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I predict that by December of 2021 enough people will have gotten the vaccine or have had COVID that the hospitalization numbers will drop precipitously and then we can all go back to a normal life.

The OSHA requirement will hang around, but people won't be freaking out about it because it will be normal. Within two years there will be a childhood COVID vaccine that is safe and effective and it will be required for school attendance like all the other shots.

All the people freaking out about the vaccine/mask requirements will have matured out of it or will find something else to be outraged about.

If I'm wrong, I will come back and say I was wrong. :-) I may lose an internet point or two.

The big problem is they still want people who've recovered from COVID to get vaccinated. This is a very big deal and I wouldn't be surprised if the whole OSHA plan goes to the Supreme Court.

I've recovered from COVID and stand against vaccine mandates.

Not sure why you think that's a problem. The vaccines offer better protection against variants than having had COVID and recovering.

Edit: Apparently this is new information to people: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

Please share evidence for this claim.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

Getting a vaccine after recovering from covid would be along the lines of getting a booster shot. You'd develop some new antibodies, and strengthen your immune memory for the disease. It'll offer you better protection no matter what.

Your link doesn't address better protection against variants specifically, just better protection against reinfection in general. The linked study specifically states that it does not include delta.

that's okay, a nonzero benefit is still a benefit

It does not say that there is non-zero benefit vs variants. This data does not exist, it could be the case that natural immunity is as good, better, or worse vs variants, or perhaps is different depending on variant.

it doesn't have to have non-zero benefit vs. variants, it just has to have non-zero benefit overall to outweigh the negligible cost in the net cost/benefit calculus

I was addressing a specific statement that was unsupported

>The vaccines offer better protection against variants than having had COVID and recovering.

The cost/benefit overall is much more complicated than this simple statement.

the overall cost/benefit for getting vaccinated is actually not at all complicated

for example: how are you personally, materially harmed by taking the vaccine?

that would be the cost

Keep in mind this discussion thread is about people who have already contracted Covid and recovered.

The benefits:

Unknown increase in immunity against alpha strain

Unknown increase in immunity against variant strains

...

The Costs:

Chance of currently known adverse effects

Chance of unknown adverse effects specific to vaccination of people with prior immunity.

Some recent data [1] suggests that those with prior covid infection 13X lower chances or reinfection with delta than those with 2 vaccine doses. If this is accurate, it begs the question of how much benefit is gained by vaccination on top of existing immunity in comparison to to the rare but known side effects.

https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...

any benefit would be enough, because those adverse effects are extremely rare in non-contraindicated people

Im sorry, but that is missing the point.Any benefit doesn't equal cost/benefit.

For some with naturally acquired immunity, Both costs and benefits are amazingly small!

If you are a healthy 18 year old (infection fatality 1/100,000)[1] w/o vaccine, plus have previously acquired immunity 13X better[2] than a vaccine 90+% effective, you are talking about about 1/ 10s of millions of chance of death or severe complications IF you are infected. This easily puts it in competition with the more serious vaccine complications.

Looking at just two aspects for this hypothetical individual, you could weigh

1/10 million chance of death with no booster vaccine shot VS 17/100,000 chance of bells palsy[3] and a 60% chance of fever, chills and headache.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0 https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on... https://www.fda.gov/media/144413/download

I checked your link regarding Bell's palsy, as an example, and the study said:

  >Currently available information is insufficient to determine a causal relationship with the vaccine

so where are you getting the evidence for the claim that 17/100,000 people will get Bell's palsy?

is all your evidence for a non-negligible cost this flimsy?

17/100k It is straight from the prescribing information.

Similar nonzero observations have been made in other national studies with sufficiently large samples.[1]

Some countries have added additional content around it to the prescribing info [2].

Scientific consensus is that the risk is clearly is lower than covid.

Another rare but acknowledged side effect is mycarditis.

We can quibble about the rates but they do exist.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-s...

https://www.aappublications.org/news/2021/06/10/covid-vaccin...

Numbers differ by study and vaccine. The prescribing info for phizer mentions bells palsy, but not the calculated rate.

An analysis looking at the trial data puts it at 14-18/100k higher than the expected baseline

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

A analsys from the previously linked lancet study had a muck larger sample ~500k, but different collection methods and found smaller but nonzero results

>The age-standardised difference for the incidence compared with the background population was 41·5 (95% CI 11·7 to 71·4) for CoronaVac and 17·0 (−6·6 to 40·6) for BNT162b2, equivalent to an additional 4·8 cases per 100 000 people vaccinated for CoronaVac and 2·0 cases per 100 000 people vaccinated for BNT162b2.

