The UK, Denmark and others moving to get rid of ALL restrictions. Meanwhile Canada, Australia and others devolving into police states...
Edit - forgot some other countries. Netherlands, Ireland also ditching restrictions...
Edit - forgot some other countries. Netherlands, Ireland also ditching restrictions...
Having people do stuff to protect the safety of themselves and others is part of the social contract of these countries. We wear seatbelts. We wear helmets on Motorbikes. All things that restrict our freedom to damage ourselves.
Because who incurs the cost of when you hurt yourself or others? The government! Like a lot of advanced countries we have a single payer government operated healthcare system that needs to ration care since nothing in life is infinite. So governments are motivated to protect systems that protect everyone like healthcare.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?location...
Yes, I'm ecstatic we pay a ton of taxes to have one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world. Well behind the EU and OECD averages. We've got 1/3 the doctors per capita of France FFS...
Now we get to continue to pay a ton of taxes to have a shitty healthcare system AND have business and travel restrictions. Good deal.
Know what else was part of the social contract? Things like freedom of travel, the ability to run a business without government interference... Now Canada's whole economy is a housing ponzi scheme and everyone I know is selling their businesses and/or leaving the country.
Here's hoping it's a major election issue in Ontario this summer.
"There is not a single example of a country with less than 40% of the population overweight that has high death rates (over 10 per 100 000). Similarly, no country with a death rate over 100 per 100 000 had less than 50% of their population overweight.
When are we going to start banning overweight from consuming alcohol and eating fast food? They're putting tremendous pressure on our universal healthcare system!
Yes we have a social contract. Yes people take measures such as seatbelts and helmets. No, neither of those are the same as mandating individuals to take a vaccine that has limited benefit for the majority of people. Following a year long media campaign of fear, after accepting lockdowns, the only supposed solution is taking a vaccine that has been sped through clinical trials and at best serves to reduce the severity for those most at risk from Covid.
I see pure coercion. How long before access to the majority of vital services will be dependant on 'up to date' vaccination status, checked and logged in via your app whenever you travel, shop, work. How long before this turns into a social credit system?
Are smokers and alcohol consumers also targeted by these social credit type measures in those states ?
https://www.smokefree.org.nz/smokefree-in-action/smokefree-a...
Less drastically, a lot of places are putting heavy restrictions on smoking, and there are heavy taxes on tobacco and alcohol (arguably those taxes contribute to paying for tobacco and alcohol related health problems.)
Telling people to stay indoors if they're scared is much more preferable to injecting government into every aspect of our lives.
Also I'm not sure why you're mentioning false equivalence to me, since I am also highlighting the false equivalence between vaccines and seat belts.
We are not under martial law, or required to register with the police, or subject to wide-ranging arbitrary constraints.
We have temporary, government moderated, revokable restrictions under public health orders which have existed for decades. It is true that some lazy states sought to increase minister-directed powers but this didn't just slip through parliament.
>Because who incurs the cost of when you hurt yourself or others? The government!
Are you saying that a given regulation/policy doesn't contribute to a police state as long it's justified by "harm"?
We'll see. They did that in September of course, only to re-introduce them 2 months later.
Keep in mind they're only able to do this (if it ends up working) because they have the highest vaccination rate in Europe. What Quebec's rates are, I don't know.
People being "tired" of something (pandemic fatigue) doesn't matter if loosened collective hygiene standards would kill too many people.
I'm just saying, at least they have that (partial) justification. And that they say they "expect" rates to go down.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-a...
Even if the vaccine did nothing to stop the spread of COVID (it does much more than nothing), it is still of vital importance to keeping ICUs free, which in turn is important for everyone.
Since your choice has an outsize effect on society, and since we have ample, overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that the vaccine is safe and certainly hundreds of times safer than the disease, I see no reason why it shouldn't be considered mandatory.
I'm young, slim, healthy, unvaccinated, not tested positive for Covid once even after my housemates had it.
"There is not a single example of a country with less than 40% of the population overweight that has high death rates (over 10 per 100,000). Similarly, no country with a death rate over 100 per 100,000 had less than 50% of their population overweight"
Are we going to start banning overweight from consuming alcohol and eating fast food? They're putting tremendous pressure on our universal healthcare system, their choice to be unhealthy has an outsized effect on society; specifically the health systems that we are using as a reason to push vaccination on everyone, regardless of their risk category.
Can't you see where this mindset leads us?
Why do you refuse to get vaccinated? There are plenty of young, slim, healthy, unvaccinated people who also died. Your "choice" is inconsiderate to others in society who may catch it from you, that it may mutate in you and cause a worse variant, to people who care about you, and to the EMS and healthcare workers who you feel entitled to lean on when they're already overworked. This isn't about self-righteous entitlement to your "rights", this is about your duties to others to be a respectable member of a functional community and society.
The young, slim, healthy unvaccinated that you're talking about are such a tiny amount of people that I do not consider myself at any real risk. Like I said, I've not tested positive once the entire pandemic and I suspect that's largely to do with having a good immune system, so will clear the virus naturally, plus taking other sensible measures like wearing masks and avoiding large indoor gatherings.
I take other measures to limit the spread. The vaccine is not a panacea, it helps reduce severity for the most vulnerable so let them take it. The virus can also mutate in vaccinated people, in other mammals, it is hyperbole to suggest unvaccinated are largely responsible for all the negative aspects of Covid, completely politicised. The people that care for me respect my decision and quite honestly at this point agree, the majority of vaccinated people that I know will not be getting boosters.
Regarding health workers, I have 3 cousins and an aunt that all work in healthcare (plus some friends). From a renal nurse, ICU nurse to doctors and radiologist. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but our healthcare system has been at critical levels for years prior to the pandemic. This can only be solved by improving our infrastructure. They all respect peoples right to choose what medical treatment they want to receive. If you want to talk about duty to be respectable, when you do not know me or my contributions, then perhaps you should think about your attitude and moral grandstanding?
As my previous comment highlighted, my country has 63% of adults overweight. America is 68%. Their burden on the health system is immense, far greater than the unvaccinated. Should we ostracise them and limit their access to parts of society for everyone elses benefit? If the population was <40% overweight, we would not be facing the crisis in hospitals.
- not capable of using a mobile app or website for ordering
- low language proficiency
- not able to be at home to accept delivery during the day
- don’t have a means of payment compatible with online ordering
- live paycheck to paycheck and depend on going to the store “on demand” to make essential purchases (such as on payday). Often after normal delivery hours.
It's time to turn critical thinking skills back on.
Read: When Did Mandatory Vaccinations Become Common? (article from 2015) https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158827
There were 1282 cases of measles in 2019. Around 90% were caused by anti-vaxx hermit communities who freeload off the protections of the police, military, healthcare system, and other services, but live here and put others at risk because magical beliefs makes them "special". If you reject vaccinations, then I suggest you should sign a waiver that you also reject healthcare. Can't have it both ways. "Ounce of prevention."
There will still be targeted restrictions, such as in the elder care. Time will tell if that will be enough and if the health care system will manage.
Is quote I found while looking into this. It seems like they're not opening up completely, they're just removing a bunch of rules. There is still talk of large events possibly needing proof of vacination.
This information is super new and what actually happens and how they actually do it is yet to be fully confirmed as far as I can tell.
Edit: Also important they have 77 people in ICU in the entire country. Where as Berlin alone has 186.
There might be mandated face masks for guests at hospitals and elder care in addition to proof of vaccination or negative tests. At these places only.
All other restrictions are being lifted.