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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

The vaccination rate for vericella (Chickenpox) is over 90%, so our society has herd immunity and cases are rare. Same with measles, mumps, diphtheria and polio. I don't know the vaccination for meningitis, but cases are rare and mostly in children not old enough to be vaccinated.

If an officemate wanted to be a free rider on one of those they could, and it would be very unlikely any harm would come from it.

If we had a 90% vaccination rate for this coronavirus we would not be having this conversation (and several hundred Americans would not be dying daily from a preventable illness).

As for the flu, its not especially dangerous, not prone to exponential spread, pre-symptomatic transmission is rare and the vaccines are not especially effective. So the flu shot is in a different class than the others.

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> The vaccination rate for vericella (Chickenpox) is over 90%

Certainly not in the older generations. I never had a chickenpox vaccine. They didn't exist when I was a child. I have had chickenpox though.

I don't buy it, even if there was 90% vaccination, which I think we can get to, people want to see obedience. This is as much about calling out heretics as it is about health, especially at companies like google. If broad vaccination was the goal like for other apolitical diseases, there are lots of measures google could support to get us there that don't involve invasive tracking of health information. Let's try to increase vaccine uptake if that's really the goal.

"This is as much about calling out heretics as it is about health"

Yes exactly. You can see it happening in these comments right now :)

"This is as much about calling out heretics as it is about health"

No, you're wrong, this is about saving lives. Around 300 people died today from a disease that we can stop. 300 more will die tomorrow. Are there perhaps others sub-agendas that some people are pushing under the cover of the pandemic? Yes, obviously, just like with literally every other catastrophe. But the primary agenda is stopping a preventable disease form killing another 20,000 or 30,000 Americans.

Full stop.

Also, I find it baffling you think we can get to a 90% vaccination rate given the politicization of this vaccine.

What a boring response.

You don't just get to say "this as about saving lives" and not have any real argument.

Encouraging vaccination, and getting it to levels consistent with other vaccines, does not automatically mean accepting new powers for employers or anyone else to enquire about people's medical status.

Google's move is consistent with wanting to give the appearance of being a progressive company that shares the values of many people here, that think individual privacy and freedom take a back seat to showing that we are taking the disease seriously. This is the same theater we see with airlines and security at other venues. There are real ways of addressing it, and then there are token gestures that are mostly about appeasing stakeholders. This is effectively populism. It's comforting to provide rituals and easy answers, but it is discriminatory and divisive, and not consistent with liberal democratic values, even if you agree with it.

What kind of hyper-politicized, conspiracy-minded sociopath doesn't count "saving human lives from an easily preventable illness" as a reasonable argument? Get out there in the world and talk to some people who have lost loved ones in this pandemic and maybe they can reason with you.

About 1800 people died today from another disease we can stop…

But it’s all fine because obesity is as American as apple pie.

https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm

> A unanimous public opinion tends to eliminate bodily those who differ, for mass unanimity is not the result of agreement, but an expression of fanaticism and hysteria.

-- Hannah Arendt

Thousands die worldwide each die from hunger and thirst. And just earlier, these two stories were flagged off the front page after shooting to the top very quickly:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27986986

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27988737

That stuff about "saving lives" sounded hollow from day one and is wearing increasingly thin.

Can't stop obesity with a couple quick shots pedant. Jesus christ don't pretend you don't know the difference, it makes me embarrassed for you.

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