Most if not all the vaccine trials saw small increases <1% in serious adverse events in the treatment arm

You're correct that link doesn't. Sorry. Let me go find the other one. I'll be back.

Sorry it took so long. Had a work fire to put out.

Here you go: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915

Are you an immunologist by any chance?

I agree with this part - if you can show you have antibodies, I don't care where you got them from (well, I would have preferred they were gotten from a vaccine, but that's besides the point now!).

My only stipulation is that if you say you had it, you need to have an antibody test to prove it, and if the test is negative, you need a vaccine.

We aren't ever going back to normal at this point.

Once government gets power, it doesn't give it back.

We're pushing closer to 2 Americas, one with freedom and one with vaccine mandates

You do realize that we vote for our government representatives, right? The 'government' is us.

"Us" is ~50% of the population in many congressional districts. Even in the most hard left/right jurisdictions you get like an 80-20 split on federal elections. That's a 1 in 5 minority of the population. That's f-ing huge.

And between the left complaining about disenfranchisement and the right complaining about voter fraud the elected representative holds less legitimacy in the eyes of the "I didn't vote for them" minority in any given district.

Look at the crazy things totalitarian governments do to keep marginalized 10-30% religious and ethnic minorities from causing instability. A pissed off group of similar size in a western country that isn't willing to stoop that low is a civil unrest bomb waiting to go off.

Gerrymandering allows the ones in charge to stay in charge.

Agreed, that forces us to vote more overwhelmingly against whoever is gerrymandering.

We didn't vote for this. OSHA isn't elected at all.

OSHA is in the executive branch, under the president, who we voted for.

Personally I think sooner, unless another variant worse than Delta springs up. Right now Mu, Lambda are known but Delta appears to out compete.

Funny... That's what many predicted would happen six months ago when the vaccine was available.

And your argument is that by the time the onerous regulation becomes unnecessary everyone will be used to it.

Kind of like how the patriot act was there for so long we all just became numb to the constant surveillance, the nude airport screenings etc.

This exact argument could be used to push back against environmental standards, occupational safety standards, or drinking water standards. I don't want cholera outbreaks and I don't want the health system to collapse because of COVID.

If it weren't already standard, there is no way we'd be able to mandate seat belts today.

EDIT: I'm pro seatbelt just in case that needed clarifying

If you want an interesting read, check out the battle over seatbelt interlock devices. Optional seatbelts (with perhaps fines for non-use depending on the jurisdiction) was the compromise between none at all and cars not functioning without them being in use.

https://www.history.com/news/seat-belt-laws-resistance

That was a really interesting read, thank you

I guess we have Elizabeth Dole to thank in part for near ubiquitous air bags and seatbelts.

I hate to think how many would die every year without them.

These days? Few.

In the 1990s, more.

Except in the highest speed crashes frontal airbags are mostly redundant for belted in passengers (the first S in SRS is there for a reason), especially in this age of seatbelt pre-tensioners.

Side curtain airbags are far more helpful these days.

Are you pro-motorcycle helmet as well? I don't ride but my understanding is there is disagreement about the relative protection of a helmet vs compromised visibility, yet most states in the US mandate helmets. Maybe some motorcyclists could clarify.

Plenty of motorcyclists would also argue that louder exhausts are safer but the data doesn't bare that out either.

Yes I'm pro motorcycle helmet.

Is this an argument in favor of monitoring individual compliance with environmental standards using some kind of digital pass? That seems like something you should state explicitly.

Occupational safety regulation is typically targeted towards employers, not employees. This mandate actually flies in the face of that standard and the OSHA charter.

No it can't be compared to OSHA or drinking water standards. For people to drink clean water requires a treatment plant to be operating correctly, not for every person that drinks water to be treated with a shot.

We’ve had vaccine mandates (set by the states) to attend school for what, 50 years? Arguments like this are so tired and miss the forest for the trees.

Maybe think of the healthcare professionals so burnt out and quitting because people are so indignant to get the shot and end up taking valuable hospital space. I’d take forcing these hold outs (and trampling on their fREeDoMs) to get the shot in exchange for a functioning national healthcare system any day.

You’re right that some schools have had a vaccine mandate. But neither the private nor public sector ever have. And we didn’t have the accompanying dystopian nightmare as a reality and further threat. So I would say your argument is tired and misses the point entirely, aside from being so brazenly naive to fall for the “if only these last few holdouts got vaccinated everything would be normal!” straw man.

