Linux Foundation to ban non-vaccinated people at their events
lunduke.com
lunduke.com
The lunduke.com blog post omits some of the broader context and supplemental Q&A. Two that stood out to me:
1. This is currently limited to events this fall. Given the timing relative to global vaccination status, this seems like a reasonable stance.
2. They are still offering a digital version of the event.
- [0] https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/adoption-of-a-covid-19-...
I don't want to directly argue against your point that vaccination shouldn't be required, but I just wanted to address your side point about previous infection. If you're able, get the vaccine even if you've been infected. You should be doing for yourself and you should be doing it for others. Really you should just do it.
This is a pretty enormous stretch.
The policy boils down to: you must be vaccinated to attend.
The policy is further clarified: getting COVID does not exclude you from the vaccine requirement.
As an individual interested in attending, I can either:
1. Make sure I’ve been vaccinated.
2. Attend the virtual version of the event.
3. Not attend.
You have to twist this pretty hard to conclude I’m being coerced by an evil entity to get unnecessary medical procedures.
And this is omitting the possible reasons a COVID positive test might not be sufficient to claim “immunity” or the safety of unprotected proximity.
Of course it was utterly unrealistic and there was no way it could have worked.
Now that we have vaccines, and an actually viable plan to "get back to the normal" faster by asking vulnerable people to please attend whatever meeting remotely as much as possible, we get to see indignant people claiming it's "ableist" to require vaccines in a global conference.
...why am I not surprised...
And I personally think violating the ADA is ableist, is all I meant.
Companies are bound to the general law of equal treatment (AGG). This law effectively states you cannot treat a person less favorable based on a couple of protected groups - sexual identity, religion, disability, age.
An initial evaluation of our parliament speculates you might be able to claim a condition rendering you unable to be vaccinated as a disability, which would render it protected under the AGG. However, it also states that in the current times, there might be a tradeoff between the fundamental rights of individuals. The right to not be harmed of every other individual on such an event might outweigh an individuals right to be treated equally.
Hence, as long as this is not challenged, a german company could very much deny unvaccinated individuals entry and business, because this decision is not clear. However, it is very much within the right of everyone to sue the company and then courts will decide this tradeoff - at least as long as there is a proven medical condition.
I'm not saying nobody is inelligible, but it has to be extremely rare. Having just had COVID is the only thing I can think of.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...
I wouldn't be surprised if there exists a medical reason or combination of medical reasons that makes it so you shouldn't receive it though, but it is probably very rare like you say.
Similarly, there are people who have received the first dose of Astra Zeneca prior to it getting discontinued in their country. Depending on where they are they aren't necessarily eligible to receive a second dose of any covid vaccine, as mixing-and-matching isn't considered sufficiently well studied by many doctors to recommend it. Again, they're not considered vaccinated by many definitions.
There's also people from countries like India and Canada who have gotten non-WHO/non-CDC approved covid vaccines. Does that count as vaccination? Again, many doctors will refuse to give them another WHO/CDC approved covid vaccine due to the unknown risks of getting multiple vaccines. This problem has already come up in Canada with foreign students, and even in the US with Astra Zeneca: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/06/19/broadway-chan...
Finally, the WHO says that children under the age of 18 should not be vaccinated for covid at this time, a position many other countries are following. Again, they have no way to get vaccinated. The Linux Foundation may of course already ban minors for other reasons. But again, this would prevent most teens from attending their events for the foreseeable future.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... See page 21.
Also the vaccines are practically irrelevant unless someone is worried about being hospitalized. All governments and vaccine manufactures have been clear, vaccine does not prevent transmission
Edit: People pointing out that vaccines do prevent transmission after all... In that case what is the problem with people choosing to be unvaccinated?
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...
>Whereas the vaccinated person never becomes an asymptomatic carrier in the first place.
I'd like to see which studies those are.
"A reduction in infections" is also not the same as "the vaccinated never become asymptomatic carriers".
If you allow unvaccinated people you force people to make the choice between their safety and a bunch of additional restrictions like reduced capacity, social distancing, mask wearing, and individuality portioned food.
High freedom, low liberty.
If you ban the unvaccinated then everyone can roam freely unencumbered by all those safety precautions.
Low freedom, high liberty.
I know which one I think is better.
This total distortion of what vaccines are about is dystopian. Vaccines are about protecting the person who takes them. If a few people who didn't take them renders the vaccine useless for everyone else, that means it's not a vaccine
1. That vaccines are 100% effective.
2. That vaccines are only about the person who takes them.
On #1, this is easy: the best COVID vaccines currently available are around 95% effective. Some are less. That leaves a meaningful chance that despite the vaccination I might still get sick.
This provides a nice segue to #2: As the percentage of vaccinated individuals increases, the chances that I'll get sick due to that remaining 5% decreases.
This is a core tenet of herd immunity: folks who are not protected by the vaccine (or cannot be due to health issues) are still protected by the fact that everyone around them is protected. This doesn't mean it's safe to not be vaccinated - one need only look at measles outbreaks to validate this - but the point of getting the vaccine is about more than just the individual, it's about the population as a whole.
