[nvoid]

I want people to be able to calculate risk for themselves rather than have GOVT decide what risks people can and can't take. If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves, perhaps because they are in their 20s and the average age of covid mortality is 80, then it is up to them and it is their personal freedom to choose what to/not do. If you are 90 and have 5 more years left to live, then my all means, stay indoors. Or don't and spend your last years with your family rather than dying alone in some care home that you are locked in and can't leave... Forcing/mandating mask wearing in democratic countries does more damage to democracy.

This will probably get downvoted/flagged but I wanted to say it.

[cromwellian]

When you calculate the risk for "yourself", you're not actually just making a decision for yourself, you're making a decision on the health of those around you, because the existence of a viable breeding ground for the disease keeps it active in the population, and capable of mutating, and escaping vaccines.

Besides, the government isn't even forcing you in the sense of "you're going to go to jail if you don't do this." There's forcing you in the sense of "You can't fly on this plane if not vaccinated." Private businesses could refuse you service, like "You're not coming into this movie theater unless you're vaccinated or wearing a mask." Can't libertarians decide who to associate with and if they don't want to associate with non-vaccinated, isn't that their right?

Governments force lots of things in democracies. Education is forced for example. Truancy is illegal. You as a parent cannot make a decision to never educate your child in many countries.

[effie]

> the existence of a viable breeding ground for the disease keeps it active in the population, and capable of mutating, and escaping vaccines.

You assume that when a person does not get a vaccine, that person is helping to get more people infected. But that does not always happen; many people have natural immunity and in case they are nevertheless infectors, they are quite less effective at infecting others, similar to how vaccinated people seem to be so; and such non-vaccinated person can limit their infecting risk to others in various other ways, such as by wearing a mask in close encounters with strangers and by limiting such contacts.

It is not true that getting vaccinated is the only way to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

There is another issue, that many people do not want the vaccine, but they do want natural immunity. Those people actually want to get infected, by a weak variant of the disease, and let the nature do its process and get natural immunity.

[cromwellian]

Statistically, people who are not vaccinated contribute to the spread of the virus. The fact that any one person who isn't vaccinated may not be infected is not relevant. You're using the existence of a few exceptions to prove the rule. We know there are a few people who were born immune to the HIV virus. Does that mean it's ok for everyone to assume they have this kind of immunity and not practice safe sex? Crazy.

> It is not true that getting vaccinated is the only way to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

Except that the people who don't get vaccinated overlap with the people who refuse all of the other mitigations -- many antivax people are also anti-mask, anti-social distancing, anti-lockdown, etc.

> There is another issue, that many people do not want the vaccine, but they do want natural immunity. Those people actually want to get infected, by a weak variant of the disease, and let the nature do its process and get natural immunity.

You have no control over which variant you get infected by. If you're not vaccinated, you could get infected first by the Delta variant for example. I mean, you're proposing a quite frankly bizarre process: 1) "natural immunity" vs "vaccine immunity". In many cases, these are identical, for example if you get a vaccine based on a weakened form of the virus. 2) An assumption that "natural immunity" confers some kind of better protection than vaccine immunity. This is unscientific, and in the case of COVID-19, factually wrong.

And that's the point of Linus's rant A lot of antivax people use pseudo-scientific reasoning. It's like you bring the same rigor to pandemic prevention that some quack brings to analysis of GOOP supplements.

[effie]

> Does that mean it's ok for everyone to assume they have this kind of immunity and not practice safe sex? Crazy.

It is a personal responsibility of the participants. When people have natural (no rubber) sex it is none of anybody else's business to control how they do it, except if there is intentional spreading of disease. You have to prove bad intent to harm or spread disease, then you are right that intervention is justified. Without that, forcing condoms on everybody having sex is an autocratic policy that should have no place in civil democratic society. You can politely suggest getting tested and using condoms though.

> Except that the people who don't get vaccinated overlap with the people who refuse all of the other mitigations -- many antivax people are also anti-mask, anti-social distancing, anti-lockdown, etc.

That may be. Reasonableness of these positions depends highly on actual local health situation. These people are not always wrong as you seem to imply.

> bizarre process: 1) "natural immunity" vs "vaccine immunity"

It's simple: natural immunity is something you get without powerful interests being in control; vaccine is subjecting your health into hands of some other party. Some people do not want to their health to be controlled by powerful interests/institutions in general, some just in case of vaccines. It's perfectly valid and respectable personal stance. It does not matter whether it's scientific, almost no society is run by science, scientists or scientific consensus. We use rather political process and respect individual freedoms even if those are unscientific (religion, refusing transfusion, refusing vaccines, etc.)

[cromwellian]

"We use rather political process and respect individual freedoms even if those are unscientific (religion, refusing transfusion, refusing vaccines, etc.)"

You're welcome to die in ignorance if you want. But the rest of society is free to ostracize you. Businesses can deny you access. Schools can deny your kids entry. And through the political process, can restrict your interactions in other ways.

Your "freedom" stops when you run up against *my freedom" to have a diseased lunatic close enough to spread their disease to me.

[effie]

You shot some strawman here. You don't have a freedom or right to be in sterile environment when you are out in public space. The germs are out there, deal with it rationally and with respect to other people.

[jjnoakes]

The personal freedom to make choices for one's self should absolutely be up to the individual - but only insofar as those choices only affect the individual making them.

Once you talk about things like being contagious and infecting others, personal freedoms must be balanced against societal well-being.