Keep on goose stepping…

It's amazing how far some people will go (selfishly) to "protect" their perceived "freedom" at the expense of society. There really is something rotten in our society and it's not anything to do with authoritarianism but empathy, good grief.

Not who you're talking to but yes, I will protect my freedom at your expense in every case, for two reasons. One, I am my first responsibility and you are yours, and two, and far more importantly, the only way me protecting my freedom comes at your expense is if you're trying to violate my rights.

If everyone put themselves above society the world would be a much better place.

I mean you're correct, in that since > 80% of Americans got all their required vaccines in childhood there was no need to mandate it for adults, but it's a very oblique sort of correctness.

And yes, if everyone who was unvaccinated went out today and got the vaccine, the COVID infection rate would drop precipitously.

Arguments for thinking of the burnt-out healthcare professionals are tired and miss the forest for the trees. There are many reasons for healthcare professionals feeling burnt-out that pre-date Covid and were exacerbated by it. Where were your tears for them then?

You clearly don't value your liberty. (Maybe you don't even understand what it means, given your mockery.) Liberty refers to your right to govern yourself. If you would rather be governed by unelected administrative agencies, you'll be just fine in the new normal.

The liberty you think ever existed never did, look around. All the "freedom" advocates against the vax just pick and choose how they define freedom. There's no place in the world you can live as a sovereign citizen, so I'd suggest you get on board or buy a boat and live out on open water because that's the only place you'll be "free".

IMO, this type of political nihilism is the natural result of a dispirited populace grown used to delegating its own government to unaccountable managers. I'm not arguing for sovereign citizenship, just regular citizenship. There is a long tradition of political thought regarding liberty and freedom, your cynicism notwithstanding. If you ever find yourself using terms like 'rights', 'free', or 'justice' without quotations then I hope you can resolve your internal contractions.

Citizenship comes with strings attached and I'm under no illusion or delusion that I am "free" in the objective sense. I'm also completely ok with that because society has afforded me great freedom(s) that I could not have elsewhere. I _have_ to work a job, I _have_ to pay taxes, I _have_ to enlist if called upon in the draft, I _have_ to be vaccinated to go to school.

The inconvenient truth may be that as society becomes more interconnected, the less objective freedoms we have because we're trying to scale humanity and reap the collective benefits. Again, I'm completely ok with that because even in software, we have standards that software must abide by in order to interoperate efficiently. You can't just say "I don't want to conform the society's standards" yet reap the benefits the collective has provided.

I'm content with my world view, maybe it's you that needs to look outside of yourself and see what everyone is actually trying to do here (outside of this immediate situation, I mean the species as a whole).

You previously used "freedoms" in mocking quotes. Which freedoms are you referring to now and why do you think they don't deserve the same mockery? You also confidently throw around terms like 'benefits' and 'collective' as if those terms have objective meanings we can all agree on.

What you're describing sounds like the happy path to techno-totalitarianism. You're only saying what you said before, that you'll be fine ("completely ok") with that outcome. Will you be content when you have to present digitally signed 'papers' to participate in what today we would consider normal functions of life? It sounds like the answer is 'yes', because you see it as the cost of 'scaling humanity', whatever that means.

I'm mocking the way people who believe and use the word "freedom" to assert some innate sovereignty over how they are allowed to act in society and faux rights which they don't actually have.

People who use phrases such as "wearing a mask tramples on my freedom". These "freedoms" aren't actually freedoms. They're made up to mean "things I don't like" and in no codified law both common or contemporary.

I'm not describing anything other than the complete lack of perspective and, frankly, will for these people to operate in a society which needs their cooperation in order to function efficiently. These people are more like a virus than anything.

I already have to show physical "papers": passport, license, social security card, birth certificate, etc. Why should I be worried about "digital" papers? Again, completely delusional conspiracy that has no basis in reality.

You've already decided to dehumanize the people who don't agree to take a mandated health intervention. You may feel comfortable comparing people to viruses but I don't. The 20th century has a nasty history of that sort of thing.

As far as delusional conspiracy theories, what's your opinion on social credit systems, central bank digital currencies, and intra-national passports? Last I checked those are on the menu in China and coming to a democracy near you.

Nah, I think I’ll just live in a society that has the same values as me. It might have to be a new one.

Would be interesting to see if/when you do find this new society, whether the grass was really greener or not.

To trot out an old saw: "Your rights end and the tip of my nose." You do not have a Deity-given right to infect other people with disease.

By that same logic, shouldn't your rights end at the epidermis on my arm? Don't I have a right to be secure in my person, as that phrase implies? That interpretation makes more sense to me than asserting the right to be exempt from natural biological functions like disease.

