It’s easy to judge the unvaccinated. | Hacker News Reader

It’s easy to judge the unvaccinated.

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While I understand the purpose of neutrality when administering health care — surgeons must operate on wounded saints and murderers alike — I believe the author fails to make an important distinction. There are choices that have an impact on individuals (or relatively small groups of people), and choices that exponentially affect public health.

The one-two punch of choosing to abstain from vaccination and going about daily life unmasked is a terribly irresponsible combination, one that has the potential to kill innocent bystanders by proxy. Perhaps it’s most comparable to driving under the influence or arson, even though the worst case casualty counts of those are still only in the hundreds, while a “Typhoid Mary or Mark” could bring about the demise of untold numbers of vulnerable folks over the full course of time.

So yes, if you forgo vaccination and get sick it’s your own fault (consequence of a personal decision), but it also means that you bear some responsibility for every person you have now caused to be infected down the line. Perhaps it isn’t right to judge people for self-inflicted wounds, but I believe it is quite appropriate to judge people for the fire they’ve perpetuated. So while it’s simpler for physicians to just treat everyone and not get bogged down in who caused what — my goodness, how the rest of us should judge and scorn those who made choices that risk the well being of us all.

> Perhaps it’s most comparable to driving under the influence or arson

> you bear some responsibility for every person you have now caused to be infected

Unless you actively inject virus into someone's bloodstream or something of that ilk, no one is causing - sticking with the tone of mens rea you gave earlier - anyone to be infected.

People who show symptoms who interact with others and don't take precautions like wearing a mask are no doubt being irresponsible and worthy of opprobrium but that's it. If you wish to compare it to driving under the influence, it's more like being drunk and those around you deciding to continue in whatever escapade you're engaged in together. If I'm with someone and they start coughing and refuse a mask, I'm going to tell them to put it on and isolate or I'm going to leave. They're not a criminal nor anything like it.

> if you forgo vaccination and get sick it’s your own fault

Would you say that of the huge numbers of people with comorbidity factors caused by their lifestyle? If just 4/5ths were more disciplined in their daily consumption of calories then we'd highly likely be looking at a very different outcome. They outnumber non-vaccinated by 2 to 1 (though there will no doubt be overlap), does that make them more culpable in your eyes?

Edit: removed a rogue asterisk

> People who show symptoms who interact with others and don't take precautions like wearing a mask are no doubt being irresponsible and worthy of opprobrium but that's it.

This applies to the vaccinated too because the data is clear that vaccinated people are capable of spreading the virus as well.

Also, in addition to the fact that many infected are asymptomatic, a study shows that one of the periods in which the virus is more easily transmitted occurs before symptoms appear:

https://fox59.com/news/coronavirus/study-covid-19-is-most-tr...

> If just 4/5ths were more disciplined in their daily consumption of calories then we'd highly likely be looking at a very different outcome.

Covid-19 death rates 10 times higher in countries where most adults are overweight, report finds:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/04/health/obesity-covid-death-ra...

In the US, however, it's practically an outrage to tell people that being fat has health consequences.

> This applies to the vaccinated too because the data is clear that vaccinated people are capable of spreading the virus as well.

I agree. I'm not a supporter of masks for those showing no symptoms but if there's one thing I would hope for from this pandemic is that people who feel ill stay at home. It used to annoy me looooong before the pandemic and it seriously annoys me now. The number of people I see out and about coughing who don't wear a mask or, as I saw on Saturday, someone pull don't a mask to sneeze so they don't "ruin" the mask… is mind blowing.

> If just 4/5ths were more disciplined in their daily consumption of calories

I see I created some word salad. I meant if the 4/5ths of severe COVID cases would just be more disciplined…

The full report you mention is here[1], it's well written and accessible and well worth a read. New reports can't sum it up well enough.

[1] https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/COVID-19-an...

Shaming people for making unhealthy choices isn't an effective public health measure. It didn't work for the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It won't work now. Let's focus on education instead.

"I don’t ask “Why?” when a patient with Covid-19 tells me they are unvaccinated for the same reason I don’t ask why someone whose alcohol level is four times the legal limit decided to drive"

-- I am judging them but just doing it silently instead of vocally like the rest of you

Distinction looking for a difference

To be clear, I am saying he should simply be vocal because social pressure in this case is good and right and healthy

Clinicians have a moral obligation not to judge their patients' decisions as a standard of the profession, and I respect that.

I am not a clinician.

Anti-vaxxers can suck it.

Please stop posting flamewar comments to HN, regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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