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Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

We have never required anything like this to go to a restaurant. Or the gym. Or the beach. This is a huge new step.

Pointing out that children must be vaccinated against viruses that disproportionately harm children in order to participate in public education is true, but irrelevant to the question. Pointing out that we require certain vaccinations of immigrants is true, but irrelevant to the question.

(Not for nothing: we require immigrants to pass a citizenship test and a background check, too. If the standard is "anything that is OK for US immigration is OK for going to Chick-Fil-A", then we're going to have to disagree...)

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> We have never required anything like this to go to a restaurant. Or the gym. Or the beach. This is a huge new step.

Indeed, instead there used to be mandatory, involuntary quarantine enforcement, sometimes (typhus, polio) on a per-household basis with the enforcement notice posted prominently on the front door. That restricted not only restaurants and beach visits but all visits of any kind.

I'm not exactly sure which side of the argument you're on here, but ignoring the utility and/or practicality of quarantine on a mass scale, I wouldn't compare it to a policy requiring everyone to show their papers to go to McDonalds.

It's almost like people are arguing "we did {restrictive policy} once, so any form of restriction is of the same form!"

I mean...hell: we had slavery once. So maybe let's set aside the idea that prior infringements of individual liberty justify future infringements of individual liberty?

I’d argue you not getting vaccinated and adding to the potential of a mutation that makes the vaccine ineffective is a violation of MY individual liberties, and the Supreme Court agrees. Which is why just about every state in the US actually can force you to get vaccinated, they just haven’t.

Could you provide the source for the supreme court agreement? It seems to me that forcing someone to get a vaccine would just as much violate their individual liberties so I'm rather curious what issue the supreme court was specifically addressing

Not tw04, but...

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/us-supreme-court-a...

Thanks for the link!

Supreme court acceded to the question of vaccine mandates on the grounds of maintaining public safety and keeping order trumped the 1st amendment.

The background was a polio outbreak in MA around 1905, with something like a 30% mortality among all age groups.

We are back to 1905, but now its not 30% that is at the issue, but some decimal to the right of zero.

I personally know several people who have told me that they would stab or shoot anyone who tried to force them get a vaccine. The logistics of that may be a bit tricky, of course.

How would the logistics of forced vaccination go down, anyway? Do you think people wouldn't forge their vaccine papers, bribe doctors or otherwise get them to be sympathetic, or otherwise circumvent/ignore the system/rules in order to avoid the vaccine?

As stated elsewhere in this thread, it is not going to be possible to stop the virus at this point. We will all eventually be exposed and the best we can do is be as safe as we believe we need to be and can.

this is exactly what is going down in developing countries

as soon as authorities announce a potential paper requirement , the literal next day there are touts selling the paper.

The Supreme Court has ruled that states can mandate vaccinations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

I’m not sure why the misconception that freedom is absolute in the US is so widespread.

Notably, the quarantine enforcement you describe were much more stringent requirements, levied against specific people who were believed to be infected or at elevated risk of infection (such as arrivals from overseas), never as a standing order issued against the population of the state's residents. Moreover, the quarantine laws which authorize this sort of thing in New York City demand due-process protections, such that those who are quarantined must receive notice that they are entitled to judicial review of the quarantine order.

Further reading:

https://regs.health.ny.gov/volume-title-10/content/section-2...

Weren't these quarantines limited to people who actually had the diseases, not just people who weren't vaccinated against them?

I think it's a practical thing. We don't require vaccination for restaurants, but because vaccination is required at schools, practically you can assume that most people are vaccinated. And for many of these illnesses, we have attained herd immunity (although antivaxers are chipping away at that.)

We should want to be in the same world for COVID. I'm sorry, but I don't see why I should have to risk getting COVID when there is a perfectly safe, free vaccine, that if delivered to enough of the population, will allow us to achieve herd immunity. The risks of long COVID are real. You're either imposing a very safe vaccine on people, or a somewhat dangerous illness on them, it seems very obvious the best option is to impose the vaccine.

>You're either imposing a very safe vaccine on people

It's not very safe; there have been more adverse events reported in VAERS following the covid vaccines than in the past 20 years for all other vaccines. And unlike all those other vaccines, there's absolutely zero long-term safety data, because it's impossible to know the effects 3-5 years in future of a novel treatment that's only existed for one year.

I agree but please note that there are a lot (50x) more people getting the vaccine.

This is true. Or, I think it is, I just checked the last 10 years; the three COVID vaccines have 60% of the reports from that time.

However...

    Death    5,191 1.25%
    Life Threatening   7,110 1.72%
    Permanent Disability  6,103 1.47%
    Congenital Anomaly / Birth Defect   232 0.06%
    Hospitalized   23,990 5.79%
    Existing Hospitalization Prolonged 228 0.06%
    Emergency Room     58,335 14.08%
    Office Visit     84,704 20.44%
    None of the above   274,035 66.14%

Death, life threatening events, permanent disability, birth defects, and hospitalization events accounted for about 10% of the reports. 66% of them were "None of the above". (Multiple events can be reported, i.e. hospitalization and permanent disability, resulting in >100%.)

Further, there are limitations to the conclusions that you can draw from VAERS:

"VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to VAERS. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind."

If someone gets a vaccination and is then run over by a bus, that can be reported as a "Death". Additionally, given the politicization of COVID vaccines, I think we can expect that there is a strong bias towards reporting events. The COVID vaccines have a number of common side effects (mine were almost as bad as those of my shingles vaccination), which may explain some of the excess.

But fundamentally, the VAERS data simply cannot be used to determine whether or not a vaccine is unsafe.

On the other hand, consider: There have been 349,000,000 doses administered, with about 428,000 events reported, meaning that 0.12% of doses result in an event and 0.04% result in an event involving health care. I ride a motorcycle. I would be overjoyed at those kinds of safety odds.

this just isn't remotely true. There is a long history in the US of cities and sub national governments requiring vaccination, limiting the things the unvaccinated can participate in, and fining people who refuse to be vaccinated. https://www.history.com/news/smallpox-vaccine-supreme-court There is a long history of case law establishing the rights of subnational US governments to act in the interests of their citizens in protecting public health.

This is not true. When the smallpox vaccine was being rolled out many restaurants, social clubs, and other places of congregation required proof of vaccination.

Suggesting that Adults must be vaccinated against viruses that disproportionately harm Adults in order to participate in public life is not irrelevant to the question

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