I would be totally okay with treating it like a driving accident. You're free not to get the shot, but in the case that you contract Covid you then open yourself up to civil liability to everyone you came in contact with.

Should that be the precedent for all communicable disease going forward? What about the common cold your child gave me that caused me to miss work? Will you be liable for that?

If my kids walk around knowingly infecting people with a deadly communicable disease for which there is a free and safe vaccine for... then yes.

Many people's kids are, in fact, sent to school with communicable diseases that are deadly for some, just as Covid is deadly for some. But why stop at death? If your child's cold costs me a day of work, then by your logic, I should sue you for lost wages.

Doesn't the vaccine protect you from disease?

protect? yes.

completely, 100% immunize? no.

The only things in life that are 100% is death and taxes.

I value liberty, but I also recognize that there are situations where action (and when needed, mandates) for the good of the collective outweigh individual liberties.

Unless you choose to live in the woods disconnected from everything and everyone, you are directly benefitting from the modern and civilized society we live in. If you want to continue participating in and benefitting from it, you'll need to cooperate from time to time. The government is giving you an easy out here - don't want the vaccine? Don't participate in a specific portion of societal life (working at a company with 100+ employees.) It's pretty simple.

Any argument that getting a free vaccine is even a sacrifice is a slap in the face of anyone who has died of a communicable disease or can't access a vaccine today.

I also can't help but recognize that the people who are always railing about any perceived loss of liberty do so very selectively. What have you done, and where have you spoken out about abortion rights being trampled on in Texas? Not saying that you can't choose your issues like everyone else does, but don't pretend that you are defending "liberty".

The trampling of liberty I'm concerned about has to do with the Federal (central) government abrogating constitutionally mandated restraints on the Federal government and taking over powers that by law belong to the States. The 'right' to abortion is far downstream from the Constitution, whether you agree with it or not.

If you consider abortion to be direct murder, there is no right to abortion. Refusing a covid vaccine is at best making a decision that may kill someone else. We allow these sorts of decisions all the time whether it be not limiting the amount of alcohol an adult can legally serve, smoking, etc.

While the arguments against covid vaccine mandates are similar to pro abortion arguments, the similarities are only superficial. The arguments are slightly different because the circumstances are and this is where the comparison breaks down.

Maybe think of the healthcare professionals who are being fired for refusing to get the vaccine because they believe it is medically improper for them to do so.

Fired for not comprehending the vary thing they're trying to treat and its effects on society/peers? Sounds like they don't belong in those positions to begin with.

In America, I think COVID will fade, everyone will eventually get infected, more deaths and hospitalizations will occur until all the unvaccinated get it, then excess deaths and hospitalizations will return to baseline, and the vaccine will become more of an optional thing, the next GOP president will remove the mandate. Some other unknown crisis will replace COVID as the main story, maybe a huge recession or terrorist event. I guess we will see.

The upside of Delta is it is quickly burning through the anti-vax crowd, and should peak before EOY assuming no other variant takes hold.

It ends when half a million+ people per year (in the US anyway) aren't dying of a preventable disease - not to mention probably millions more suffering long term effects.

I see a familiar pattern with sentiments like this: showing lots of hand-wringing over civil liberties, but seemingly no concern over all the people who have died and who have been incapacitated. Those people had a right to not be exposed to a deadly virus.

I also see a familiar pattern with sentiments like yours. There is little to no concern for people whose livelihoods or psychological health were harmed by health policies that prioritize the vulnerable minority over everyone else, including children. Health policy diktats aimed at saving every life will inevitably harm many in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Will the cumulative harms ever be counted? Not likely as it would destabilize the comfortable narrative many of us rely on to justify our prejudices.

I’ve seen arguments made that we’ve lost a significant number of ppl due to suicide, dementia, etc.

It's possible. We can compare year over year deaths to investigate excess deaths (which is really the best approach to fully appreciate the mortality impact). Such an analysis misses long term side effects like Long COVID, but does capture things like changes to traffic deaths and suicides. The CDC publishes this info.

I don't think I've seen any evidence that there is little to no concern for those things

unless you count "not getting your way" as evidence that nobody is concerned

just consider the possibility that, that other people consider other things to be more harmful to individuals and society, and thus more important to prioritize when interests compete

Sure let's count them.

Suicide killed 44,834 Americans in 2020.

Covid killed half a million Americans from March 2020 to March 2021.

Are you sure you're really as concerned about public health as you claim to be?

Suicide is one harm. There are others. If you only care about the binary of life/death then you'd make a good bureaucrat, but you're missing out on a rainbow of human experience.

