[rickspencer3]

Right. I think the concerns actually played out exactly as feared. Hospitals filled up with people sick with Covid, health care system got overwhelmed, everyone is at heightened risk due to the difficulty in getting treated for anything.

The point of getting vaccinated is not to protect yourself, as much as to protect your community. I view people who won't take the vaccine because they perceive their personal risk as low to be selfish. Additionally, anyone who won't get vaccinated because they don't want anyone else to tell them what to do is childish.

[brigandish]

> The point of getting vaccinated is not to protect yourself, as much as to protect your community.

The point is first and foremost, and by a long way, to protect yourself. Herd immunity is a by-product of mass immunisation programmes, not the main goal.

> I view people who won't take the vaccine because they perceive their personal risk as low to be selfish

If their personal risk is low (as opposed to perceived low), which it is for the vast majority, then they're not having a selfish effect on others as they won't be taking up medical resources they shouldn't. If there's any "selfish" people - according to this strange standard you've built - it's those with high risk due to comorbidities they could've done something about, like their weight, and I wouldn't for one second paint them as some kind of moral deviants, they're people who need help in the short term and long.

> Additionally, anyone who won't get vaccinated because they don't want anyone else to tell them what to do is childish.

To make your own decisions and take your own risks is the mark of an adult because adulthood is about taking responsibility on, not abrogating it. Whether they are good decisions is a different discussion.

[jjuel]

Honestly, if the decision to not get a vaccine because you are young and healthy only affected you then your argument would make sense. Why are there laws against drunk driving? It isn't to solely protect the driver from injuring themselves correct?

Edit: BTW I do not support mandated COVID vaccination. I just wish more people would think of the societal good instead of "muh freedoms" when making choices. Especially when certain side effects of vaccines actually happen at a higher incidence rate from getting COVID then from the vaccine (I.E. myocarditis).

[dolni]

> Why are there laws against drunk driving?

Not drunk driving doesn't require you to put something in your body.

[brigandish]

Freedom is harder to find than health, and the lack of it and the fight for it has certainly cost far more lives than this pandemic could, even without a vaccine. Additionally, places with greater freedom correspond to places with greater wealth and hence, greater health. There is more societal good in freedom than a vaccine. It’s possible to stand up for the good of both without denigrating one or the other, because they’re not really relevant to each other... until mandates and vaccine passports come in.

However, I agree that many people refusing the vaccine aren’t doing it based on sound reasoning (beyond the freedom argument) or are well informed on the matter. Again, however, the government and media have the lion’s share of responsibility here, they haven’t been honest nor transparent, and they’ve politicised things that should never be political - just think “Trump”, “hydroxychloroquine”, and “the Lancet” and you’ll get an immediate insight into where the lack of trust comes from, and those no shortage of examples (this week’s is “Joe Rogan” and “ivermectin”, can we just wait for a larger scale study to come in before rubbishing this stuff?)

[a9h74j]

Not to mention dehumanizing 1 billion Africans by calling Ivermectin a "horse medicine".

Some old dictionary> Oats: A food for horses in England and men in Scotland.