[0xcde4c3db]

> The COVID vaccine was an example of very heavy-handed enforcement

Do you have some concrete examples of this? I recall a lot of hyperventilating about the possibility of "vaccine passports" (complete with "mark of the beast" references), and a handful of instances where people got angry about COVID vaccination being folded into (decades-old) policies covering mandatory vaccinations for school/work, but not much beyond that. I carried a mask in case places had mask policies, but it never even occurred to me that I might need to prove that I was vaccinated.

[Nevermark]

Hawaii required vaccinations to visit from the mainland.

At one point, Hawaii State had one set of rules, and the Big Island another, which was ridiculous. But worse, when preparing for the former according to all the official instructions and forms there was no mention of the latter.

A multi-island visit of myself and two loved ones turned into quite a disaster as a result of the confusing redundant duplicative restrictions. Despite great pre-trip efforts to have all documentation (vaccines taken, State acknowledgment forms completed and returned as accepted, etc.)

We were not informed of the Big Islands special requirements until we arrived on the Big Island. If we left the airport for any reason we would immediately have gone into a two week quarantine - despite having all our vaccines.

It required a lot of pushing and pressing to let us get our luggage and buy and take last minute flights to Oahu (also gettting last minute accommodations) without being forced to leave the airport and go straight into quarantine. Because our luggage, as is usual when you arrive at what you believe to be your destination, was now outside departure security.

I was angry beyond all reason by the time we got out of there alive. Complete incompetent mess.

[malcolmgreaves]

You’re complaining that you wanted to go to someone else’s home for your own personal enjoyment during a deadly pandemic and they made you take precautions so you didn’t end up killing or severely harming people?

Why do you value your fun time over people’s safety?

[Nevermark]

Wow. I don’t make assumptions often, but either you didn’t read what I wrote, or found it difficult to understand.

We carefully followed all State rules and regulations.

We got vaccinated.

We got vaccinated specifically by providers they limited us to. Which was not geographically easy for all of us.

We waited for provider approvals.

We filled in all State forms, provided all evidence and information.

We waited and eventually got State notifications that we were each validated to go.

That was on a challenging short schedule, because they wanted new vaccinations within a short window before the departure date. And twice we had to wait for delays by providers and the State we had no control over.

But we scrambled through their timeline and completely complied.

We brought printed copies ov everything. We had the site links to everything saved too, in case of any confusion.

We entered Hawaii going through a long line, cooperating with everyone and were then allowed to leave and enjoy Maui.

Then… well read what I wrote above again, if you need to.

And for reference, this was my second post-COVID trip to Hawaii, with the same itinerary, but I carefully checked all the same information and rules, made all the same preparations and we were all validated by the State in exactly the same way.

One island subsequently decided to handle things differently. A fact that was not reflected or mentioned in all the State’s information or forms that we encountered, and competed.

They introduced novel requirement that also needed to be made days in advance.

But they did not get any information about the islands break with the rest of the state, or the nature of those changes, posted anywhere State travelers got and submitted their information from the state. Nor did the States approvals mention any provisional aspects.

We were cleared by the State. As far as the State was concerned, we could go anywhere.

The result of one islands decision not to accept State approvals wasn’t just a disaster for us but many other travelers and the beleaguered staff at the arrivals of one airport, on the one rogue island, who had no idea what they were supposed to do while they held unhappy people in an airport, and only had ridiculously bad official options for them.

When we flew to Hawaii from the mainland, the airline verified ouur preparation for landing before giving us boarding passes to depart. Completely professionally handled by the State.

When just going from island to island, as I had recently done before, no mention of any second set of new one-island regulations were mentioned, until we and other unhappy people arrived after a 30 minute in-state island hop.

Where the heck did you read any lack of appreciation for “hospitality”?

[ghaff]

I certainly attended IT industry events that required showing your vaccination card. To say nothing of my company requiring proof at one point. So, yes, there were times you needed to prove you were vaccinated.

ADDED: Add to this the fact that at least at one point, vaccines were seen as much more of a magical talisman to prevent population spread than they turned out to really be in spite of having at least a degree of effectiveness in mitigating individual severity.

[lesuorac]

> industry events ... my company

Neither of them are the government.