This is why the vaccine is great. It vastly helps end the pandemic, while the worst thing 99.99% of people will experience from the vaccine is feeling sick for a day or so at most.

Authoritarian governments have killed millions of people too. Civil liberties shouldn’t be hand waved as a sort of a selfish privilege when most of them were written in blood after terrible wars and periods of oppression.

Indeed. I believe this is why Biden's approach came after long deliberation. Civil liberties are not something to be trifle with, and this has to be balanced with the government's reason to exist (as per the Constitution preamble, ensure the general welfare).

I’m going to bookmark this and DM you in a few yrs pointing out how painfully wrong you’ll be

There is broad consensus that covid will turn into a cold/flu like illness once our bodies have built a strong enough immune response.

Please do! I look forward to being wrong. Nobody likes a Cassandra (although Cassandra turned out to be right) and I'll gladly concede these warnings were alarmist if the trends I see discontinue without mass unrest or turning over the governments via voting.

I agree with the consensus about Covid. I don't agree that means we won't have a permanent 'VaxPass' system in place serving as the camel's nose for a CCP-style social credit system based on health compliance. I wonder what you thought about the Patriot Act after 9/11 or Snowden's leaks? 20 years later would you say that all blew over?

> Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are quasi-police states [1] and will probably mandate vaccination+boosters soon.

Regardless of whatever metric you use to define “freedom” all of those countries rank higher than the US pre-Covid for “freedom”[1][2][3]. If your argument is that those countries are fundamentally “less-free” post-Covid due to public health measures, I don’t see the data to support that. To imply that all those countries will shift from the principles that drive them pre-Covid to a police-state post-Covid is very unlikely given the prior right?

As someone who’s lived in one of those countries and the US, I can say that the tendency of the US to argue over every small issue, even if it is overwhelmingly common sense and beneficial, takes away a lot of focus on the big issues that the country needs to solve.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

[2] https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table

[3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-i...

Have you been following the events in Australia, at all?

Linking to pre-Covid sources is a bit like linking to a pre-Hiroshima encyclopedia entry about nuclear energy.

Those rankings are laughably out-of-date. People can't leave the house in Australia without a visit from the police. In any case, these NGO-compiled lists are suspect to begin with. So, you think federal Covid vaccine mandates are a small issue? What are the 'big issues' the country needs to solve, in your opinion?

Maximizing life is always in friction with social entropy. But too authoritarian is not fun either. New normals are normal. Vaccine mandates seem worthwhile from the current vantage point.

I guess I would look at what is actually practically limiting you living your best life; avoid too much extrapolation on the rapid societal changes that are certainly not limited to covid vaccine mandates. Our techno-capitalist-oligarchy social structure is changing everything.

This above-it-all zen stance holds little value for me. I hear a voice saying "Authoritarianism harshes my mellow, man". It reminds me of Nietzsche's "Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon drop off."

With regards to the slippery slope argument, Bill Burr has the response when someone asks where it stops (pardon the quoted French):

> F**g Somewhere!

America will split into two societies - those who demand a yearly injection (and who knows what else) in exchange for access to basic goods and services, and those who do not. The ones who do not will gather in their own towns, cities, and states where this freedom is respected, and secured by militias. I will be in that latter society.

Or civil war. Also possible.

I haven't spoken to an anti-vaxxer yet. Those that I've seen in the media have been completely irrational (5g/bill gates theories). So, I'm looking forward to learning from a rational person what their motivations are.

What are your reasons to refuse a vaccine? Weren't you vaccinated as a child for polio & chicken pox? Why is this vaccine a hill to die on? Thanks.

Those vaccines were properly tested. These vaccines were developed hastily. In Europe they are still treated as test vaccines, so you have to sign a paper and take the full responsibility for any side effects. I've gotten this far without infection although I was exposed. I have decided I just don't wan't to risk it. Also I am prepared to give up my access to ICU if that is what it takes for gov to leave me alone, as far as I see, taking up beds is the biggest issue.

There are some other reasons, but those are purely related to political situation in my homeland.

> In Europe they are still treated as test vaccines, so you have to sign a paper and take the full responsibility for any side effects.

This is not true. They got emergency authorization, but had to go through the same test phases as with normal authorization and will eventually get full authorization. This is not really different than in the USA and does not make it a 'test vaccine'.

Also I was vaccinated in the EU and I did not have to sign any papers or 'take full responsibility for any side effects' in any way, nor did anyone else I know that was vaccinated in the EU. This may be the case in your country (I'd be interested to know which country that is), but it is certainly not a EU wide requirement.

