| 1.) The vaccines are less effective if not everyone gets vaccines, and are much less effective if the vaccine is allowed to mutate. For that reason I _don't_ respect decisions to not get vaccinated. It's _not_ a personal decision and I consider this point wrong because I fully reject this framing. By not getting vaccinated you put others at risk. If you go to the hospital for COVID you put other people fighting other diseases at risk. I might agree with you had vaccinated people had 0 risk of getting COVID (or even getting into another accident and needing an ICU bed), but that isn't the case so you cannot assume that someone rejecting vaccine has zero negative externalties. 2.) I'll have to do more research, but I can only assume that natural immunity is not reasonably close to vaccination immunity which is why it's not an appropriate replacement. I saw a Fox News segment last night that said essentially natural immunity is a perfect solution, but I don't accept things from Fox at face value. 3.) States are literally paying people money to get vaccinated - no one "skipped straight to punishments". The vaccine is completely free with very few barriers, in a country with no socialized medicine. This kind of framing feels deliberately misleading. I don't know what more you expect the state to do at this point - even Trump is telling people to get vaccinated to boo-ing crowds. 4.) The success criteria has been ICU bed capacity. That is the key criteria that seperates the regular old flu from COVID. That is why efficacy rate stress hospitalization rates, and not breakthrough rates. When you have mass ICU usage, that is when a pandemic becomes a public policy problem. 5.) I don't feel your response has addressed my point. I brought up seat belts because it's something the government does today to enforce personal responsibility. You framed forced mandates as some government overreach on personal responsibility and I'm saying that isn't the case and the government has always had that power. Secondly if you refuse to get the vaccine and end up in the hospital - why aren't you framing this decision as someone selfishly controlling doctors, nursers and other patients to deal with their selfish decision? The doctor has "no control or choice" in being forced to treat you to a respirator. When the public health officials tell you get a vaccine that's being "imposed on you and I have no control or choice", but when you catch or infect someone else with COVID, it's 100% ok in imposing your choice on nurses? I hope I've highlighted the hypocritical selfishness of your argument. >They are simply matters of opinion, and I think we would all be best served if we acknowledge this. Again, they are not. They are poorly researched opinions and that is why I continue to reject them. You said the state "skipped straight to punishments". That's not true. You said "there's no success criteria". That's not true, it has always been ICU capacity. These two "opinions" are demonstrably false statements that are masquerading as "harmless opinions". To me that's misinformation. Your fifth point just exposes your selfishness. I'll give you that you have your own personal freedom to be selfish, but I wouldn't be shocked if you are called an asshole for acting selfishly. |
2) I'm OK to defer this until the science is in.
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3) Vaccination rates are climbing, and we have no idea where they will end. In many demographics they are already quite high. Uptake is 91% in 65+ and 73% for 18+. Breakthrough cases are extremely low at <0.1% of cases, so 99.9% of cases are self imposed by choice of not to get vaccinated. One easy thing that states could do is wait, let the numbers continue to climb, let people change their mind as all their vaccinated neighbors walk around fine, or their unvaccinated neighbors die, or they get sick and get a decent level of personal immunity. As of today, the death rate is 0.3/100k per day. That is 359,160 deaths per year, of which 360 will be people who chose to get vaccinated but died of a breakthrough case. This is pretty close to the CDC numbers, which puts the the breakthrough deaths for the first 4 months of 2021 at 160 people, who had a mean age of 82 [1]. For context, lawn mower accidents kill >1000 people a year in the US.
4) I still don't think that an objective goal has been communicated. Less covid cases, or more ICU capacity is not an objective or achievable goal. What is the criteria for ICU beds, what is the metric, and what is it now? Is it a national average, or until every hospital in the country meets it, ect? The CDC has stopped tracking ICU capacity as of July 2021 with an average of 60% of beds full and doesn't even report the number of those which are covid related. All bed occupid with covid patients was 8-9% (including the asymptomatic admitted for other reasons), but I admit this could be higher in the ICU. If this is the primary goal for our pandemic response, we should at least track where we are relative to the goal. If there is a measurable goal you can share, I would be ecstatic, and it might change my opinion that we are in a foreverwar against covid with no success criteria (not unlike Afghanistan & the war on terror).
My guess is that we will continue aimlessly focus time and resources into it without any idea of what completion looks like until everyone is burnt out and comes to the realization that covid is endemic. We will check vaccination cards when traveling, for employment, and potentially events out of fear of triggering one of the 360 breakthrough deaths. My mental model for the war on Covid is largely based on the war on terror, and I think there are several parallels.
5) I would rather live in a world where doctors, hospitals, and insurers were free to refuse services to the unvaccinated, than one where people were both compelled to get medical treatment, and provide health services.
>[these] are poorly researched opinions and that is why I continue to reject them. You said the state "skipped straight to punishments". That's not true. You said "there's no success criteria". That's not true, it has always been ICU capacity. These two "opinions" are demonstrably false statements that are masquerading as "harmless opinions". To me that's misinformation. Your fifth point just exposes your selfishness. I'll give you that you have your own personal freedom to be selfish, but I wouldn't be shocked if you are called an asshole for acting selfishly.
"Skipped straight to punishments" was vague and exaggerated language. Replace that with implemented punishments faster than I would like. Is that sufficiently an opinion now? I stand my by statement that there is no success criteria. I never said opinions are harmless. For example, I said that it would be tolerable to have 50k vaccinated covid deaths. That is a real opinion, that if enacted, would let people die.
As mentioned before, I am fully vaccinated, and will probably get a booster when available. I just have a very high tolerance for other people being assholes or selfish. More so when we have what looks to be a very effective vaccine available for "free" and boosters on the way to provide a huge degree of protection to those who want them.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e3.htm