Private individuals made private decisions about who they may associate with. If anything people should be protesting the existence of the first amendment.

[seanmcdirmid]

Companies required the, because they were federal contractors and Biden signed an EO that lasted for a few months before being overturned. Not anti-vax myself, but the requirement for big IT companies (all do a bit federal work) was definitely driven by the federal government.

[ghaff]

Pretending that the federal government played no role in guiding the actions of private entities is disingenuous at best. I actually have no problems with such actions given what was known at the time. But the fact that the federal government didn't directly put these sorts of requirements in place is largely beside the point.

There were also travel restrictions at the state level. As I recall, at one point I could only travel from MA to NH for medical-related reasons (probably some other exceptions too and it's not like your papers were being checked at the border.) ADDED: As someone else noted, there were lots of restrictions traveling to Hawaii.

Lots of people were feeling their way in the dark. I attended an event at the beginning of March before everything went crazy in the US. (An event right after was canceled. Seemed like an overreaction; it wasn't.) We were all washing our hands and elbow-bumping but nothing else.

[lesuorac]

> Pretending that the federal government played no role in guiding the actions of private entities is disingenuous at best.

And what would conflating State & Private action with Federal actions be?

This is literally what this thread is about. People are having backlash against the federal government for actions the federal government did not do. Even Republican lead states like Florida had travel restrictions [1] (keep in mind, Trump was president in 2020 when these restrictions were enacted).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Florida

[Izkata]

The OSHA mandate was federal level: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/25/covid-vaccine-mandate-osha-w...

Most people don't seem to know about it because it never officially went into effect, but to get there it had to be struck down in courts twice and Biden was telling employers to voluntarily do it because of the appeal. Plenty were in preparation for it going into effect.

[chrisdhal]

The state of Minnesota, under Tim Walz, had all sorts of heavy handed, government mandated rules about things. According to the decree, people couldn't visit relatives, couldn't go to funerals, in reality, could not go out at all. It was ridiculous and over zealous.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/03/25/minnesotas-covid19-...

[gregwebs]

8,000 Troops got kicked out of the military for not getting the vaccine and are going to be invited back now. https://www.army.mil/article/283143/dod_prepares_invitation_...

[malcolmgreaves]

If you actually knew about the military, you’d understand that they make you get vaccinated for everything. Combat readiness of the forces is paramount. It probably seems foreign to you, but the military is an organization that eschews selfish individualism for the good of the collective and their mission.

[drivingmenuts]

This administration just pardoned a whole pile of traitors and war criminals. 8000 anti-vaxxers is small potatoes.

[osigurdson]

>> hyperventilating about the possibility of "vaccine passports"

There is a very bright line between people who think such measures are fine and those that do not.

[ghaff]

It's not that bright. I'd want to know the specifics/relative risks/effectiveness/etc. to know how I felt.

[osigurdson]

Yup, run the numbers and do what seems best for the collective even if some individuals don't agree. To me, that is clearly on one side of the bright line.

[ghaff]

Sorry, but it also depends on individual risk. Though that probably won't be clear. And probably has some guardrails based on government authorization.

[notahacker]

Much of the US right was also making loud noises about non-vaccine miracle cures and expressing scepticism about the vaccine before it was even approved...

And yeah, the irony is that throwing money at vaccine rollouts was one of the few good things the last Trump administration did, but trying to talk about it was about the only thing that could get him booed by his own fanbase

[zmgsabst]

States, eg WA, had policies that prevented activities unless you were vaccinated.

[tzs]

As someone else said, generally the requirements in Washington that state government imposed on non-government entities was masking. Vaccination was encouraged but not required. It was required for various government employees.

Washington ended up being one of the 10 states with the least COVID deaths per capita.

[UncleMeat]

They consistently had "or wear a mask" options.

[ghaff]

Many private functions/companies required both. It's simply counterfactual to say there were no vaccination mandates--and they weren't limited to healthcare settings.

[UncleMeat]

Quite different from state policies at this point.

[ghaff]

To pretend that those private mandates were independent of what government at various levels was saying is counterfactual. It's not like individual companies were just making up policies in a vacuum. If governments were saying (almost certainly incorrectly) "Hey, business as usual" companies would have acted differently.