We cannot force some to isolate and others not too. We have reached a point where the vaccine is proven effective. Virtually anyone in the US that wanted to get a vaccine by now has had ample opportunity to do so. Those who choose not too will either contract the virus or not, that is their call. I am fully vaccinated and would encourage everyone to get vaccinated but I don't see how we have the right to force anyone to take a novel medication if they don't want to or restrict their movements. It is their body and their right to do as they wish. If we force people to take this medication, what is to stop people being forced to take something else that another group may disagree with.
The US has moved past isolation, its just not going to happen again, there is no political will for it. I fully support vaccination, I just don't support a police state asking to check our papers.
And yet none of your argument applies to smoking, because it affects those around not just the smoker and imposes extraordinary costs on non-smoker’s insurance bill.
Seems clear we can, and do, forbid individuals from physically and financially harming the community by their ‘personal’ choices. It is their body and their right to do as they wish — perhaps only as long as it harms no others who have the right to be unharmed.
What outcome does a domestic vaccine passport achieve? I work in health information privacy, where regulations were written to prevent that specific situation. There's no denying it's a proxy for political positions, so the case for it needs to be clear, especially in a world where people say in public that it is "irresponsible," to entertain critical opinions.
What problem does a domestic vaccine passport solve?
> What problem does a domestic vaccine passport solve?
The same problem the Yellow Card [1] solves. Right now, I have a New York State electronic passport and a CDC paper proof of vaccination. The former works in New York City. The latter works across the U.S., at least now. (At least, it worked in San Francisco and Atlanta.) If I travel abroad, I may need to get the latter re-certified since it's trivial to forge and not independently verifiable. Having a single, authoritative document fixes all this and makes socializing and commerce more frictionless.
If we don't want to go into another lockdown when the Delta variant hits, we need to be able to isolate the vaccinated from the vulnerable. The former can continue mixing and mingling with reduced (though not zero) risk of causing a flare-up. The latter, I don't know, ideally they'd stay home but we know that won't happen.
I would bet a huge personal sum that if there were a federal legal guarantee of no vaccine passports, hesitancy would evaporate overnight, and every single SMART health leak and backdoor regulation to enable them is creating an increasingly hard core and radicalized resistance movement.
Yellow card is for some international travel and school enrollment. It is not a vaccine passport, so while I appreciate engaging the question, it's not clear that this is the same use case. Nobody asks an adult for their measles vaccination status in a normal domestic interaction like a concert, train, office, etc.
I think most people should get vaccinated and we can all move on with our lives, however, I also think a generalized vaccine passport for domestic use is an abomination with inevitable and horrific consequences, and so I am trying to get a sense of what the sincere case for it is. If it's just leveraging the crisis to institute bureaucratic social controls, I'll be the most reasonable man on the barricades.
We need a better "why" that is actually true, and not a cynical "noble lie," (like masks/no-masks was), because when you actually get off the internet and talk to people, it's the percieved lies and the attitudes of the people who tell them that are creating the hesitancy.
If a covid-unvaccinated person goes into a stadium or bar full of covid-vaccinated people, what is the effect? The only way the shots get more traction is with a clear and honest answer to that, imo.
Let's flip that around: what is the effect of an asymptomatic COVID sufferer entering a room of people (some of whom are vaccinated vs. some who are not)?
Children aren't currently eligible for any vaccine, and some immunocompromised people can't get the vaccine.
I disagree reason is somehow going to overpower the conspiracy machine. Rules and consequences speak directly to those too greedy to vaccinate or are petrified by fear of some conspiracy theorized takeover.
Two things, if you don't think you can reason with them you aren't going to to try very hard so why bother, which is precisely their objection - but the second is, sure, given everyone who wishes and needs to be vaccinated can get it, what is the effect of an asymtpomatic carrier?
