Comment by middleclick | Hacker News Reader

Comment by middleclick | Hacker News Reader

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> blocked from receiving government services

Quite the hyperbole: not all government services, just employment insurance and that too if you were only fired for not receiving the vaccine. A reminder that in many of these jobs, there was already a requirement for getting a set of vaccines so this is not new. Though for some people, this vaccine is "different" but once you ask them to explain why they can't. So no new rules. You needed vaccines for most of the jobs and this just an additional one.

You will still receive employment insurance for other stuff, irrespective of your vaccination status.

> prevented from patronizing various businesses

You are not prevented from accessing essential businesses and no one checks your vaccination status or even asks for one.

> even restricted from traveling and the ability to work

You are still free to drive to work or take local public transit.

The difference between ICU rates of unvaccinated and vaccinated people in Ontario for example tells us that the vaccination is working:

https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2...

^ Please see the above graph.

If you cannot participate in society moving forward, then you should not expect society to cater to your needs.

> "You are still free to drive to work or take local public transit."

Then the whole point of this thing is pointless. We're selectively punishing people. We don't prevent or punish positive cases from going around to work, public transport, etc and infecting others, yet we punish people that choose to simply not vaccinate.

> "If you cannot participate in society moving forward, then you should not expect society to cater to your needs."

Just like to point out that you can use the same line of reasoning for a host of other things, even unrelated to medical themes. Like say allowing facial recognition cameras in all homes to prevent domestic violence and child abuse. Yet most people supposedly stand on principle against it, despite the "pragmatism" of it. Likewise we should be standing here on plain old and impractical "body autonomy" and protecting people's personal medical choices.

It just depends on how far you want to take the hyperbole and how far you want to extrapolate the doomsday predictions that flow from this. E.g. How about state-mandated abortions for down-syndrome? Or preventing pro-creation of known carriers of genetic disorders? Look at how we tip-toed around aids after we eventually acknowledged it.

As a side note, we should all be worried about how this entire world-incident is allowing laws and understandings that we've had and worked on attaining for decades if not centuries to be simply and casually bypassed under some banner of "safety", "science" and pragmatism. There has to be a better way to deal with this and as you say, move society forward instead of backward.

> Then the whole point of this thing is pointless. We're selectively punishing people. We don't prevent or punish positive cases from going around to work, public transport, etc and infecting others, yet we punish people that choose to simply not vaccinate.

It's not pointless. Unvaccinated people are far far more likely to occupy the hospital and the ICU -- see above. How is that pointless? I am not talking about positivity as that is not relevant. See the official numbers above.

Your hyperbole is not valid as these jobs already required vaccinations so I am not sure what the new outrage is.

>Then the whole point of this thing is pointless. We're selectively punishing people. We don't prevent or punish positive cases from going around to work, public transport, etc and infecting others, yet we punish people that choose to simply not vaccinate.

Simply not true. Defying a public health order is illegal.

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