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Comment by odshoifsdhfs | Hacker News Reader

Are you ok with going to a bar and showing you don't have HIV so in case you hook up with someone you won't spread it?

Or to go to a restaurant and prove you have a flu vaccine?

Or tuberculosis exam as it also spreads via the air from an infected person?

What about if you haven't been able to get the vaccine (like my girlfriend which she is stuck in a fucking bureaucratic limbo due to most public services not working due to.. well guess what, COVID lockdowns) and not being able to be part of everyday life?

And I really dislike the 'well we have mandatory things already, so why not this also?' way of thinking. If now to enter a restaurant we required a rectal exam, it should be ok right? you already have a driving license so we should be able to ask anything else based on that alone

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> Are you ok with going to a bar and showing you don't have HIV so in case you hook up with someone you won't spread it?

That's an absurd comparison considering HIV doesn't spread by simply being in a room with someone who is infected. Also, I'm guessing that you're unaware that in many countries there are laws against knowingly exposing someone to HIV without disclosing it to them. https://www.aidsmap.com/about-hiv/hiv-criminalisation-laws-a...

A law against spreading infections diseases (HIV, Flu or even covid) exist in many places (my country for example). Hard to prove in court, but the law is there. The principle is, are you ok with having to show a passport for a vaccine to be part of normal society to reduce the risk of catching/spreading a disease.

from CDC:

CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1)

Now, I am not saying that covid is just the flu, but 34k deaths in 2018 from the flu. Does this number also justify having flu shot mandates/passports? Or is it only if it is 340k deaths? 3.4 million deaths? 3k deaths is enough? I heard at a time some people saying 'if it saves only one life, it is worth it' so I wonder how much they will also do for all these other deaths.

>Now, I am not saying that covid is just the flu, but 34k deaths in 2018 from the flu. Does this number also justify having flu shot mandates/passports? Or is it only if it is 340k deaths? 3.4 million deaths? 3k deaths is enough? I heard at a time some people saying 'if it saves only one life, it is worth it' so I wonder how much they will also do for all these other deaths.

That's disingenuous and you know it. There wasn't a global effort to contain recent flu strains like there has been with covid. In 2018 working from home was not the norm. People weren't wearing masks and isolating from others. Concerts, movies, restaurants, fairs, etc... weren't shut down. The global economy wasn't halted. Even with all of that being enforced due to covid there were still 375k deaths in the US in 2020, which is 11x greater than the 34k flu deaths in 2018.

If you want to see what happens when you let covid run its course without interference, especially in an area with a low population density, look no further than Sweden. Their (mostly) laissez faire approach resulted in a death rate that was up to 10x greater than neighboring countries. https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-str...

> And I really dislike the 'well we have mandatory things already, so why not this also?' way of thinking.

You've literally employed that thinking in your rebuttal.

"We don't have to do X, Y, Z. So why this also?"

The 'well we have mandatory things already, so why not this also?' is what you are using to argue against the vaccine. I think a little nuanced thinking goes a long way when comparing all of the examples you proposed.

Please note I am not arguing against the vaccine. I am fully vaccinated. I am against limiting parts of society to people that haven't been vaccinated no matter the reason why. There is a big difference (I have all my vaccines, my son also has all his vaccines, and he may or may not get the covid vaccine depending on the recommendations for his age group).

You are arguing against the vaccine, because the goal of vaccination is eradication through collective immunity.

Whether you're vaccinated matters to you.

Whether everyone is vaccinated matters to everyone.

Context matters a lot for whatever I will be for or against a vaccine mandate (full disclosure, I'm for covid vaccine mandates for tech workers to return to the office). Here are the points I consider when determining whether I support a given mandate.

- Have mandates been effective in the past? Yes. We eliminated polio and smallpox, in part due to mandates in the US. - Is the activity required for a reasonable person to be able to live? If so, I'm generally against a mandate. E.g. I wouldn't support mandates for going grocery shopping. I'm ok with them for bars. - Can I take reasonable precautions as an individual to ensure I don't get infected without a vaccine? For covid, not really. I'm reliant on everyone else either not having it, out properly wearing a mask. For your HIV example, I can easily choose to not have unprotected sex with someone until we are both tested, or I can roll the dice. The decision and consequences are controllable by me as an individual. With covid, I can do everything right and still get sick buying groceries because someone else acted irresponsibly. - What is the risk of the virus vs. effectiveness of the vaccine? The flu is significantly less infectious and less lethal. The flu vaccine is far less effective than the covid vaccine. Those three facts make a flu vaccine mandate less pressing and less effective. When our hospitals can be easily overrun, then it's pressing. There were days in Oregon where you couldn't get an ICU bed if you got into a bad accident because of the number of COVID-19 patients. That's terrifying and entirely preventable

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