Citations needed.
> what may be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence.
It’s trivial to find sweeping and unsubstantiated opinions. It’s trivial to find arguments on both[1] sides[2]. Why should I trust either? Either way, what evidence trivially and unquestionably supports “immense harm”?
This argument has been going in circles for 2+ years, it’s not like I haven’t seen more rigorously defended and less hyperbolic opinions before. That stuff, I’ll consider. What you and OP are doing is just noise.
[1] https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/the-failin...
[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-mandates-...
It's clear to us all that you're not here in good faith.
I never spoke for anyone else in this thread. In your dichotomy of "us vs them", I am neither. You need a finer brush.
> but you've simply arrived at ... where you stop addressing arguments and fall back to simply impugning other's intelligence ...
I made no comments about yours or anyone's intelligence. Again, you need a finer brush to paint other people's opinions. If I felt you weren't intelligent enough, I wouldn't have attempted to talk to you. But your responses to me are giving me reasons to rethink the (f)utility of this attempt.
> ... and motives.
Nor did I make any comments about your motives; only your conduct. I have neither condoned nor denounced your motives. I only pointed out that you attacked your parent. You justified the attack by claiming that you had many people on your side.
This is HN, not a schoolyard. Having many people on your side does not give you the right to attack participants in this forum.
If you still do not understand this, know this: it only makes your point harder to agree with. The harder you are to talk to, the harder you will find people to talk with. I'd hoped you were intelligent enough to see your conduct was not helping you argue your case. I have no such hopes now. Goodbye.
Ok, so you’re presumably referring to this[1]? _Because manufacturers weren’t required to prove a reduction in transmissibility_, only safety and _efficacy_, and conflating transmissibility with effectiveness is misleading. An honest and more important question would be why did governments more or less call the crisis a wrap despite shitty immunization rates (at least in the US) and data that despite a significant and desirable impact on hospitalizations and mortality, transmissibility was still a problem[2] particularly with omicron? Or whether the vaccine technology or policy can keep up with variants today or tomorrow[3]? But a blanket statement like “no public health benefit whatsoever” is absurd.
> Almost no one except those in very high risk groups takes them anymore.
I don’t know what you’re getting at, here.
> People lost valuable careers
And people lost valuable lives. Including my mother in law who was not completely vaccinated when her husband brought it home. And my great uncle who was exposed in nursing care at a place that refused mandates. And my coworker’s brother who was forced to work despite his coworkers all being sick on the job. And so on, if we’re gonna start trading anecdotes.
> poured his heart and soul into caring for old folks in an assisted living facility
I’m sorry, am I to infer that he lost his job because he wouldn’t/couldn’t vaccinate while working with high risk people? Because, based on what I just said about my uncle, barking up the wrong tree for sympathy.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-pfizer-vaccine-tra...
[2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
[3] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/01/23/1150032...
When dealing with the unknown at "global pandemic" scale, it seems better to be safe than sorry, given that you're potentially juggling millions of lives.
All other things being equal, it is better to be safe than sorry.
But that's not the choice offered.
One thing that you never needed the benefit of hindsight to understand is that there's a non-trivial risk to the vaccines as well. This always exists. For instance, it took science years to understand the full impact of Thalidomide.
In the small chance that these injections end up having substantial long-term problems with something like cancer or fertility, a universally applied treatment could be the destruction of humanity.
Trying to compel universal injections was always a foolish risk-management decision.
(And, I'd argue, more freedom than the average American citizen in many areas, most notably healthcare.)
One of the biggest regrets is letting my US GC "win" to lapse a few years ago. Oh well, it all went down the toilet over there just the same, isn't it?
This is like whining that the pub requires shirt and shoes but more bizarre.
It has nothing to do with 'democracy'; in QLD at least GPs have no requirement for mask wearing so it's just up to the good old "free market" where businesses can set their own rules. Complaining that a GP requires basic healthcare precautions is truly bizarre to me.
I don't think 'cloth masks' should be used at all; I think people should probably be required to wear respirators in certain healthcare circumstances - particularly at GPs - as long as there are virulent airborne illnesses around.
And there are all the time, to the point where respiratory disease is a top five killer.
I think if we review indoor air quality guidelines & get better at indoor air filtration we can probably relax that requirement. But sitting in a closed indoor space with a bunch of sick people not wearing even the most basic protective equipment is not my idea of a good time. (FWIW my GP requires people who have cold/flu symptoms sit outside in a separate area and then they have to come in via a back entrance. So there's some segregation of symptomatic people, but not a huge amount.)
I mean, not really? Some things in life are more important than assiduously avoiding death by a respiratory infection.