[trainsplanes]

With travel at least, countries have the right to deny people for any reason whatsoever. Many already mandate various vaccines for entry (even for diseases not transmissible between humans), require a certain amount of money in your bank account, deny you for travel history to other certain areas, etc. A covid vaccine mandate for travel is far from radical.

(Note: I didn’t downvote you)

[donw]

> With travel at least, countries have the right to deny people for any reason whatsoever.

That isn't where I was going.

There is a current hard push for border controls at each state boundary; e.g., even domestic flights.

Not law yet, but the fact this is even being discussed is unacceptable. As was the employer mandate.

> Many already mandate various vaccines for entry (even for diseases not transmissible between humans),

Nope.

All vaccinations in Japan are optional (albeit recommended, and most parents follow the standard schedule for their children). A Japanese citizen can get a Japanese passport without a single vaccine.

The US has allowed Japanese citizens landing permission for a very, very long time.

Sure, it may be uncommon for an unvaccinated Japanese person to travel to the US, but it was and still is entirely legal. Except for the COVID prophylaxis (which is not a vaccine, as it does not appear to confer any lasting immunity).

> (Note: I didn’t downvote you)

Thank you. There's more than a small contingent of organized HNers that works to bury anything that runs contrary to their nascent religion.

[trainsplanes]

> Nope.

Absolutely wrong. Here's a list of countries and their various vaccine requirements for entry. Despite what you think, there's a lot of them and these requirements predate covid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_requirements_for_i...

Obtaining a passport is completely irrelevant. Countries deny people with valid passports from entering all the time. For example, if they don't have the proper vaccines.

[bruceb]

Almost no country that Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, etc go to in large numbers for tourism ever actually asked about medical history precovid.

Making laughable assertions doesn't help convince the unvaxed to get the jabs.

[donw]

> Making laughable assertions doesn't help convince the unvaxed to get the jabs.

Being unkind rarely changes anyone's mind.

[trainsplanes]

Try applying for a visa to some countries and yes, they will ask. Some countries deny visas to first world royalty for disease history. China denied people with HIV for a long time. Some African countries require vaccinations for some diseases. Some places require vaccinations for people coming from poorer countries.

The angle you're coming from seems to be be that Americans, etc should be treated specially and not be checked. Go to the wrong country with that expectation and reality will hit you hard.

[bruceb]

"The angle you're coming from seems to be be that Americans, etc should be treated specially"

Pointing out what actually happens isn't an angle, it stating the situation as it is, not an endorsement.

"Some African countries require vaccinations for some diseases...Go to the wrong country with that expectation and reality will hit you hard."

Very few people are going to these countries.

[trainsplanes]

Down below is someone commenting that they had to get a yellow fever vaccine to visit Kenya.

Maybe you're not visiting these countries. But frankly, nobody cares. Millions are. And they're being checked for proof of vaccines and have been for a long time.

[donw]

> Obtaining a passport is completely irrelevant.

For most travelers, it is the only document you show at the border.

> Countries deny people with valid passports from entering all the time. For example, if they don't have the proper vaccines.

In theory, yes. In practice, no.

I have never once seen a Japanese traveler required to produce any medical paperwork along with their passport (and I have flown a lot between both countries).

Could a traveler from Japan in theory be stopped at the border for a lack of vaccination? Probably. How often does that happen? Effectively never.

[yoz-y]

Well yes. But that’s because when going to a country you first check what are the requirements to cross the border. I’ve never seen a somebody kicked out of the US border because they didn’t make an ESTA, but that’s because everybody in the line triple checked that they have it.

[trainsplanes]

> I have never once seen a Japanese traveler required to produce any medical paperwork along with their passport (and I have flown a lot between both countries).

That's because a significant number of countries that require vaccines also require something called a "visa."

Visas have many years of history, and they're generally obtained beforehand. When applying for visas, you submit various documentation, pay a fee, and it makes your entry process much easier. When traveling first world to first world, visa checks for travel are generally waived. Going first world to anywhere not-first world, or in the opposite direction, usually requires some degree of a visa process.

[bruceb]

"First worlders" often are visa exempt when visiting non first world countries as well or visas are online and easily attainable.

Most tourist attracting countries that require visa for some, don't make one submit any medical info for both first world and mid tier countries.

[donw]

> That's because a significant number of countries that require vaccines also require something called a "visa."

Japan is not one of these.

[trainsplanes]

I have absolutely no clue why you're continuously focusing exclusively on Japan to avoid the fact that vaccine/immunization mandates have global precedents and they've existed forever at this point.

Japan might not mandate a certain vaccine. But if you're going to Bangladesh, Bangladesh does not in fact care about Japanese law.

For an example of how badly this works out, look up the UK guy who tried playing the sovereign citizen card in Singapore and pretending the law regarding disease spread doesn't apply to him. Spoilers: it did.

[throw53004511]

> full-bore Nazis and don't even realize it.

> organized HNers that works to bury anything that runs contrary to their nascent religion.

I downvote posts that can't resist aggressive parting shots like this. Honestly, just leave this kind of bullshit at the door. It will make your comment much stronger. I disagree with some of your points but you're still contributing to the discussion here if you would leave out these remarks.

[hirako2000]

Whataboutism? We better question criteria for border crossing rather than endorsing further extension of those criteria.

The cost of travel is not coincidently high for those who have less. We will add further burden on people who barely met the financial conditions to just visit a place. And the inconvenience to the already stress inducing security procedure we face each time we take a flight.

