I'm in complete favour of vaccination, but I'm amazed that it's even legal for an employer in the US to ask such specific details about one's medical history.
My employer doesn't need to know what vaccines I've taken, or anything else from my medical record, unless I decide to share it.
Mind you, I'll still tell my team "I'll be about this morning for vaccination". But there's a difference between me willing to share information and the company demanding it.
People need to accept the reality that spreading a disease is causing harm, and that preventing people from causing harm is a core function of the rules of society.
Spreading disease is unique- unlike assault or robbery or rape or murder it doesn't require the harmer to intend to cause harm, so many people resist accepting that they are hurting other people.
We need to update our societal understanding of causing harm to understand it includes harm which was unintentional, unknown, or done passively.
The virus is the thing that's causing harm. You can't blame an individual for being skeptical about a vaccine (that has more voluntarily reports of causing harm than any other vaccine in recent history, btw) that's experimental, and unapproved.
Also, the science is in on there being an effective treatment, therefore emergency use isn't even warranted. Seems cut and dry to me .
The taxi cab driver would be relevant in February of 2020 when it was new and unknown. If you're going out in public today unvaccinated, you're knowingly complicit in spreading covid.
Or maybe they're like me, and have already been infected with mild symptoms. Have you noticed that no one talks about natural immunity anymore, btw?
Again, anyone who has seen the VAERS data, and doesn't think twice about getting the vaccine, is just plain reckless.
Given the amount of doses administered, we would expect this, right?
Or are you making the claim that the proportions are higher?
Yet, if you look at the VAERS data, 2021 had more all-cause deaths after vaccinations than the previous 20 years combined. Also had more miscarriages after vaccination than the previous 20 years combined.
Keep in mind also we are only a little over half way through 2021.
Run the queries and see for yourself, https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
Be sure to ignore the big disclaimer on that page, though, right?
> The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines.
Instead everyone is sticking their head in the sand, except right wing pundits, who I think are all idiots and drawing their own incorrect conclusions because they aren’t experts.
Mandating vaccines is going a step further - it's forcing people to do an action, which might reduce their chances of causing harm in the future.
If the sole goal was to prevent people to cause harm to others, we should prevent people from driving (they hit others with their cars) or we should stop people from being drunk (they end up fighting others, and also driving drunk).
So clearly actually, the more nuanced answer is that society is, amongst other things, a balance between protecting others and personal liberty (and these things often fight against each other).
(I'm personally vaccinated, and think as a society everyone should be encouraged to vaccinate, but that it has to be an individual decision and that we shouldn't force people to put things in their body that they don't want to put into it).
As far as I can tell there is no reasonable justification for an individual not to get vaccinated unless they are immunocompromised. It is a purely selfish thing to do. Choosing not to get vaccinated is essentially saying that you want everyone else to get the vaccine but not you because there is some infinitesimal risk involved. If you have to choose between the vaccine or covid you would be very irrational to choose covid, so you are essentially saying you want there to be herd immunity without personally taking any actions. It is pure selfishness.
The longer this goes on the clearer the damage and risk have become. If we don't reach herd immunity the economy will shut down again, hundreds of thousands of people will die in our country alone, unknown thousands more will have disabilities, and all of the problems that come along with social distancing will continue. It is a huge waste of life and resources and happiness in return for what?
Meanwhile the vaccine that has already been administered to hundreds of millions of people with virtually no long term negative effects. With a mandate everyone will be much better off, especially those who wouldn't get vaccinated as they are avoiding the much greater risk of the potential damage covid can cause.
My guess is that more companies will follow suit and I applaud it. The VA hospitals were the first and there will be many many more to come. The government wont ever do it so it is left to private businesses. It is becoming clearer and clearer to me that this is the right call.
This Doctor in the Wall Street Journal last month brings attention to herd immunity gained through previous infection.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-power-of-natural-immunity-1...
How about, I don't trust the vaccine research?
You can expect rational people to trust science (which is essentially trusting nature to behave in a regular manner), but you cannot expect people to trust "scientists" just on the basis of rationality, simply because they are human, and is coerciable as the next guy..
The problem is, you know what I don't want to have put in my body even more than the vaccine? The coronavirus. The fact that it's some anti-vax luddite coughing on my kid and putting the virus in their body that way instead of a nurse administering a shot is just a minor implementation detail.
We've banned leaded gasoline and smoking indoors because we recognize the harm caused to others, even if it's hard to directly pin-point a specific cigarette to a cancer case. We need to pull society into the 21st century and acknowledge that spreading viruses has the same dynamic.
Since we can't effectively hold people liable for the damage they cause (eg, suing or imprisoning the person who negligently spread the disease when someone gets hospitalized or dies) I don't see any practical option other than requiring the vaccine. Maybe the liability model could work- if you went out in public unvaccinated, you're held liable for the medical expenses, missed work or wrongful death of the people you exhaled the virus onto.
Does abortion cause harm to human life? Not wanting to enflame anything, but I don't think there are easy answers here. Especially in this case and the danger Covid poses, I believe mandatory vaccination isn't justified by a security argument.
Many would disagree with such statement. The core function of society is IMHO preventing people from infriging on rights and freedoms of other people. That is much more complex and multivariadic issue than just 'preventing harm'.
People generally cause harm to others in many interactions that are acceptable and resticting it would be oppresive. Situations where person A causes harm to person B can be classified to four cases:
1) No one is within their rights
2) Person B is within their rights, while person A is not. Examples are classical right violations like assault or robbery.
3) Person A is within their rights, while person B is not. In this case person B has to tolerate the harm, as requiring person A to abstain from that action would be infriction of their rights.
4) Both sides are within their rights, in this case society has to find compromise solution and weight both rights against other.
This vaccination issue seems to me like the fourth case.
One one side, there is the right of bodily autonomy, which is important and fundamental human right.
On the other side, there is the right to protection of health. That is also important right but it is relative based on threat level.
Before the society concludes that the second right is more important than the first, and vaccinations of adults may be mandated, there are several questions that should be answered:
Did we used enough non-forcible approaches to improve vaccinations rates (say financial stimulus)?
What is the quantified marginal risk of a small part of population not being vaccinated to others and how does this compare to other health risks that we accept as inevitable part of living in society?
Please explain this right? What exactly is it? So by this right, can I demand pills for my disease free of cost?
I would presume it's legal in many European countries as well, and I would expect some would go even farther. Note that they're requiring vaccinations for returning to offices that the company manages, not asking arbitrary questions about medical histories. It certainly would be legal in the country where I live, from everything I've read. Just as private businesses are free to require a vaccination certificate for entry to an establishment (e.g. clubs, or in certain European countries more essential services as well), employers are free to terminate an employee if their presence in the workplace poses an excessive risk.