At some point I think you have to accept that your stance is an unfalsifiable form of collectivism. You are insisting that everyone injects themselves with something potentially dangerous to reduce your own risk from extremely small to extremely small, on the back of completely novel and extremely questionable claims, and damn the risk to everyone else.
> You believe the vaccines don't actually work, or rather, that everyone should act as if they don't
No, and no. These are extremely twisted re-interpretations of what I wrote, and do not reflect my argument or belief.
All I'm arguing is that in the current climate, where the vaccination rate sits at ~45% across the US, it's reasonable to be cautious about situations that involve close indoor contact with unvaccinated folks.
This is a position that I can see changing as vaccination rates and global COVID rates improve.
1. If vaccines stop infection, then you don't need to care if other people are sick or not.
2. Therefore you argue that because they might not be 100% effective at that, everyone should act as if they aren't effective at all, and ban unvaccinated people from things.
3. But what if the vaccine isn't 100% effective at blocking transmission either? Then a vaccinated person might be both sick and infectious. In which case as they'd be dangerous to other vaccinated people, they should also be banned, which means everyone is banned.
Therefore by contradiction you must believe it's possible that they block transmission 100% but not infection. This makes no biological sense and isn't supported by robust science. In fact even asymptomatic transmission as a concept isn't supported by robust science - actual contact tracing attempts to find this keep drawing blanks. The belief it must be common comes from attempts to make models work mathematically, but those models are so filled with basic errors nothing about them is useful.
No, this is not my argument. There is growing evidence that transmission rates are drastically reduced among vaccinated people, but only by ~40-60% [0].
> 1. If vaccines stop infection, then you don't need to care if other people are sick or not.
We already established that while vaccines are very effective at stopping infection, they are not 100% effective.
> 2. Therefore you argue that because they might not be 100% effective at that, everyone should act as if they aren't effective at all, and ban unvaccinated people from things.
No, that is not my argument. My argument is that given current vaccination rates (~20% globally, ~45% in the US), and the significantly higher chance of transmission from un-vaccinated people, there is a meaningful chance that there is still risk despite 95% infection coverage. For sake of argument, if vaccination rates were meaningfully higher, I think this policy would be less necessary.
> 3. But what if the vaccine isn't 100% effective at blocking transmission either? Then a vaccinated person might be both sick and infectious. In which case as they'd be dangerous to other vaccinated people, they should also be banned, which means everyone is banned.
Again no, not my argument. It's not 100% effective at blocking transmission, but the chance of transmission is significantly lower for vaccinated individuals.
> Therefore by contradiction you must believe it's possible that they block transmission 100% but not infection.
No. For some reason, you keep taking my statements about percentages and twisting them into something unrelated.
In summary: there are a number of variables: current case rate, current vaccination rate/percentage, transmission rate for unvaccinated people, transmission rate for vaccinated people, infection rate for unvaccinated people and infection rate for vaccinated people.
There is no absolutely correct or incorrect answer, only risk-based decisions like: "for now, we require all attendees to be vaccinated". Given the variables above, and current values in the real world, I happen to believe the restrictions are reasonable. As those variables change, so will the appropriateness of the restrictions.
If you zoom out a bit, remember that we're coming out of a period of time where no events were happening at all, and folks are cautious, and understandably so.
You don't have to agree with my conclusion, but you do have to stop assigning your own twisted interpretation of these arguments to me.
Hopefully this clarifies things for future readers, but despite the temptation to continue, this is my last reply on this thread.
- [0] https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/mounting-evidence-suggests...
High freedom, high liberty, high choice
If you’re allowed to go around freely then my liberty is reduced because now I have to take precautions against being around you where I otherwise wouldn’t. But if you’re not then I get my liberty back as the cost of your freedom of choice.
You cannot have all three. Someone is going to lose, it’s just a question of who and how much.
As a fully vaccinated individual, I've relaxed my own precautions quite a bit, as is appropriate. However, there are still situations that make me uncomfortable, and I'll still put a mask on / sanitize regularly / etc when I'm in those situations (mostly if I'm interacting with people I know are anti-vax or are unable to get the vaccine for some reason (my brother falls into the 2nd category due to health issues)).
One of the primary reasons to attend a conference is to talk to strangers. This often involves meals, drinks, close proximity.
No one is being shamed here. Shaming would be creating a separate section at the conference for unvaccinated attendees and literally shaming them.
As a unvaccinated individual I never took any precaution, except the strictly mandatory to not get stoned in the public square
Me or my family will not live in fear of very low probability chances
> As a unvaccinated individual I never took any precaution
That's your right as an individual; however, that does not reflect the recommendations of most health professionals, nor does it reflect the reality of the global situation.
Of course not everyone that skips precautions will get sick, but don't misinterpret your good fortune / luck as an indicator that the behavior was/is safe.
I suspect I had covid, and the month after I had several strange infections, like my immune system was way down