They took people's livelyhoods away, and now they gotta pay.
Later I got voted up from people who got back from (actual) work, who read HN
Btw. "the science" hasn't changed. The vaccine never stopped the spread. There were no studies indicating that it did (medical trials were about hospitalisations / death, not infections / spreading). You fell for the fake science propagated by fake news media.
The vast majority of doctors and scientists strongly recommend taking the vaccine. It is not about stopping 100% of illnesses and infections, but it is 100% about significantly reducing the chance of hospitalisation and death.
What are you talking about? Sounds like the time to reflect is all yours.
It mentioned nothing about decreasing hospitalisation or death (which is true and I agree with!).
It mentioned “saving coworkers” which implies that the vaccine prevents infection or transmitted, which is not true.
Despite a lot of people (Biden, Fauci, CDC) explicitly saying it does, and invoking “science”.
At best you could claim “reducing the spread” (but marginally) and in now way “preventing”.
>protection waned to around 10% after only 4–6 months
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00775-3
It would only be a measure of postponing some of the rising transmission rates if people don't get boosted every few months. Also it would have to be compared against the effects of natural immunity.
If we had a sterilizing vaccine, and you refused to take it, and got me sick, could I hold you responsible?
I'm just trying to understand exactly to what extent other people's selfish choices should be allowed to endanger my life and livelihood.
You probably live in some developed country. If it's the US or Canada, I can say for sure that you live in a country that was founded on the exploitation of others. We continue to knowingly benefit off of such exploitation by importing and purchasing products produced by cheap and often abusive labour. We use electronic devices whose manufacture is mostly in China and other such countries where there is recorded abuses and in some cases downright modern day slavery. We continue to use these devices despite knowing that many of their essential metals are mined by exploited children in Africa.
I'm trying to understand exactly to what extent our selfish choices should be allowed to endanger others' lives and livelihoods
It isn't a binary yes or no, but it has been a gradient. And every policy decision is made on a gradient of harm/benefit. So yes, it is entirely relevant about what the ethics of the hypothetical would be.
Not getting vaccinated is an action that directly harms other people, for what turns out to be no net gain. Requiring vaccination... Is an action that directly harms a few holdouts for some net gain for the rest. None of this is an absolute ethical question, and the degrees of harm and gain are this completely relevant to it.
And anyone talking about vaccine problems, they also need to go.
We could make a special disinfo re-education summer camp, where we will send all the plague rats and political dissidents. We'll let them out when they're good people again, and tow the party line!
The comparison will not be favourable to you. [2]
[1] Your camp spent the past two years both telling everyone, and doing your best to ensure that everyone is going to catch it anyways, so this seems like a reasonable comparison to require.
[2] The risk of treatable myocarditis from catching COVID is vastly higher than from the vaccines. The risk of injury and death from less-treatable complications is incomparably higher. If we're all going to get it anyways, you're choosing to both hurt yourself, and others by not getting vaccinated. You can't even freeload off herd immunity...
I'm not going to argue with you on vaccine effectiveness, because that's actually not my point. I'm not afraid of people discussing the effectiveness of vaccines - I'm certain the correct opinion will win out.
What I am afraid of is the cruelty of political radicals - which this issue has created in excess.
During the pandemic, people in my corporate slack channels were GLEEFULLY fantasizing about all the vaccine deniers that were going to be fired due to Bidens executive order. This behaviour is terrifying, and anyone who carries this out is reprehensible. Even a moron is a person and has rights.
And the fact that you don't see this as the actual issue is evidence you're still possessed by this nonsense. I posted a snarky sarcastic comment about government suppression and you're talking about vaccines.
The mandate should have never existed.
The idea that you can order someone to perform a medical procedure because they work for you is disguisting.
Where does this end?
I think it is. Governments aren't that trustworthy if you ask me.