I’m vaccinated, but against this vaccine mandate. My proposed method is this:

1) If you want to get vaccinated, get vaccinated.

2) If you don’t, don’t.

3) If you go to the hospital with a COVID infection, your care is covered by insurance if you are vaccinated. If you are not, your care is not covered by insurance.

This allows people to make decisions about their bodies, while also fending off the two main arguments I see for why everyone should be vaccinated. Those arguments are:

1) Unvaccinated people are hosts for mutations which can break through vaccines. Since we are already going to be doing yearly updates to this vaccine a la flu vaccines, this is not a concern to those who want to be vaccinated as they will get fresh protection each year.

2) Hospital beds are being filled with COVID patients, thus blocking people with e.g. heart attacks, car crash injuries etc. from getting care. With my plan, the unvaccinated will be disincentivized to go to the hospital to get COVID care, thus freeing these beds up. Again, this respects personal choices.

But forcing people to do something to their body? Not cool with me. Also not logically consistent with being pro-choice, which most of my pro-mandate (anti-choice) friends are.

To quote our vice-president, "The right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is not negotiable. The right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is their decision, it is their body."

However, being pregnant does not cause other people to become pregnant against their will.

However, voluntarily ending pregnancy can cause fathers to-be to lose their child to-be against their will. We've decided that's OK, because the right of an individual over their body supersedes the rights of others with tangential impacts.

That doesn't address the core hypocrisy of the statement, which is that bodily autonomy is "non-negotiable" for some and non-existent for others. Either the government has authority over your body or they don't, regardless of justification.

I don't see the hypocrisy. Get vaccinated or get tested for covid weekly. It's your choice.

We need to get back to normal, continuing with our previous approach wasn't working, so we have to do something. This seems like a healthy compromise on personal choice and doing what's right for society. What would be a better balance?

The hypocrisy is quite obvious, you are choosing not to see it. If you argue that abortion is a right by virtue of people's bodies not being subject to government control, then you can't simultaneously argue in favor of government control of peoples bodies for some other reason. Be consistent. Either the government has the right to regulate your body or they don't, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you're going to argue in favor of abortion then you need to start using a different slogan than "my body my choice", because clearly you don't sincerely believe in bodily autonomy.

I think I'm missing something. Where is the government trying to force vaccines? That's not my understanding of the announcement.

The right of woman to make the decision about injecting a substance into their body is apparently negotiable.

I am not aware of any law or order if you live alone in the desert/woods that would make substances being injected into my you.

There isn't any law or order yet, but seeing the trend in the US and other Western countries it is heading that way.

> With my plan, the unvaccinated will be disincentivized to go to the hospital to get COVID care, thus freeing these beds up. Again, this respects personal choices.

The fact that this sentiment already exists in America (via private insurance and out-of-network costs) is absolutely abhorrent.

Citizenry should never be disincentivized from seeking out healthcare.

Penalizing the unvaccinated is currently proposed to happen through their employer, with loss of employment (loss of being able to provide for one’s family) being the main incentive.

I am proposing a more direct penalty, which is only put into effect if:

1) you don’t get vaccinated

2) you get COVID

3) you get treatment at the hospital for COVID

The current penalty proposal (getting fired) happens at step 1. I do not agree with that.

In a socialized healthcare system, my penalty would be the same. Instead of your insurance company doling out the penalty (withholding payment), it would be your government, but the effect is the same.

I do not want to force people to do something they don’t want to do to their bodies, and I do not want others to suffer for the unvaccinated’s choices. Therefore, if you decide not to get vaccinated, you pay for your own healthcare if you go to the hospital for COVID treatment.

Personal choice comes with personal responsibility. But personal choice should still be allowed.

The problem is that unvaccinated people still take resources up, insurance or no. People who need surgery for cancer or need an ICU bed.

Undocumented immigrants take resources up. (If fact they may be uninsured and unvaccinated, too.) You should favor refusing medical care to them (and education to their children) based on this argument from resources. Do you?

Undocumented immigrants actually don’t take resources up statistically because if they did their undocumented status would be more easily uncovered, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. Trying to swap one population for another and arguing it’s the same thing, when only one population is causing the problem, isn’t logical. Please address my concerns as they are.

He (or she) isn't saying they're the same thing, they're just demonstrating that the "takes resources up" argument carries no weight whatsoever.

Not every anti-mandate person is a anti-vax. Government mandates are a political issue. Depending on the country and its laws, some believe mandates are illegal and constitute government tyranny. They may value rule by law or autonomy over their bodies. They may choose to receive vaccine but don't want to be 'forced to choose'.

