Sympathy for Anti-Vax/Maskers?

[GSOgymrat]

But that's not what it's really about; that is just a symptom of a much larger problem that is an essentially ruling class that minimally represents us at best can coerce, by brute force, the people bellow them into doing whatever they deem acceptable - up to the point of dictating what we do with our own bodies, literally the most fundamental aspect of being human.

A ruling class forcing people to following rules may be your primary concern but my concerns regarding this pandemic are not only about coercion. Coercion is one factor among many that need to be considered when addressing this problem. From my perspective, the goal should be to minimize the negative consequences of the pandemic and minimizing coercion is one concern among many. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying what you are describing is a broader issue and I tend to be pragmatic.

[Hydra009]

I figured someone would bring that up, and I am opposed to it as well.

Yeah, well, someone died from that meningitis outbreak and I'm fairly certain that person's family would disagree with you.

[Shiranu]

Yeah, well, someone died from that meningitis outbreak and I'm fairly certain that person's family would disagree with you.

And that's fine; I'm not telling them how to live their life.


But they were the ones who chose not to get vaccinated/vaccinate their child, so be angry at the parents instead of being angry at everyone else, at absolute strangers, and demand that the government force these strangers to do things without their consent.


I can point out America's long history of not upholding the First Amendment; that doesn't make it right, it just makes it a long history.

[Hydra009]

A ruling class forcing people to following rules may be your primary concern but my concerns regarding this pandemic are not only about coercion. Coercion is one factor among many that need to be considered when addressing this problem. From my perspective, the goal should be to minimize the negative consequences of the pandemic and minimizing coercion is one concern among many. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying what you are describing is a broader issue and I tend to be pragmatic.

You're putting it much more diplomatically and gently than I ever would.

We're closing on a million dead.  Almost every aspect of my life has been disrupted over the...sheesh, almost two years now.  I've had a close relative go into major surgery to a hospital nearly overloaded with covid patients and I couldn't be there because they weren't taking visitors so I worried at home instead.  And even though my family has been vaccinated and careful, some of them have gotten it and it nearly sent two of them to the hospital.  Every day that I show up for work, I wonder if today's going to be the day that I get something that I pass on to the very vulnerable older people in my family as well as sets off my own asthma.  And I've had to stare at nose-maskers and people who for whatever reason passed on the vaccine and wonder if their carelessness is going to doom someone in my family, me included.

Who thinks I really give a fig if some people feel "bullied" by the big bad gobermint vaccine mandates?

Look, I've tried to be patient and charitable to these sorts of people, but after a year of misery and death, my charity has run dry.  I'm sick of this pandemic.  I'm sick of its accompanying disinfo campaign.  I'm sick of seeing dead people on my feed.  I'm sick of worrying that someone in my family is going to join them.  And most of all, I'm sick of a million and one excuses not do the right thing and the smart thing to save lives.  Those people can stuff their excuses.  They need to either get with the program or GTFO.

[Shiranu]

If you're vaccinated, you literally have nothing to worry about.

Vaccinated people just need to go back to life as normal, and if you haven't been jabbed yet suffer the consequences.

Instead the current mandates are only prolonging the pandemic by incentivizing people to not go back to normal or limiting business operations.

You want pragmatic? If you don't want anymore pandemic, get the government out of it.

[Mermaid]

If you're vaccinated, you literally have nothing to worry about.

Vaccinated people just need to go back to life as normal, and if you haven't been jabbed yet suffer the consequences.

Instead the current mandates are only prolonging the pandemic by incentivizing people to not go back to normal or limiting business operations.

You want pragmatic? If you don't want anymore pandemic, get the government out of it.

I can't agree with that. Vaccinated people are still getting sick, especially the vulnerable ones. They can also infect other people. We definitely need to worry about this, all of us, vaccinated or not.

I am curious about your reasoning as to why the current mandates would prolong the pandemic.

[Hydra009]

If you're vaccinated, you literally have nothing to worry about.

