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Comment by TurboHaskal | Hacker News Reader

"Given that all vaccination is immediately available to all citizens, it is no longer justifiable that the federal government and therefore taxpayers cover the cost of all tests."

The vaccine is also paid with taxpayer money and it is a personal decision to get vaccinated. The STIKO does not currently recommend the vaccine for pregnant or breastfeeding mothers.

This reads like nothing but an attempt to put pressure on certain hesitant groups or maybe covering for the fact that the vaccines don't seem to be as effective as initially advertised to the laymen when it comes to the reduction of contagion risk.

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One test costs about as much as one dose of vaccine. So there is a considerably higher cost associated with weekly (or more) testing than with vaccination. Taxpayers (70% of which have now gotten vaccinated) don't have to pay for the luxury of the unvaccinated. Mind you, the government doesn't force you to get tested, btw.. You just can't partake in certain activities if you don't want to spend the money on the tests and don't want to get the vaccine.

You forgot why we are doing these tests (and vaccinating people): It's not about you as an individual. The free tests have been invaluable to prevent contagion (by encouraging self isolation) and predict the eventual saturation of the sanitary system.

This also sends the wrong message: That a vaccinated person has a substantial degree of immunity enough and cannot spread the virus, thus being allowed to enter public places without a test. We know this isn't the case.

Sometimes the state has to act for the greater good of everybody.

Also there are long-existing rules for required vaccinations for children or if you plan to travel abroad. Nobody talks about that.

This whole discussion is just some right-wing talking shit, stirring up uninformed people.

To add something (more) useful:

The vaccination will with very high chance prevent you from getting a serious case and therefore saving/keeping free resources in hospitals and immense costs for emergency care or prevent you from dying.

Hundreds of millions of people are vaccinated around the earth. There's not a significant amount of people that have died because of the vaccination or did even have any serious complications. Most of the "complications" or just what you would expect if your body is having an immune reaction: I myself had cold-like symptoms for two days. That's all and that's to be expected.

There are very likely no negative "long-term effects" of the vaccination. How should that even work? Vaccination is building anti-bodies to fight a disease, how can there even be any long-term effect?

A proper state would make the vaccine mandatory instead of these lame coercion attempts.

With delta, you will not reach anything close to herd immunity unless you vaccine about >=90% of the population. There is limited data on the relative safety of these new vaccines on <12 year olds.

With delta, it probably isn't possible to get herd immunity by vaccinating even 100% of the population (not that they're eligible anyway) - it just isn't effective enough at preventing transmission. The maths on this is actually pretty easy: the delta variant has an R0 of somewhere about 8, meaning each person infects around 8 others, latest numbers from the UK suggest vaccinated people are about a third as likely to have it as unvaccinated but are probably just as infectious, vaccinate everyone and each infected person will still spread it to enough others that there'll be strong exponential growth.

There's also going to be diminishing returns on vaccinating the last few percent of the population. At some point, the vaccinated outnumber the unvaccinated so much that the large majority of cases, hospitalisations, deaths, and spreading of the virus is happening amongst the vaccinated. Then there's all the people who aren't eligible for vaccination at all, of course...

Some politician promised that vaccination will not be mandatory over a year ago (IIRC), and this way they can technically keep their word...

At that time the vaccine also prevented transmission, changed circumstances require changed solutions.

Mandatory, or what? You go to prison?

You get sent to the gulag where they make you code CRUD apps with JavaScript and ever changing frameworks.

I assume you also have to pass a CAPTCHA to open your text editor every morning?

Also every time you open the editor it changes a single random number somewhere in your project.

I think if children are not vaccinated against measles, they're not allowed to go to a public school.

That's one example of existing mandatory vaccinations and it's for the greater good of everybody. Nobody cares about that.

My question is not "is it possible for the government to make a law to prevent people from X if they don't do Y." I don't know if vaccinating every kid would have the disired effect the parent is looking for.

I think the parent's suggestion to "just force people to get it" is incredibly simplistic and unfeasible considering the current laws and structure of government.

No shirt, no service

My question is no service where?

yes, let's launch a 10-year plan and a Great Leap Forward! Down with people that don't trust the Government!

I say Science is with us, let's vaccinate children and force people with cancer to get the Shot before we continue their treatment...

It's been 20 years since the last time any official media and mainstream political party used logic to analyze anything.

Did anyone see that the average life expectancy of the 10% additional boomer population is coming to an end?

Wouldn't that give us at least 10% more mortality?

you do realize that there had been and are mandatory vaccinations in Germany?

yep, but you can be dispensed if you have a medical condition. And those vaccines have been tested for 5+ years and on the market for 20+.

In France we are refusing entry to hospitals for people with frickin cancer, even though we are supposed to vaccinate to protect people who cannot (or at least that was the "Science" up until now).

We left logic and science at the door.

The STIKO does not currently recommend the vaccine for pregnant or breastfeeding mothers.

And these groups will continue to be able to get tested for free.

Well, it is probably first an attempt to put pressure on those who don't want to get vaccinated, and second an attempt to save money. I am fine with that. People will not be "forced" to get vaccinated, as was promised. But in practice they will be, which I think is a good thing. Obviously I am pro vaccination and fully vaccinated by now.

> But in practice they will be

I fear that in practice, this will divide the pro-vax and anti-vax camps even further. Pressuring, insulting and deriding unvaccinated people will make them even less likely to get the vaccine.

I fear the same. I think doing what needs to be done to get people vaccinated is good, but whether or not it's still a net positive after alienating people like that remains to be seen.

Funny how with fully representative democracy, coercion is done passive aggressively

> The STIKO does not currently recommend the vaccine for pregnant or breastfeeding mothers.

They don't expressly reccomend it, true, but that's because of lack of data, not because they have any reason to think it may cause problems. They say only that each person has to balance the risk of possible of unknown side effects of the vaccine against the consequences of a full-blown Covid infection during preganancy.

Pregnant Women can still have the vaccine if they wish. I asked a few doctors about this, and all said they would have no qualms about doing it.

The STIKO is the only organization that I currently trust. The have proven to be a stronhold of reason so far.

"STIKO" is the acronym of the "Ständige Impfkommission", or "permanent vaccination commission" as the dictionary translates it. They are the office responsible for recommendation of vaccinations in Germany.

A lack of recommendation does not mean that doctors could not vaccinate people anyways. The STIKO has not recommended vaccination of all youths yet (12-17 year old) but only for those at risk for example. Since the vaccines are already approved for that range of age though, some federate states have greenlit doing it in their vaccination centers anyways.

I’m quite certain that this is a coercion of those hesitant groups rather than a conspiracy to cover up anything. Vaccines used in Germany are good enough against Alpha and Beta, but the government was pretty clear about risks coming with Delta, when they added „Virusvariantengebiet“ category for some countries requiring the mandatory quarantine even for vaccinated people (now they are actually less alarmist on this matter).

Of course money is not the issue, it's just a (poor) excuse for increasing the pressure on people who do not wish to get this vaccination. I'd like to see the faces of citizens who support this kind of thing when the government decides that, due to the increased transmissions with the Delta variant even among vaccinated people, paid tests will be required for them too.

The cost for a shot of vaccine and for a single test are roughly the same. Most people would need 2 shots of vaccine in total, the test needs to be done every day you want to go to a restaurant or participate in a similar activity.

The article says that those who have health conditions that specifically prevent them from taking the vaccine will still get free tests.

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