[nradov]

While I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated, the virus will be around forever. Any talk of "prolonging" is absurd.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

You obviously can't expect people to continue wearing masks indefinitely. That would be ridiculous.

[jude-]

I can expect that if a sufficiently high body count or death rate is reached (now or in a future variant), certain high-risk activities will require proof of recent vaccination to participate in. See also: seatbelts, child-specific seats, etc. Why should I, a responsible member of the public, be forced to put up with other people's needlessly risky behavior when it directly affects me and mine?

[throwaway55421]

You're not, you can hide inside forever.

In the real world we accept risk vs reward. My neighbours having a kitchen knife in their house presents a nonzero risk to me, and that's a-ok and I don't wander about wearing a stab vest.

[jude-]

Or, we can do what we've done in the past to address this very situation by giving everyone the following choice: get the vaccine, or forfeit some privileges. It's not hard, and it's not without lots of precedent, so it should not be controversial.

[throwaway55421]

Well, you can. France are doing it. They are having 200k daily cases.

So it's not really "or", it's just "and".

You can either have everyone gets corona, or you can have everyone gets corona plus a miserable digital dystopia, loads of restrictions on everyday life etc.

Either way, unless you manage zero covid which is almost universally considered to be impossible at this point in most of the world, your options are still "hide inside forever" or "get corona". Which brings us right back full circle to risk vs reward.

[jude-]

Very few French are dying of it (like, 300/day), which I'd call a massive success story. Containing COVID is of course out of the question at this point, and I never argued otherwise. However, the risk of life and limb to people who did get vaccinated is nevertheless increased by the presence of those who did not, because the unvaccinated get sick and eat up hospital resources that would then be denied to people who need medical attention for unrelated reasons. Moreover, they increase the risk of spreading COVID to people who cannot get the vaccine (e.g. babies, folks with weak immune systems). So, it really is in everyone's interest to get everyone vaccinated -- everyone's risk of dying a preventable death decreases.

What's the cost of this? Why, it's the very same as the cost of getting most everyone vaccinated for literally anything else we get vaccinated for! No one has a conniption about vaccine regimens for measles, mumps, polio, etc., because the programs for implementing them at scale have been so successful that hardly anyone gets hospitalized or dies from them anymore. Want to attend public school? Get vaccinated. Want to join the military? Get vaccinated. Want to live in a college dorm? Get vaccinated.

The marginal cost of adding one more required vaccine on top of the ones almost everyone regularly gets (and almost no one complains about) in order to participate in normal society is negligeable.

So no, it's not a case of "everyone gets corona" vs "everyone gets corona and we have a miserable digital dystopia", as you put it. It's a choice of "everyone gets corona and a lot of other people needlessly die for want of medical care" vs "everyone gets corona and/or the vaccine, you have to fill one more checkbox on your vaccine card (which already has a dozen or so), and comparatively fewer people die for want of medical care." Life will get back to normal either way; at this point it's really a question of dealing with the selfish, paranoid, delusional, despicable people who would rather see the mass death of their fellow countrymen over having to fill one more checkbox on their vaccine card.

[throwaway55421]

Sigh. I'll spell it out explicitly for you.

France: About 150 deaths per day, 200K cases per day.

UK: About 150 deaths per day, 200K cases per day.

Same population size. Massive delta in restrictions.

I would say "have a good day", but after your big old rant about you wanting to force people into doing stuff and how they're all despicable, I mean, meh, look inwards.

I agree that being vaccinated is sensible. I just think that's it. Nothing else besides uberlockdowns have any demonstrable effect on long term mortality (e.g. over the course of a year). We don't need anal vaccine digital ID checks or FFP83 hazmat suits unless you just want to make the world worse because you're grumpy.