NYC Emergency Executive Order 225
www1.nyc.gov
www1.nyc.gov
That implies not posting predictable or shallow comments, because when the topic is super inflammatory like this one, those automatically count as flamebait.
Maybe go with the subtitle instead:
> Requiring COVID-19 Vaccination for Indoor Entertainment, Recreation, Dining and Fitness Settings
Since it is more descriptive of the content.
The disease is a challenge at this time - but managing the public's reaction seems to be the more difficult issue. We've solved the technical problems of this pandemic (we have a vaccine) now we just need to solve the social side of it - distributing it globally and making sure everyone gets vaccinated.
To this end NYC seems a pretty good test bed due to the strong liberal leanings there and high vaccination rates.
It's high relative to the south or florida but the order says the vaccination rate is 56%.
Seattle has a 78% vaccination rate [1] and SF has a 71% rate [2]. NYC is pretty low rate of vaccination relative to major libral cities. It seems that boston, a comparable east-coast city has a closer, but still higher vaccination rate of 65% (link somewhat out of date) [3]
[1] https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/health/communicable-dis...
[2] https://sf.gov/data/covid-19-vaccinations
[3] https://www.mass.gov/doc/boston-vaccination-data-report-july...
New York City is 25% black. Blacks have the lowest vaccination rate among US ethnic groups. (<https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-...>)
Seattle is 7% black.
San Francisco is 6% black, and is one third Asian (double that of NYC), the ethnicity with the highest vaccination rate in the US.
Unlike the EU health pass, the NYC health pass does not have a provision for negative tests or proof of recovery/immunity. CDC recommends testing, since vaccinated people can be infected and the vaccine suppresses symptoms, so they won't know to self-isolate, https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210729/cdc-reverses-guidan...
> Even if they’re not showing symptoms, fully vaccinated people should “get tested 3-5 days after exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until they receive a negative test result,” ... “Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told The New York Times
Never mind that PoC vaccination stats are dwarfed by white people (with good historical reasons) thus de facto segregating them from everyday life.
I’m against both as a concept BTW but my opinion is moot as a non-American.
Both of those procedures are exceedingly personal medical decisions the ramifications of which will never spread beyond yourself or, at most, your immediate family. The question of vaccination isn't an individual decision - it's a societal decision. We all (or most, technically) get vaccinated so that we can curtail an ongoing pandemic, it isn't effective if done to only a small segment of the population and the US is currently sitting just short of 60% vaccinated with at least one dose.
The big difference is between it validly being a personal choice or being something necessary for society to function.
There is no evidence that these types of coercion tactics actually increase vaccinations. It's an emerging field of study but there is a growing body of evidence that they actually decrease vaccination acceptance.
2-3% of people are medically contraindicated from getting some or even all vaccines because the risks of the vaccine due to their age, existing illness, genetics and medications are higher than the risk of the diseases prevented.
I think it makes more sense to keep the government out of the exam room in all cases.
I do think it's quite fair that this article was flagged since the comment section quickly got mobbed by some pretty rabid commenters and HN doesn't want to deal with that - but it does have a chilling effect.
HN has an extremely good moderation system. It has very level headed folks like dang that only use the very lightest touch and the fact that it has downvotes is good - but prevents downvoting replies is even better since it trains people to be more conservative about blindly downvoting things they simply disagree with.
There is definitely an issue with downvote brigading on some articles[1] that it hasn't been able to deal with sufficiently but it's relatively organic brigading and tends to be limited to politically charged topics (and vaccination is definitely a politically charged topic in the US). The solution of slicing political topics out of the general discussion pool seems reasonable as a response and while I would like to have a discussion on the topic with all the interesting people that hang out on HN I can accept that this message board isn't oriented to support that kind of a discussion and is only damaged when such political hot topics rise to prominence.
Oh - if this seems counter to my comment above it's because it partially is. I think this is a hard problem to solve and I don't like any of the solutions out there. HN's moderation system is the is the worst moderation system out there... except for all the others we've tried.
1. Not on most see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and the comment on brigading.
In my experience, the first few comments of a post are usually pretty low quality, but after a few hours, thoughtful comments are made, and the low quality ones are downvoted. In this case, yes, the initial comments were bad. But doesn't it make more sense to just downvote/flag those comments, and allow more thoughtful responses to bubble up? There's a discussion to be had here, and it's very easy on this site to ignore the people screaming.
its not about you having done something its about other users and the optics, you may notice those have been moderated as well
"If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
This has been covered to death on TV news.
You aren't getting vaccinated for yourself - you're getting vaccinated to help create a safe environment where this pandemic can be stamped out. We've lived with this for more than a year now - it isn't just going to magically disappear and, if we haven't done anything by winter, it's going to get worse again.
Unvaccinated have a much higher probability of catching, spreading, and evolving new variants of the virus.
Vaccination protects individuals, but does not prevent the disease. There are still vaccinated patients showing up to hospital ERs (granted, at a substantially lower number than unvaccinated).