Not every anti-covid-vax person is anti-other-vax. The mRNA vaccine is novel. Many believe its long-term safety profile is TBD. They think comparing vaccines with decades of safety data to ones with months is apples to oranges. They may also believe that Covid is not very dangerous to their demographic and don't like the risk/benefit calculation. They may also not trust the pharmaceutical industry and its influence on global health policy. The indemnifications of liability may give them pause to accept all the risk of side-effects. The censorship of contrary opinions on media may also affect their willingness to believe everything they are being told about the safety, efficacy, and necessity of the vaccines.

"Anti-vax" has become a convenient political weapon. It's important to unpack what it means and who is using it and why.

You articulated my sentiments way better than I could, thank you.

Thank you for sharing.

> some believe mandates are illegal and constitute government tyranny

This isn't a vaccine mandate. You are free to choose to be tested or vaccinated. Do you feel being forced to make this choice is tyranny, if so how bad do things have to get before the good of society becomes more important than your personal choice?

Not who you're replying to, but the good of society never becomes more important than your personal choice.

Clearly the good of society is more important than some personal choices.

We don’t allow people to make personal choices to commit murder, or to drive drunk, or even to drive at all without licenses.

Laws against murder and drunk driving are to protect other individuals against having their rights violated by you. Society never comes into the calculation, only the self interest of other individuals.

You can drive without a license.

The agreed-upon surface area of 'the good of society' is smaller than you think. A disease that is %99.99 survivable and likely won't be resolved by non-sterilizing vaccine. is not comparable to the prohibition on murder.

I think it's larger than you think. In some regions ICUs are filled with covid patients and surgeries are being cancelled as a result.

I'm still wondering if the saliva test meets the requirements? Anyone know?

I feel that forcing an uncomfortable nasal swab test is being used as a means of punishment, and not based on science. If it was just saliva I wouldn't feel that way.

I ask you to put your thinking hat on and imagine other scenarios where compulsion is softened by indirection. The 'tested or vaccinated' choice is a temporary choice and unlikely to last. The pressure is firmly in the vaccinate or lose your job direction.

What is the 'good of society' and who decides it? In a pluralistic society there is valid disagreement about which are the goods (plural) of society. It seems you don't agree.

> Not every anti-mandate person is a anti-vax. Government mandates are a political issue. Depending on the country and its laws, some believe mandates are illegal and constitute government tyranny. They may value rule by law or autonomy over their bodies. They may choose to receive vaccine but don't want to be 'forced to choose'.

This makes as much sense as a family member I have who wont wear his seat belt. He admits that seat belts save lives and greatly improve safety, but won't wear his out of spite because "the government shouldn't force me to do it". Imagine deliberately choosing to amplify the danger of driving, every time you drive, purely on principle to "Oppose Tyranny."

To a natural paternalist, the desire for autonomy doesn't make any sense. Regardless of the existential value of 'spite' to your family member, the issue of whether something is legal or not is bigger than 'spite' to those who value rule by law. They are not so ready to trade their legal standing for supposed safety. If you give up your rights so readily it shows how little value they have for you. Don't expect the government to care about them more than you do.

I consider myself rational (at least enough to work in software). Here's a copy/paste of a comment I made before why I refuse the RNA vaxx...

- I already had long covid (lasted 14 months), and don't want the vaccine to cause a relapse. It did exactly that to a family member who also had long covid, and she's still not better. It's just anecdotal but I've seen on longcovid forums multiple people claiming the vaccine CAUSED their longcovid.

- I don't believe CDC recommendation that increasing antibody titers through vaccination offers better protection against the virus than convalescent immunity through prior infection. Antibody titers are just one aspect of immunity and BCells make antibodies when exposed to a virus again. Actually I'd be worried about training my immune system with only one part of the virus, it's possible that would hurt my robust immunity against variants, not help it.

- CDC is dishonest with numbers by not tracking mild/non-hospitalized breakthrough cases. There is no reason not to track them. From the UK Gov on Page 12... 37 of 73 deaths from Delta variant are vaccinated: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... According to the CDC and media such numbers of deaths among vaccinated would be statistically impossible.

- FDA not approving an inactive virus vaccine is BS. It's a monumental failure of the US government if they want a high % of people vaccinated to only offer DNA/RNA vaccines that are nothing like traditional vaccines people receive as children. China's Sinopharm works at preventing death and is just inactive virus. If required to take a vaccine I'd travel to another country to take that. Actually I'd even pay $10k to have an inactive virus vaccine imported if it prevented me from being discriminated against.

