[angelzen]

Very true. Vaccines have helped in great measure. OTOH, there are other forces at play. The very existence of covid waves that come and recede much faster than the increase in the vaccination rate should be an indication that vaccines, while very helpful, are not the end all of covid pushback mechanisms. For example in US delta is receding after a couple months of mayhem. R is estimated <1 for most of the states, see https://covidestim.org.

There is a point after which the effect of human measures becomes marginal. If anything because most people would have been already exposed to covid, with or without vaccines. I can't say whether we've passed that point or not, but OTOH the draconians have not made their case either. What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate?

Long term there are concerns of vaccine escape. Pfizer CEO raised them recently, it's not just the 5G conspiracists. A new strain emerges for which vaccines aren't that helpful against severe complications. Some people, myself included (I am vaccinated thank you very much) are concerned that creating a population with immune monoculture is likely to result in strains bypassing the monoculture. The nightmare scenario is the emergence of a strain for which the vaccines are a net negative. Hopefully nothing terrible happens. But we don't know. Nobody knows. Perhaps we should not be placing all our eggs in the same basket, e.g. not (force) vaccinate everyone against the exact same protein.

[pbourke]

> What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate?

An intact hospital / critical care system.

[ghoward]

> An intact hospital / critical care system.

Given that there are many nurses protesting vaccine mandates, it could be that putting such mandates in place will lead to a lot of them quitting, which could make the hospital system less "intact" and resilient.

[rdtwo]

The system is failing under the weight of its own policies.

Underpaying and understaffing nurses Failing to provide ppe And a whole slew of covid related policies that deny folks “non critical “ care like cancer treatment and surgery. I mean my friends couldn’t even get in to see their pcp for 2 weeks for an illness that presented with fever, finally gave up and hit the er. Vaccines are nice but they won’t fix this

[angelzen]

Generally speaking, worst case scenario notwithstanding, adults should get vaccinated (1) for their own good. OTOH, part of being adult in a free society is making choices for oneself, good or bad. We have plenty of bad choices leading to heavy costs in the medical system. Obesity and intense end-of-life procedures (that doctors themselves eschew by a large margin) come to mind. Or skiing, or riding a motorcycle down the freeway. Or sexual promiscuity. Sadly, some of these choices strongly overlap with susceptibility to covid (2). Do we really want to open the can of worms of blaming individual patients for overall medical system costs? That's a heavy load.

The nurse enters the ER triage room. 'Smoker? Exercise 2 hours a day? Fast food in the past 2 weeks? Drink beer? BMI over 30? Diabetes? Below average safe driver? Cardiac problems in the family?'. God forbid you tick the wrong answer on any of these questions, you are now an undesirable straining the hospital system and we should righteously kick you to the curb to squirm in your earned misery. The 'preexisting conditions' rubric in American medical system is already dark, not sure we want to push harder in the wrong direction.

Most of us are in favor of helping those in need. See the push for single payer health care system. Maybe there is hope.

(1) Hoping for traditional vaccines, to mitigate the monoculture problem. E.g. https://www.novavax.com/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-candida....

(2) Cue in the 'obesity is not a choice' crowd. Whatever we think the causes are, it was an order of magnitude less of a problem 50 years ago, and I know for a fact that I often have a poor diet and I am unable to incorporate enough physical movement in my own daily routine. So there.

PS. As you are reaching for the flamethrower, try save a bit of that energy to craft a 'getting vaccinated is good for you and your loved ones' message coming from a place of care and not smug vindictive superiority. <3