I'm saying it does not justify a relationship where people show vaccine passport ID everywhere they go. Greed is a pretty coarse rationale, I'd suggest it's on the critic to be more persuasive. Conflating the arguments against passports with arguments against vaccination is too disingenuous to accuse someone of, but if someone did't see the difference, it sort of ceases to be an intellectual discussion at that point. So what is the effect?
you'd have to argue about what is the right question to ask first, i'm afraid. that might be a difficult discussion if vaccines are a religious/political topic (i.e. emotional and belief-based instead of skeptical logic).
Because authoritarianism is antithetical to our founding nature.
A centralized database that is used to control individuals is akin to China's social credit system. I've actually started seeing people argue for China style systems, and I find it both frightening and sickening.
When I start to push back at all, I usually get arguments like `Leave the US if you don't like it.`, and sure I'll just pick up and leave the country I was born in, but beyond that where will I be able to go?
If I just want my own individual rights, where in the world will I be able to go if what is basically the last bastion of freedom and individualism is lost to tyrannical majority rule?
> Could you apply this same argument to taxes/SSNs, drivers licenses[+], and other existing centralized systems in the US?
Sure, but at least driver's licenses are about public spaces. I can drive on private property all I want without a license.
As for the other systems, I personally don't much believe those are okay either, but that's a much deeper argument than this.
We've been losing our rights since the income tax and probably prior. I just want us to stop losing them at a minimum, but asking for that is viewed as some kind of major indiscretion.
it really doesn't do that, its intent is to prevent freedom of travel to the unvaccinated. Most people I know that are not vaccinated are very open about it and they can be; as there are currently very few if any prohibition on where they can go. The purpose of the vaccine passport is to end that freedom.
You can try, but to succeed you would essentially have to prove that it came from me and that I all but intentionally infected you. Negligence would require that my actions are not the actions of a prudent person. With 50% of the population not being vaccinated it may be hard to prove what a prudent person would do.
I'm vaccinated and would encourage others to get vaccinated but I am very much against forcing it on anyone.
Allegation of your excessive alcohol consumption or unpopular opinions is not going to decrease your credit score. Your donation to the government "charity" is not going to increase your credit score. With low credit score, you can still take a train to anywhere you want.
It's a privately ran optional system. I do realize that society generally makes it non-optional, but then that gets into arguments about running a debt based monetary regime.
Every American is in a whole myriad of government databases form the federal level on down. Pretending otherwise, or pretending that the next database will be the one to break individualism and lead to autocracy, is just magical thinking.
>Every American is in a whole myriad of government databases form the federal level on down...
The park might be full of needles but that's no justification for further litter.
Why do we need yet another database? People have enough problems with the no fly list and that's a short list. A DB that has 1/3 of the country flagged would cause mayhem from false positives and inconsistent data.
I'm not supporting any new database, just pointing out that if our goal is to prevent centralized government databases of Americans, that ship has already sailed... around the world several times over.
That's not true at all, several of our lists already limit constitutionally approved freedoms.
The No Fly List and felony registration for gun ownership being 2 examples.
edit: before the downvotes start, agreement with those lists does not negate that they are restricting freedoms based on activities that added or removed someone from a list
I think this kind of attitude is exactly what OP had in mind. There are tons of central databases you are already registered in, all available on demand. They detail your life in more detail than you know about yourself at this point (certainly when all data are combined).
To be not aware of this on place like HackerNews is... not very believable, we discuss this all the time, every day.
"last bastion of freedom" - there are places like Switzerland which have more of freedom than any place in US. There is no power nor amount of the money in the world that would force me to move from here to police state like US where everybody talks about freedom but only top 0.1% enjoys some of it.
This might be hard to grasp, but it should be generally true also in US - your freedom ends where other's begins (ie transportation, coming to any work/office). With Covid, this is valid 1000x more. Freedom and anarchy are not the same as some hardliners would like to believe.
I like your comment, and I agree the Swiss are probably free-er at this point--but we were something of a free nation at one time, and we still (Orwellian?) bill ourselves as such.
> There are tons of central databases you are already registered in, all available on demand.
