is enough
| information to reasonably conclude that the vaccine does
| not provide a high level of protection against omicron,
| even if we are nto doing a large-N population comparison.
| huntertwo wrote:
| Another explanation, the one that's more probable, is
| that omicron is much more infectious than the previous
| variants.
|
| Actual studies that look at evidence and test hypotheses
| seem to suggest that mRNA vaccines are effective.
| NoblePublius wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar
| tangents. They're repetitive, tedious, and usually turn
| nasty.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: it looks like your account has been using HN
| primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed
| here, regardless of what you're battling for, because it
| destroys what this site is supposed to be for. We ban
| accounts that do it, so please stop doing it.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Um... I think we have a fundamental disagreement on what
| sources of information we cite! Do you have non-
| governmental sources of information we can mutually agree
| upon to discuss instead? Thank you!
| NoblePublius wrote:
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| decebalus1 wrote:
| roganp wrote:
| If nearly %100 of the nba is vaccinated, then it's more
| likely that the break thru cases will outnumber the cases
| on the un-vaccinated, even if the vaccine is very effective
| at preventing infection. The vaccine does not need to be
| %100 effective for it to make sense from a public policy
| perspective.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| we also have multiple cases of players lying about
| vaccination status
| NoblePublius wrote:
| If the vaccine does not stop you from getting infected or
| infecting others, what possible justification is there to
| fire a young healthy person from her job for deciding
| against vaccination for a disease less likely to kill her
| than driving to work?
| decebalus1 wrote:
| So is the WA state data invalid/faked/wrong? I mean this is
| literally a handful of anecdotes vs the department of
| health's data. Data showing similar results as in both
| nationwide and other countries (global level conspiracy I
| guess?). It's like me saying 'I can't believe for a second
| that Biden won the elections because everyone I know voted
| for Trump'
| [deleted]
| baskethead wrote:
| huntertwo wrote:
| > The vaccines don't work at all against omicron
|
| This is just false and if you believe in the science, you
| believe in the scientific method, the scientific method
| shows that this is false. See this
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc211927
|
| Plenty of people are going to the hospital with omicron so
| it isn't mild for everyone. It's milder than previous
| strains and it's especially mild for vaccinated people.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Do you mean vaccination isn't effective in your circle or
| as a population level? Or do you mean a different
| definition of effective? The study I linked to shows there
| is at least an effect.
| baskethead wrote:
| As a population they don't work anymore. They need to
| produce an omicron-targeted vaccine. This current vaccine
| simply doesn't work because it's targets the wrong spike
| protein and it shows.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Can you define "don't work"? The study I linked to shows
| some effect, even in omicron. I'm kind of confused.
| baskethead wrote:
| Where's the omicron data? I specifically said omicron. I
| don't see anything that shows omicron especially since
| it's only prevalent in the US in the last few weeks.
|
| Ahhh never mind. You didn't actually read the data. You
| just scanned through it. If you look look more thoroughly
| it doesn't address omicron at all. The last data I could
| see was from December 14. Omicron was not prevalent at
| that point, delta was. The vaccine offered some, but not
| much, protection against infection from delta.
| huntertwo wrote:
| Here's a study from December 29th on the effect of the
| vaccine on Omicron in South Africa.
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270
| dekhn wrote:
| it's unlikely anybody has truly actionable data about the
| vaccine and omicron yet, but companies that produce
| vaccines are already working against omicron targets.
| simonsarris wrote:
| Here is a definition of "work" form Portugal[1]
|
| If you look at vaccine doses per person over time, and
| graph of cases per person over time, in one of the most
| vaccinated countries in the world, you see not only no
| effect, but the worst effect happening at the most-vaxxed
| time. If they stop transmission the effect at this point
| is _miniscule._ If you didn 't label the first graph, you
| might be tempted to blame it for the second graph.
|
| (nota bene, vaccines show a clear effect in reduction in
| death.)