If 80+% of people get vaccinated, the virus will have a much harder time spreading and evolving.
As it stands, the virus is still having a field day. I don't want unvaccinated, higher probability infectors/spreaders around me and my loved ones.
If you love this country, do something for your fellow Americans and get vaccinated.
I don’t care how much money you donate to charity, I care how many people died because of you :-)
You say that ironically, but that's exactly my point.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28225993.
We should not be taking further steps to protect people who are able but not willing to be vaccinated. If you are unable to be vaccinated, then you can stay home voluntarily (this order just makes it mandatory which doesn't seem like an improvement).
Next thing you will say you should not need a driver license to drive a car because it limit your freedom?
How does this compare with the odd of adverse reactions to the vaccine?
lol you have absolutely zero idea what you are talking about.
The government absolutely has the right to mandate vaccinations, they just have chosen not to. I've heard this repeated more than once and I don't know where people got it from. On top of the supreme court ruling, just about every state has a state-level law giving the governor the right to enforce vaccinations as well.
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1824/jacobson-v-mas...
Are you trying to make a general argument, or an argument specific to just vaccinations.
If the former, there is quite a bit of historical precedent that says otherwise. For example, the government does not have the authority to mandate that I have a motor vehicle, but they can ban me from walking or using a non-motorized vehicle on the freeways. I'm sure you can think of plenty of other examples where the government can require that you have something or meet particular conditions in order to do some activity or enter some place, but they cannot mandate that you have that something or meet those conditions.
> We should not be taking further steps to protect people who are able but not willing to be vaccinated.
Unvaccinated people increase risk for vaccinated people. There was a useful infographic in this Ars article [1]. Imagine two hypothetical states, each with a population of 1 million. State A is 70% vaccinated, state B 30%.
What you'd expect is state A to have 130 cases per week and B to have 5114.
In state A it would be 29 cases among the vaccinated and 101 among the unvaccinated. In B it would be 250 among the vaccinated, 4864 among the unvaccinated. That's a rate of 41 per million among the vaccinated in A, and 833 per million in B. A vaccinated person is 20 times as likely to get infected in state B.
For the unvaccinated, the rate in A is 337 per million and in B it is 6949. An unvaccinated person is 20 times as likely to get infected in B.
Hospitalizations would be 1.4 in A and 18.8 in B.
In A that would be 0.1 among the vaccinated and 1.3 among the unvaccinated. That's 0.14 per million and 4.3 per million respectively.
In B it would be 0.3 vaccinated hospitalizations per week and 18.5 unvaccinated. Those are rates of 1 per million and 26.4 per million.
A vaccinated person in B is 7 times as likely to be hospitalized as a vaccinated person in A. For unvaccinated people, it is 6 times.
Note that in either state, vaccinated people are much better off than unvaccinated, both in terms of cases and hospitalizations. But in B, the state with the low vaccination rate, both vaccinated and unvaccinated people are quite a bit worse off than those in B, the state with the high vaccination rate.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/pandemic-of-unvaccin...
The main roadblock I often find when talking about vaccination to people is this group effect "You can get vaccinated if you want but I'll make the choice for my body." without realizing that they're also potentially making the decision for my body as well.
Maybe a good way to reframe this is to shift it off of authoritarianism vs. individualism to authoritarianism vs. authoritarianism. One side may be saying that everyone needs to get vaccinated - but the other side is saying "I reserve the right to get everyone else sick" by not getting vaccinated.
5 out of 200+ deaths per day and around 100 beds taken by covid patients doesn't sound like a crisis or justification for this executive order. Maybe I'm missing something?
I also found it interesting that the per-capita deaths this year and last don't show an increase over the prior/predicted line on the graph. I assume this is because the baby boomer generation is getting older.
None of this runs counter to the numbers you presented, but does seem to show that this pandemic is not killing people or putting them in the hospital at a rate anywhere close to what it was doing last year. It's predicted that this will continue to affect people less as it becomes endemic, like the other coronaviruses that circulate and don't bother anyone much [3].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyc
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/deat...
[2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/how-we-l...
However, I think the negative test result in lieu is a very different question - those tests are highly effective but allowing test proofs in lieu of vaccination would likely burden the testing framework (which I believe is still freely offered by the government in the states) and would allow a route for objectors to avoid vaccination. I believe at this point the primary goal is to increase vaccination proportions to prevent more disease waves.
if you have a medical condition precluding vaccination you should not go to indoor activity that are not essential. But i would love to be proven wrong about that.
Current vaccine only have 88% efficacy against variants! I still call this a significant risk given the 5% fatality rate.
The infection fatality rate is not remotely close to 5%. It's remarkable that we are now over 18 months into this pandemic and so much of the public is still in the thrall of the fearmongering and misinformation about the real magnitude of the threat SARS-CoV-2 poses -- especially to them personally, if they are not in a high-risk group.
if you are above 60year old it’s most often above 10%
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210307/Study-analyzes-CO...