- If there was such a thing as "misinformation" then it should be openly mocked, ridiculed and contested with facts. What's happening now with censorship is unprecedented - we even need a dedicated news site to keep track of it: https://reclaimthenet.org/ . Organizations like the EFF should be presenting legal challenges for many of these things but it seems like everyone has gotten on the "misinformation" bandwagon. Doing that will lead to authoritarianism. Health policy should not be political, but opposing forced medical procedures is a fundamental human right, no exceptions.

Also, since you mentioned Polio and chicken pox, I don't consider those the same because they are not RNA vaccines. All my issues with taking a covid vaxx would be solved if only the FDA approved Sinopharm/Sinovac so I could take an inactive virus vaccine. Instead I'm losing my job soon.

Come on, quit fetishizing. Get vaccinated if you're medically able and let's get on with normalcy.

Have you gotten your swine flu vaccine yet? Fauci says it's completely safe. If you trust the government you should rush out and get it for yourself and any children you know.

Also, the fda has a perfect track record for only approving safe treatments, so why worry?

Look, let's look at the human side here. I understand your fear of the vaccine and possibly rage at people encouraging, exhorting, or even possibly looking down on you for your desire for safety. PM me if you want a safe person to speak with. Whether or not you want to reach out, know that I encourage you to be vaccinated and that the data supports that it is quite safe. The medical tradeoff of myocarditis (the largest observed side effect) is 16 COVID deaths prevented for every case (minor or major).[0]

[0] https://youtu.be/mfFeocgSKvU

Just so you know hn doesn’t have any pm functionality, you also don’t have any contact info in your hn bio, which is how most ppl connect outside of hn.

I will say, however, you’ve been incredibly dismissive and condescending, at times even insulting throughout this entire thread, up and down the page, even as someone who is pro-vaccine, I wouldn’t consider you “safe”. So your offers comes off as more gaslighting than anything else.

I'm not sure what you're reading as dismissive. Perhaps telling someone who hopes for a brutal civil war that they are fetishizing, but that's simply a tongue in cheek response to someone who clearly hasn't considered the outcomes to such events.

Otherwise, my message is consistent. Vaccination is a civic duty and one that is good for society. We need to be vaccinated. If a person wishes to reach out to me, I do not judge them based on differences of opinions.

You’re being dismissive right now.

I appreciate honest dialogue, and again, I’m vaccinated and believe overall the medical community is a net positive for society, but you are neither being genuine nor non-judgmental. You’re so far in your own ideology and echo chamber that you don’t even realize how far apart you are from those who don’t see everything through the same lenses you do.

Interesting. If I had more time, I would love to review what you are considering as dismissive. Introspection is an essential part of growth.

Regardless, thanks for the input, and have a good weekend.

Every side is the 'human side'.

Can you tell me the medical side effects that could pop up after 1 year, 5 years and 10 years? Thanks.

I assume your request is in good faith.

Within one year there appears to be myocarditis at a rate of 16 COVID deaths per 1 myocarditis case. To my understanding this rare side effect appears to occur within be first two weeks post shot, while the body metabolizes the mRNA and other components of the vaccine. Myocarditis also occurs with some other viral infections, and is concerning though not as concerning as the effects of COVID.

After that time period, you have immune response to the spike components. If that is associated with long term side effects, one would anticipate similar immune responses after the virus itself.

I am aware there is a claim that everyone with the vaccine dies in two years, based on rodent studies.(rodents live 18 months). Beyond that I'm not sure what information is out there regarding longevity. I would be happy to review sources you may suggest.

Thanks for the response.

Do you have the numbers on the other side effects as well? Also do you have the myocarditis cases and other side effects past 1 year?

Just to be clear, I don't think everyone is going to die in a couple years.

I don't off hand (my focus and research has been in the population health & dynamics for COVID versus vaccine side effects). There was a recent review by the CDC here: https://youtu.be/mfFeocgSKvU

I think you missed my point. I would like to know something you cannot know. We have some good data for the effects after a year, but do not have any data for 5 or 10 years since these vaccines have not been out that long.

> Within one year there appears to be myocarditis at a rate of 16 COVID deaths per 1 myocarditis case.

Is that age stratified? E.g. in 18-29y/o males where myo/pericarditis risk is highest? With and w/o commodities would be helpful in the risk benefit calculus as well.

People need to stop thinking critically and accept what they're told so they can get back to a normal that is not at all normal but actually the 'new normal.'

In this case, as with most conspiracy theories regarding COVID, QANON, JFK, and more, "critical thinking" that supports the conspiratorial narrative has diminishing returns to scale.