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-
| data-explor...
|
| Actually Denmark has even more vaccines, and an even
| greater case uptick:
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-
| explor...
| tdrdt wrote:
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| If you look, the article I linked was in December 29
| published. So it accounts for omicron and still shows a 3x
| difference at the minimum.
|
| However this is again a casual Google for a single state.
| If you have more information that says otherwise please let
| me know. Thank you!
| maxerickson wrote:
| There's no evidence that vaccination is hampering immune
| response.
|
| Among those infected with Omicron, hospitalization and
| intensive care rates are much higher in unvaccinated...
| tdrdt wrote:
| This is not what the stats are saying. And what about
| South-Africa with a vaccination rate of 26%?
| maxerickson wrote:
| What "stats" are you looking at? For instance, 2nd
| paragraph of this article about Omicron talks about
| vaccination being protective:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/world/europe/omicron-
| hosp...
|
| If South Africa ended up fairing far better than a
| country with similar demographics and higher vaccination
| rates, it would be relevant, but there's not data to make
| that comparison, because other countries are much earlier
| in the Omicron wave.
| ameister14 wrote:
| >And what about South-Africa with a vaccination rate of
| 26%?
|
| Just pointing out that JAMA says SA has a vaccination
| rate of 44.3% as of Dec 2021; if you're gonna attack
| statistics it's a good idea to have the right numbers.
| baskethead wrote:
| "There's no evidence" is the official weasel words of the
| pandemic.
|
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-
| evidence...
| [deleted]
| maxerickson wrote:
| Fortunately for my comment above, I wrote it with a
| second paragraph characterizing available data, data that
| contradicts the claim about the vaccines hampering immune
| response.
| occz wrote:
| >Because the vaccins 'overwrite' the wider protections of
| the immune system it is not very wise to vaccinate healthy
| people for this fast mutating virus.
|
| Bullshit. Stop spreading misinformation.
| huntertwo wrote:
| Is there room for those of us who believe the mRNA vaccines are
| effective at reducing transmission and severe disease yet don't
| want to relegate our fellow citizens to second class status for
| not wanting to inject themselves with something they're not sure
| about? We seem all too ready to ruin the lives of those who don't
| want the jab.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I am of similar persuasion.
|
| Previously Covid-infected, two Pfizers in me, scheduled for the
| booster on Wednesday, but I definitely feel that forcing people
| into vaccination by economic and political pressure is going to
| backfire. If the root problem is lack of trust, use of force
| will likely make it worse.
| NDizzle wrote:
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| vaccines reduce transmission and severity, this virus has
| killed over 5 million people in 2 years
| crisdux wrote:
| Apparently they do not reduce transmission. How much data do
| we need that shows this until you'll believe it? look at the
| case load of literally any highly vaccinated country. Why are
| you still spreading this nonsense?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| you're continuing to ignore "more contagious variants"
| huntertwo wrote:
| "Hurr durr look at cases there's more than before" is not
| how you can tell whether the vaccine has an effect and is
| not how the scientific method works. It's likely that
| without vaccines, the omicron variant would have caused an
| even higher case load than we are seeing now. We know this
| because there are studies that show the vaccine reduces
| your likelihood of getting the original strain. Also we
| have studies that show vaccination reduces your probability
| of infection by omicron [0]. In addition, without vaccines,
| there would be more hospitalizations.
|
| These facts don't necessarily support vaccine mandates from
| a moral POV, but they're still the facts and by ignoring
| these facts you're the one spreading nonsense.
|
| [0] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270
| royaltheartist wrote:
| The case rate among unvaccinated can be up to 18 times
| higher than the vaccinated, even in areas where the
| vaccination rate is close to 75% https://www.doh.wa.gov/Por
| tals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/...
|
| The vaccines reduce contraction, transmission and severity
| jashmatthews wrote:
| It's dramatically effective in reducing spread.
| Unvaccinated people are driving 85-90% of the spread in
| Germany. https://rocs.hu-
| berlin.de/publication/maier-2021-germany/
| peteradio wrote:
| Pre-omicron.
| crisdux wrote:
| That is low quality evidence. It's folks doing some
| mathematical modeling. Mathematical modeling has had a
| very bad track record during this pandemic. Did you even
| read the paper you are linking?
| tylersmith wrote:
| djdjjrjrjr wrote:
| You can have a high case load in vaccinated countries and
| still have vaccines that reduce transmissions. Those two
| ideas don't conflict.
|
| It just means the vaccines we have don't reduce
| transmission by 100% and you have a disease that is highly
| infectious. Just because a medical intervention doesn't
| work 100% of the time doesn't mean it's 0% effective. Most
| interventions (vaccines, drugs, procedures, surgeries)
| don't work at 100.0%.
|
| From the data I've seen it appears the mRNA vaccines have
| some effect in reducing transmission while the other
| vaccines don't. It is correct to say that the efficacy
| against transmission has dropped significantly, but that
| doesn't mean it's 0%.