It ends with your survival. Vaccination isn't surgery, it's an extremely minor medical procedure that reduces or eliminates the risk of contracting a disease. During a deadly global pandemic, refusing vaccination is nothing short of suicidal. 97M Americans were infected and more than a million died. There were over 630M cases globally, and over 6.5M died due to COVID. The People have the stronger right to not be infected with COVID by you than your right to be infected. No one ever has any right to spread infection, not even libertarians.
Way to dodge the question. Also, I think you're missing the point. I don't think OP or most other anti vax mandate people think that the covid vaccine is a risky procedure, or that the public is better off on net for it. They're against it because it sets a precedent for government to mandate medical procedures.
>No one ever has any right to spread infection, not even libertarians.
You literally do, though. It's not against the law to get on a packed subway while you're sick as a dog, for instance.
This is just a part of what is so ridiculous about their objections and reveals ignorance and a misunderstanding of law. The government isn't required to establish precedent here because it is already the law of the land.[1][2][3] That said, precedent has been very well established for a very long time.[4]
[1] https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/cha...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act#Emerg...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_Service_Act
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...
Does it, though? Just because the government can mandate employees be vaccinated as a condition of continued employment, doesn't mean they can mandate employees be sterilized (for instance). No reasonable person would say the second follows from the first. Law isn't code.
The proper branch of government to decide this is Congress passing a law, not each major making it up as they go along.
It is definately distopian for employers to decide anything on this matter -they are not sibject to dempcratic scruitiny.
And there are many methods of reducing covid infection avaliable - installing air purifiers, improving ventillation in schools, Upper-Room Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI).
If situation is so serious, whu are none of those being mandated? Now we know current vaccines give you immunity for like 6 months and new variants appear very rapidly.
Congress did decide this already by passing legislation a century ago granting temporary increased powers to the executive in event of national emergency and its declaration.
> It is definately distopian for employers to decide anything on this matter -they are not sibject to dempcratic scruitiny.
Government employment is already dystopian and private employers can have any requirements they like short of discriminating against religion, race, disability, etc. There are no federal protections for political disposition.
> And there are many methods of reducing covid infection avaliable - installing air purifiers, improving ventillation in schools, Upper-Room Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI).
The virus was already circulating due to unpreparedness and slow reaction by the administration in office. Had we seen a two week stay home order in February, the crisis would likely have been averted, but the executive was overly concerned about the economy, which tanked anyway regardless of putting 300M+ Americans at risk of infection, illness and/or death.
> If situation is so serious, whu are none of those being mandated? Now we know current vaccines give you immunity for like 6 months and new variants appear very rapidly.
Again, COVID was already circulating by late February 2020, and if two vaccinations a year are required from now until the end of time, it is still a very small price to pay, a minor inconvenience at worst with the benefit of increased resistance to infection, severe illness, hospitalization, and/or death.
The term used was 'insuburdination' - disobeying legitimate command of employer.
If employer can command you to vaccinate, then they can alsi command you to have windom teeth removed. They can command you to tatoo a barcode on your forehead.
Given a safe and effective vaccine, you and your vaccinated coworkers would either not become infected at all or would experience very mild symptoms and be left with supercharged immunity (immunity from your vaccine + immunity from infection). Your dumb, science-hating coworker would suffer much worse symptoms and maybe die (a little over 1 in 3 chance given the 35% fatality you postulate).
Your vaccine, first and foremost, is supposed to protect you.
But with covid that is not at all what we are seeing.
This was especially painfully clear in places with strongly-enforced "vaccine passport" regimes during the period they were in force before being abandoned. The vaccinated spent time with other vaccinated and were infecting and being infected by one another and birthing new, more transmissible vaccine-evading variants of the virus. Vaccine efficacy actual goes negative (i.e. vaccine recipients more susceptible than unvaccinated persons after a few months: "Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection with the Omicron or Delta variants following a two-dose or booster BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 vaccination series: A Danish cohort study" https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.20.21267966v...) and vaccine recipients are infected and infectious for at least as long as unvaccinated persons (e.g. "Duration of Shedding of Culturable Virus in SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (BA.1) Infection" in NEJM https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35767428/).
What are talking about? What piles of bodies?