[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.

[cromwellian]

Private business owners can put whatever restrictions they want on their spaces. And parents can decide what rules they want for their school, that's why we have schoolboards.

I was just listening to NPR's Freakonomics discussion of the Cialdini's the science of persuasion, and in that book, he talks about people who will reactively rebel again anything, even if they know they are wrong and it is against their interests, purely because it limited my choice.

In other words, how dare you tell me I can't drink poison, I'll do it because you don't have the right to tell me what to do.

This childish attitude precisely describes your attitude in the previous posts where you admit to doing things even if scientifically wrong. This sums up to a T, the problem with reactionary conservativism. It isn't about doing what's right, what's ethical, what's scientifically correct, what's efficient, it's about "elites can't tell me what to do!" Hence you get stupid shit like people deliberately making the exhaust of their trucks put old huge clouds of black smoke, because it's a finger to the face of everyone else who says that exhaust pollution is bad.

The temper tantrum of the anti-maskers, the anti-vaxxers, is largely such a childish overreaction.

[effie]

> Private business owners can put whatever restrictions they want on their spaces.

Not "whatever restrictions". For example, you cannot announce "only white people". And similarly should be that you cannot announce "only vaccinated people". It is a very similar thing, rejecting group of people based on fear of interacting with them because they are different.

> In other words, how dare you tell me I can't drink poison, I'll do it because you don't have the right to tell me what to do.

And that should be the allowed and accepted thing to do. I don't want some institution to decide which substances are OK to drink and which are forbidden. In some cases, that poison may save your life. Whether a chemical is a medicine or poison often depends on details of the situation, for example health status, tolerance and dosage.

> It isn't about doing what's right, what's ethical, what's scientifically correct, what's efficient, it's about "elites can't tell me what to do!"

What's right and what is ethical and what's scientifically correct can be very different for different people. Some like you believe that is determined by authorities (medical, scientific, government) and some like me don't, we prefer to make our own minds.

[effie]

Since you believe in science, this discussion (of very knowledgeable science-respecting and science-informed people) may interest you, it is about the increasing evidence of problems of the current gene therapy COVID vaccines and other strategies for handling the pandemic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_NNTVJzqtY