[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“.