We have been tolerating radical measures. Just try hold a bottle of water through airport security. And now we are seeing another type of radical measure: show us that you are up to date with whatever health prevention injection and tests that happen to apply today within a jurisdiction. Another straw, some camel backs are breaking , some find it manageable.

[trainsplanes]

Requiring immunization is a cost-saving measure for countries accepting travelers. The last thing a poor country needs is richer people coming in, getting sick, and ending up hospitalized all while infecting other people.

And the system has hundreds of years, if not millennia, of history. Before immunization was available, quarantines were mandatory even for people without visible illnesses around the world. It's only in 2020 that the idea of this become controversial and some people acted like it was unprecedented through exposure to echo chambers.

[hirako2000]

Any source you could reference about the general practice of mandatory quarantines prior to immunization?

It was unprecedented in our life time. That's all people expressed. Not acted like. At most that's what they believed. Please educate us on how the world worked. Provide some sources, and not only a reference of occurrences of quarantines used throughout history, of course the practice existed, but I read your claim is that it was general practice.

Quarantine is a measure that always existed under serious circumstances, where people would most likely spread a disease causing certain death to healthy, whether young or old people. Today these quarantines are absurd measures causing far more harm that supposedly contain the spread of a virus. Which is spreading anyhow.

Following your logic, going to some extreme would lead to any pathogen discovery on anyone could grant a total shutdown of the worldwide traffic, stop all commercial activity, have every single person assigned to residence. The logic is dangerous beyond belief. You mention echo chambers, it applies to all sort of ideas, not only those you disagree with are echo chambered. there is something even more worrying, it is how institutions influenced by profit makers use propaganda to shape the way we think, and to see that you and many others don't have the respect of other people's appreciation. Do as you please, take all the necessary measure you feel would keep your safe. But Respect other people's freedom.

The question is who pays. You want quarantine, that's fine. Pay for it. Pay for the cost of quarantine facilities and staffing where they exist. And pay for the burden imposed on those mandated to be quaranrined. Those who agree with quarantine should accept the cost, not imposing it on everyone. Why? Because you would then quickly realised the true cost of it and start realising the absurd compromise made with those measures. Right now the impact is diluted across government spending, delayed economical, sanitary and mental impacts. So we go along with disproportionate measures until we can measure their true costs

Take a serious look at whats going on across European countries with these mandates. It doesn't make mainstream news, but pick a few countries and find see the growing number of street protests, and the growth in participants. France currently has spinning up movements as a support of medical staff. Hospital employees claiming the measures such as forced vaccines are absurd, lost their jobs as a result of their stance and are actively voicing their concern. Perhaps they are more ignorant than you about history, maybe they are in echo chambers, but please don't make it seem like we have lunatic medical measure deniers on one side and conscious well educated who support ethical measures on the other.

[ben_w]

I was required to have a vaccine against Yellow Fever (I think) in order to visit Kenya a few years ago.

I’m in favour of greatly reducing travel restrictions (and migration restrictions), but vaccination is neither new nor radical.

Edit:

Dates back to 1933, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Certificate_of_V...

[hirako2000]

I was required to take vaccines too, so what?

We are talking about a vaccine that doesn't even prevent infection. A vaccine that requires 2 doses ( apparently now a 3rd dose is coming in ) for a questionable immunity in effectiveness and lifespan. A vaccine not mandated to be taken when visiting a country at risk such as Kenya, no. Governments have been pushing for universal vaccination, whether one travels or not.

A worldwide campaign for vaccination, followed by pressure and mandating that a number of public places and businesses only vaccinated people to be, along with a tracker or pass being checked when visitors go to a restaurant, those are radical measures and a threat to individual freedom.

[ben_w]

> I was required to take vaccines too, so what?

What do you mean, “so what?” Isn’t this exactly what you’ve been complaining about?

> We are talking about a vaccine that doesn't even prevent infection.

No vaccine against any disease guarantees that in any specific individual. Yet at a population level, all the various COVID vaccines which were validated by the trials all reduce symptomatic infection, and the one I took in particular definitely reduces the risk of non-symptomatic infection.

> A vaccine that requires 2 doses ( apparently now a 3rd dose is coming in )

Commonplace. I’ve had several like that; I’d have to look up which disease they were against.

Also, how many doses you need for COVID depends on which of the half-dozen completely different vaccines you’ve been given.

> for a questionable immunity in effectiveness

False, assuming you’re using the word “questionable” in anything other than the sense in which scientists call gravity a “theory”.

> and lifespan.

Common in vaccines, because viruses mutate. Literally why influenza vaccines only last one year.

> A worldwide campaign for vaccination,

So like smallpox? And the only reason yellow fever (and polio, diphtheria, rubella, etc.) isn’t endemic in (e.g. the USA) are the various vaccine campaigns.

> followed by pressure and mandating that a number of public places and businesses only vaccinated people to be,

Quite a lot of childhood vaccines are “your child has the vaccine or they are not allowed to school”.

> along with a tracker or pass being checked when visitors go to a restaurant,

Those were put in before the vaccine, so as to help prevent the spread. They go away when enough people are vaccinated — or get ill — to create population immunity.

> those are radical measures and a threat to individual freedom.

Nothing you’ve listed is radical, and none of it is a threat.

What is a threat to individual freedom is that immunodeficient people have to hide in their homes because too many other people think vaccination is just a personal choice.

Plausibly also when the same get ill and fill up hospital beds so that people with non-pandemic illnesses and injuries can’t get treated.

As the saying goes: “your freedom to swing your fist stops with my nose“.

[yoz-y]

FWIW, requiring vaccines to viruses seems way more reasonable than banning liquids.