Where that balance lies is, of course, where the debate should be. Ignoring one side and focusing solely on the other is unproductive in my opinion.

[lazyant]

> it is their personal freedom to choose what to/not do

No, your freedom ends where my starts. If you are propagating a deadly desease it's not about individual freedoms anymore, this is the same as deciding your personal risk is fine with running red lights at intersections; we don't accept that as a society.

[V__]

> If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves

If one's actions were only risky to themselves, then I would agree with you. However, that is not the case with a pandemic.

> Forcing/mandating mask wearing in democratic countries does more damage to democracy.

Frankly, politicizing mask wearing, fake news, lies and proud ignorance does more damage to democracy than anything else. If everyone would have worn masks from the beginning, we would be in a very different place right now.

[nvoid]

I agree with your second comment but not so much the first. Infectious disease control 101: Lock up the infected people but leave the healthy alone. Or else you may have a dwindling economy due to excessive spending, people too scared to work and a rapidly inflating currency... I may sound like an armchair epidemiologist but given that there are so many proclaimed 'experts' out there, the bar can't be thaaat high?

[wtallis]

> Infectious disease control 101: Lock up the infected people but leave the healthy alone.

Maybe try getting some real education on infectious diseases. Incubation periods during which you can be contagious, and the generally non-zero latency between becoming symptomatic and highly contagious and getting positive test results back and getting into isolation mean your proposed strategy is stupid.

[picardythird]

Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?

[nvoid]

Yes but no because it is the law. It should be law that car companies provide a seat-belt but not that I wear one. Your one sentence straw-man wont suffice here. Again, it's all about personal risk. I could go climb a cliff face with a rope or I could do it without. I don't need GOVT to tell me not to do the latter.

[eyelidlessness]

Did you know that seatbelts save lives besides those of the people wearing them? That in even minor collisions being untethered to a seat can injure others?

The justification for mandatory seatbelt laws is the same as the justification for covid mitigations: you’re protecting more than yourself.

[foolinaround]

If the driver is not wearing a seatbelt but the passenger is and the car gets into an accident, would the passenger be worse off than if the driver was wearing the seatbelt?

If not, this analogy does not stand.

[eyelidlessness]

> If the driver is not wearing a seatbelt but the passenger is and the car gets into an accident, would the passenger be worse off than if the driver was wearing the seatbelt?

Potentially, yes. This wasn’t an analogy! I meant it literally. People not wearing seatbelts can injure or kill others in collisions. Their bodies can be projected into others’ and even a waif of a person can be deadly with enough force.

[foolinaround]

I get your point there, and it is valid.

my point in comparing the seatbelt to vaccines was about the passenger being compared to the vaccinated person, who is responsible for his own risk.

Analogies are never perfect, and in this case, it is the first time, the disease has been so politicized on both sides that we need to resign ourselves to potentially never coming to a complete agreement.

Time of course will prove it, but for some, it will be too late.

However, I just think that (even stupid) people are in general selfish for what they care about ( not logical enough for the rest of us) and that in general, they should have agency.

I see it in the same category as regulating alcohol, drugs, etc. In fact, there is unanimous opinion that alcohol is not good for you at all, where there is discussions,even prior to covid, that is often debunked (but not completely in the eyes of some people) that vaccines pose their own risks (see autism, etc ), and also affects people's sensibilities (see usage of aborted fetal cells)

I believe the core issue here more than vaccines is trust. Trust that is lost, and attempts taken to understand why, and solutions to rebuild it.

[picardythird]

The problem is that other people have to pay for your negligence. People not wearing masks means doctors and nurses have to work harder, and expose thenselves to unnecessary risk. It means you may infect vulnerable people and they could die. Not wearing a seatbelt means the firetruck has to be called to peel you off the asphalt after an accident. Not wearing a rope while climbing means a helicopter full of medics is going to have to airlift you out. This behavior creates a drain on the system, and that is why there are basic public safety laws.

[kokanee]

Honest question: where is the line? I assume you do want there to be some laws regarding public health and safety. On a spectrum of health/safety violations from terrorism, to murder, to assault, to reckless driving, to spreading a virus during a pandemic, to harassment, to causing a noise complaint - where should the line between legal and illegal be?

Edit: although, my question doesn't address your concern about personal risk. But the laws don't address personal risk, they address the public risks caused by your actions. If you don't care about public risks, then my question is a non sequitur.

[pklausler]

You are assuming that your injuries in a crash w/o a seatbelt would only affect you, if you chose not to wear a seatbelt.

[seattle_spring]

Comments like this one explain why I run into so many people blaring music through bluetooth speakers when I go hiking.

[LatteLazy]

Your conflating your right to risk yourself (declining a vaccine) with your right to risk others (refusing a mask mandate). Those are very different things.

"Do what you want to yourself, but leave the rest of us out of it" is the definition of freedom.

That said, any actual calculation of the risks should send people flocking to be vaccinated. But you do you. Just please don't vote.

[nvoid]

My bad, I'm not talking about vaccines here. More replying to this general comment about people that don't comply with governmental decree. Leaving out the fact that GOVT was saying at the start of the pandemic that masks do little to protect you or others and they made a u-turn on that, the real way to let people keep their freedom is to let people decide the risks they want to take. If you are old, fat or otherwise ill, don't go outside if you think you might die? I sounds harsh but don't impinge on my freedom to not have to wear a mask because you can't go for a jog once in a while.