This doesn't even line up with the CFR numbers you get when you type "US coronavirus cases" into Google.
For how long? Until you die?
I am pro vaccine and I am vaccinated - just explaining that I understand people's reluctance to believe anything they hear.
This feels a touch melodramatic. I understand the point you want to make, but maybe a 1984 reference would work better. Vaccination is (barring some relatively uncommon exceptions) a choice, and not something that you have no control over.
I’m half joking each time i see a comment like that I don’t understand what you think the government is trying to achieve by vaccinating you.
The only evil thing I can think of is some politicians would make more money if more people get vaccinated because they own shares of the company producing the vaccine.
But if that’s is the case nothing is stopping you to go ahead and also buy stock of pharma
This is a rather disingenuous comment.
Since the fragile card stock vaccine record is not practical to carry everyday & everywhere, this will push people towards installing apps on their phones. This opens the door to digital tracking.
Next, strictly speaking, having the app is not sufficient. You also need to show ID. Which ID?
> “Identification” means an official document bearing the name of the individual and a photo or date of birth. Examples of acceptable identification include but are not limited to: driver’s license, non-driver government ID card, IDNYC, passport, and school ID card.
Great. Now there is the problem of how to check these are not faked. Bars/restaurants have all sorts of methods and some of them actually involve scanning your identification[1].
Please add two and two together and recognize two-pronged approach to constant tracking of everyone's everyday activities.
[1]: https://viage.com/
but that the extreme measure we are forced to take so idiot get vaccinated open the door for more invasion of privacy.
AFAIK these aren't public spaces
Same thing, you can't go to a bar if you aren't vaccinated, you will be a danger to yourself and others.
Given the Enormous Volume of professional discussion on these matters, what's the purpose of rehashing that question here? Do you expect an expert viral epidemiologist to jump in and provide a new angle on the discussion?
sar2[covid19] can be carried in the nasal vault by persons vaccinated or persons of naturally aquired immunity
vaccinated persons may have a breakthrough infection; or go on to spread to others.
<<If they are then what is the purpose of getting the vaccination>>
the vaccination gives you an edge on the virus from the start; meaning prompt immune response, not having to wait until an antigen is perceived in order to develop antibodies, reduced severity of illness, and squelching of viral reproductive cycling
You can tell that they are trying to roll this and the other mandates out as quickly as possible before it becomes clearer to people that keeping their "fully vaccinated" status (and the attendant freedoms which used to just be a matter of course in 2019) will require getting re-injected at regular intervals in perpetuity.
All these permanent changes to our lives and erosion of our freedom, being meekly accepted to combat (supposedly) a virus that's killed a fraction of the number who died in the 1918 Spanish flu. It's really something to watch.
While people in other countries may be used to always having to carry identification, this is rather provocative in a city and state which does not require identification, among other situations, when you register to vote or vote. It is also deputizing museum workers, gym owners, restaurant waitstaff as identity checkers. This will presumably drive all those business to install identity check solutions used by bars but expand their used to a whole range of activities. It is an amazing amount of extra tracking/surveillance that is being introduced to everyone's everyday activities and is an intrusion into the lives of all, vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.
A simple regulation could also make this safe from surveillance while still allowing verification:
Allow people to check identity, but make it illegal to store or share this information.
There are so many small, simple laws that could go long ways to protect people from surveillance while still allowing us to do new things to protect us. I wish we got 10% of the obvious laws many people want.
I've spent not more than a couple of weeks in total in the NY and during that time I was required to produce identification more times than I had in years spent in various continental European countries - where in theory you were obliged to carry Id with you at all times.
Just because I wanted to buy a beer or order wine with food in a bar or restaurant. I was in my late 20s at the time.
It's just what you're used to.
> this is rather provocative in a city and state which does not require identification, among other situations, when you register to vote or vote.
In full:
"While people in other countries may be used to always having to carry identification, this is rather provocative in a city and state which does not require identification, among other situations, when you register to vote or vote"
I don't know why it's so provocative compared to us people from "other countries" as my experience in the US involved being required to present identification far more frequently than I had in many European countries.
I'm not sure the full quote changes my point much?
Every gym I've ever been a member of requires you to validate your ID. You either swipe your membership card (which has your personal information tied to it), or provide your license to get into the gym. If you can't provide either, they aren't letting you in the door.
Every restaurant in the US is already supposed to validate your ID when you order an alcoholic drink. Bars won't even let you in the door without showing an ID.
I don't think anyone is happy this is required, but when people that are unvaccinated decide to put others at risk because they don't want to be inconvenienced, this is what happens.
What bars won't let you walk in without showing an ID? Maybe a college town, but it is rare elsewhere.
The only time I’ve been let into a bar without showing ID was in New York City.
“Rare.”
San Fran, can you name one that doesn’t? You aren’t getting into the madrone without an ID unless you’re about 50.
“ The only time I’ve been let into a bar without showing ID…”
Restaurant waitstaff are already regularly “deputized” that way by alcoholic beverage control laws.