Most of these are not ran by the government though. Thus their use is not mandated.
> your freedom ends where other's begins
In libertarian circles this is generally spoken about as the `non-aggression principle`.
I in no way think that a proof of vaccination system put together by private providers, coupled with businesses' choice to check vaccination status is wrong. I do think the responsible thing to do is somewhere along the lines of self isolating to either being vaccinated or having an antibody test.
My objection is a government orchestrated vaccination database with mandated use in private businesses.
edit: I don't know why you're being downvoted, but I did upvote you for the thoughtful commentary. : )
Well, you're halfway there. Each state already runs an immunization information system which holds this data.
In Arizona, it's required that all immunizations given to <=18s are reported (along with "encouragement" for providers to report adult immunizations) and this is the basis for determining if the child may attend a public school, for example.
The WHO has been issuing so-called Yellow Card certificates for decades. There are enough countries which will require vaccination against Polio, Yellow Fever and Meningococcal meningitis in order for you to cross borders.
Moreover, one of the first international certificate issued (1944) targetted Smallpox vaccinations and it's proliferation coincided with the booming air travel in the 1960's and 1970's. It is argued that the certificate was substantial towards preventing Smallpox from spreading in an age where endemic regions became only a few hours of flying away.
The United States signed and ratified the Convention back in 1945, essentially acknowledging that countries are able to require U.S. citizens to have a vaccine certificate.
While the Convention dates back 75 years, today's Yellow Card is the de facto standard for certifying that you have gotten shots at a border.
COVID-19 poses a challenge as this disease is highly infectious and crippling enough that preventing spread has become a far bigger global priority then other infectious diseases such as Yellow Fever. However, as of yet, a digital, secure, widely adopted solution that goes beyond the WHO's Yellow Card is still in the works. Several airlines and the IATA are working on their own travellers pass, but realistically, a trusted vaccination passport which is globally recognized requires an international treaty between nations governments. The world hasn't arrived at this point yet, and most countries still operate their own systems such as passenger locator forms or national passes issued to their own citizens.
When it comes to schools, anyone can claim a "religious exemption" to those rules (as if public health is a religious matter...). There's no verification or proof involved in claiming that exemption. It's a major loophole.
I wonder why, when many people on this thread aren't even capable of understanding the science pointing out the difference between vaccinated, previous covid infection antibodies, and no protection. There's repeated boxing into vaccinated and unvaccinated like natural antibodies mean nothing, contrary to the available science.
The wild emotionalism that has overflowed during Covid, is unlikely to go back into the container, unfortunately. It's a hellish birth child of the lunacy of the social media era meets rampant pandemic hysteria.
Software engineers (engineers in general actually) aren't special at all when it comes to being rational. They just like to think they are because of their field. It's identical to Stephen Hawking thinking he had special insight on politics, because he was gifted at one thing; or a famous actor thinking they have special insight on politics because they're gifted at one thing. Engineers are just as prone to failing to control their emotions properly, bouts of subject irrationalism and failing to strive for objectivity as is the typical person. Your typical software engineer on HN is no more rational than the typical plumber, the plumber is just likely more honest about it and less full of their self. You see it in every thread on HN, yet the rational engineer myth persists, amusingly.
Europe isn't doing much better. It has a lower % fully vaccinated (around 30% in each country, I can't find exact numbers for the whole EU). In a lot of countries the vaccines are now available to everyone over 18, and you can book appointments within a few days or just turn up. In Poland they are running a financial lottery to encourage people to be vaccinated.
We are still supply-limited in Germany. The number of new first doses are currently down because we need these doses for the second ones instead.
36% fully vaccinated, 54% have received the first dose at least. The percentages are of the total population, i.e. including kids which cannot even receive the vaccine yet, so we aren’t doing that bad, imo.
The US has moved past isolation, its just not going to happen again, there is no political will for it. I fully support vaccination, I just don't support a police state asking to check our papers.