| > we don't live in a police state... Shocking statement that demonstrates more attempt to spin than inform. Supposing we take the webster dictionary definition of police state: "political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures" Considering this effects up to 40% of the population according to the article it checks quite a few boxes: 1. Arbitrary: No precedent, first in the world to do so, with no evidence this will solve the problem in total (controlling covid completely). 2. Repressive government control: There's no argument this fits the strictest definition of repressive. 3. Exercise of power by the police: There's no statement they'll use "secret police" but certainly the enforcement will be aggressive and severe to keep 40% of the population locked down. It's not like watching one person's house. That's a lot of people. For the record, I am not against vaccines. I am however pro bodily autonomy at any cost, for whatever reason, in any condition. The "price to pay in society" isn't to violate your bodily autonomy, and therefore the non-aggression principle, but make a personal decision to avoid or interact with people you disagree with. It turns out that all it took to test the waters of liberty and free will was deciding what you want to, and what you dont want to, put in your body. You would even think this would be a cut and dry case considering the alleged "libertarian" leanings of HN, but to my surprise it seems many people are willing to sacrifice this fundamental liberty for ephemeral (possibly even negative) gain. We're 2 years into 15 days to flatten the curve. We have all the evidence to show this won't fix anything unless these people are locked down permanently. At that point they may as well be thrown in prisons, or camps, or whatever the dictator says to do. Democracies can't simply hold you down and inject you with chemicals but coercing these people with objectively police state style tactics is the way tyrants dressed as democratic leaders effectively accomplish the same thing. |
At vaccination rates of 60-70% the vaccinated make 1/3rd of new infections (and giving that the vaccinated have less symptoms, one may suppose that the vaccinated rate of infection is even higher than the official 1/3rd), and thus raising the vaccination rate from 70% to 100% would decrease infection rate just 2 times at best, so even locking down unvaccinated permanently would solve nothing. And that too:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y
" A person who was fully vaccinated and then had a ‘breakthrough’ Delta infection was almost twice as likely to pass on the virus as someone who was infected with Alpha."
"Unfortunately, the vaccine’s beneficial effect on Delta transmission waned to almost negligible levels over time. In people infected 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, both in the UK, the chance that an unvaccinated close contact would test positive was 57%, but 3 months later, that chance rose to 67%. The latter figure is on par with the likelihood that an unvaccinated person will spread the virus."