| WaxedChewbacca wrote:
| bmeski wrote:
| lack of proper early treatment is why the virus has killed so
| many. The vaccines do not work as they were EUA approved to
| do.
| Orphis wrote:
| Horrible logic. Seatbelts are in the same position. They are
| mandatory and greatly reduce harm done in an accident. Same
| thing for the vaccines, you won't die and won't likely be using
| an ICU bed that other patients need.
|
| Go spread your FUD elsewhere.
| djbebs wrote:
| Seat belts shouldn't be mandatory either.
| timbit42 wrote:
| Seat belts and motorcycle helmets shouldn't be mandatory in
| countries that don't have public healthcare, but they
| should be mandatory in countries with public healthcare
| because everyone else is paying for your medical treatment
| and seatbelts and helmets reduce the cost of your medical
| treatment.
| Orphis wrote:
| Why? Seatbelts greatly reduce deadly harm for people in the
| cars and outside of it.
|
| There are many occurrences where someone died because the
| body of a person in a crash who wasn't wearing a seatbelt
| just crashed into them.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| My job wouldn't let me go if I didn't wear one.
|
| And government wouldn't prevent my care even if they did.
| dahart wrote:
| > My job wouldn't let me go if I didn't wear one.
|
| Yes it would, if your job is a driver. It happens all the
| time. Just search for "fired for not wearing seatbelt", and
| you'll find plenty of stories. The reason you can get fired
| for this is because it's (1) illegal, (2) unsafe, and (3) a
| company liability if the company is found to be lax on
| training.
| benbruscella wrote:
| You can take your seatbelt off when you're done driving
| madengr wrote:
| throemdiwo wrote:
| kolanos wrote:
| > The department said if an employee doesn't report to work or is
| suspended or terminated for refusing to comply with a vaccine
| mandate, the employer should indicate that they quit, took a
| leave of absence or were dismissed - potentially disqualifying
| them from collecting EI.
|
| Why isn't this fraud?
| vidarh wrote:
| Why would it be?
| cmmeur01 wrote:
| Because they were fired for refusing to comply they didn't
| quit. If you refused to do a task and were removed by the
| company for it were you fired or did you quit?
| scott_w wrote:
| "were dismissed" is a reason you can give, so it's true.
| peteradio wrote:
| Fraud would require prosecution. Is Edmonton going to prosecute
| Minister of Employment for the directive? Or the HR dept for
| the illegal classification (is it illegal if given a Minister
| directive)? Does this get challenged in Canadian courts?
| randomdata wrote:
| EI has always disqualified those who were dismissed for
| misconduct. This just clarifies that refusing to be vaccinated
| is considered misconduct.
| sh4un wrote:
| ddon wrote:
| Government is sending a clear message - get vaccinated! end of
| story...
| WaxedChewbacca wrote:
| moron4hire wrote:
| We have systems in place for people who want to refuse standard
| vaccinations: live in a religious enclave like the Amish. You
| don't want to participate in our society? Then don't participate
| in our society. Go be Amish and see how that works out for you.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| All hail big Pharma!
| aserdf wrote:
| Is unemployment in Canada an insurance as it is in the US? Can
| you opt out, are premiums taken from your paycheck?
| stefanwlb wrote:
| martythemaniak wrote:
| Breathtaking amount of ignorance in these comments. EI has never
| and will never cover voluntarily leaving a position. Don't want
| to meet basic sanitary requirements? You're free to leave.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Please don't smoke then, as second hand smoke affects us not
| addicted to nicotine, when you are standing outside of a shop
| and I have to walk by past you
| martythemaniak wrote:
| If your workplace has banned smoking and you get fired
| because you refuse to stop smoking there, you're not getting
| EI.
|
| IE is there to protect you from loss of employment through no
| fault of your own. Always has been.
| MiroF wrote:
| Good point. I would be in favor of a similar law regarding
| smoking as regarding being unvaccinated. You are free to
| smoke/be unvaccinated outside or in your home, but if you
| wish to enter an establishment or work in an enclosed space,
| you must not smoke/be unvaccinated.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Not smoke at all when at work, because otherwise you are
| going to take smoking breaks ,,outside" but actually
| positioned in such a way next to an open door that the air
| flow will pull the smoke towards inside and I will still
| smell it
| martythemaniak wrote:
| I don't know where you live, but we have designated
| smoking areas and bylaws that prohibit smoking entrances.
| I'm glad we're on the same page now.
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