What if I told you that this pandemic has lasted so long (three guess as to why) that there are now variants that can be a serious problem even for people who have been vaccinated?  Especially, if say, it's been a while since they got their last jab and they came down with one of these variants just days before their scheduled booster?  Let's say they accidentally gave it to someone who's vulnerable.  Pretend that's not hypothetical.

Vaccinated people just need to go back to life as normal

They can and largely have, and that's fine.  And if that was all that was going on, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Instead the current mandates are only prolonging the pandemic by incentivizing people to not go back to normal or limiting business operations.

You want pragmatic? If you don't want anymore pandemic, get the government out of it.

Shir, DAFUQ are you smoking?!  I was half-joking before, but now I seriously suspect that some disinfo outlet is rotting your brain.

Look, this stuff isn't rocket surgery.  More % vaccinated = quicker return to normal, less cases/deaths.  Mandates increase vaccination rates..  So saying that vaccine mandates prolong the pandemic - unless you can back that up with facts, and I very much doubt you can (and facts seem suspiciously lacking in general in your arguments so far) - comes across as dubious at best.

[Shiranu]

What if I told you that this pandemic has lasted so long (three guess as to why) that there are now variants that can be a serious problem even for people who have been vaccinated?

Compared to those who are unvaccinated, a small share (15%) of hospital admissions for COVID-19 between June and September involve people who were fully vaccinated against the disease.

It also finds that fewer breakthrough COVID-19 hospitalizations included COVID-related respiratory complications or treatments, suggesting fully vaccinated patients hospitalized with breakthrough COVID-19 may have been more likely to be hospitalized for unrelated reasons.

https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/characteristics-of-vaccinated-patients-hospitalized-with-covid-19-breakthrough-infections/

So AT BEST it's 15% of hospitalized are vaccinated, however the vast majority of them are people who went in with no symptoms for Covid and instead were tested as a preauction and found to be carrying; if we are looking at historical trends that means it's probably about a 1% or less of vaccinated individuals face any serious complication, which is true of basically any vaccine.

Personally, I don't think that's enough to warrant expanding government powers or spend my life wringing my hands and living in fear over, no more than I live in fear of the flu after getting a shot.

What if I told you that this pandemic has lasted so long (three guess as to why) that there are now variants that can be a serious problem even for people who have been vaccinated?

At the cost of expanding government power, which is not a reasonable trade-off when the vaccinated are virtually immune and the only people who are getting sick are people too stupid to get jabbed by now.

So saying that vaccine mandates prolong the pandemic...

When the government mandates that businesses have to operate at reduced capacity or cannot open due to surges, the negative effects of the pandemic are extended; negative effects such as increases in consumer goods that aren't going to go down anytime soon, even after the pandemic ends, as companies will now realize they can charge that much and get away with it.

It hurts production, it hurts prices, it hurts consumers... and what good has it done? Countries with strict mandates still have massive breakouts & have traded away their rights. States like Texas and Florida, most of the south with some of the lowest vax rates, also have amongst the lowest per-100 infection rates.

That's not some news outlets statistics, that's the CDC... who to be fair have been full of shit for most of the pandemic.


https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/map

[Shiranu]

I can't agree with that. Vaccinated people are still getting sick, especially the vulnerable ones. They can also infect other people. We definitely need to worry about this, all of us, vaccinated or not.

As I quoted to Hydra, it's essentially likely 1% or less of people who are vaccinated are being hospitalized for Covid; that falls within the average threshold of any vaccine's efficacy.

I'm not going to live in fear of something that literally is not going to hurt me, and if it does it's because I won the bad genetic draw and the vaccine didn't protect me like it does 99% of everyone else. That's just bad luck if it does, cant do anything about it.

[Mermaid]

As I quoted to Hydra, it's essentially likely 1% or less of people who are vaccinated are being hospitalized for Covid; that falls within the average threshold of any vaccine's efficacy.

I'm not going to live in fear of something that literally is not going to hurt me, and if it does it's because I won the bad genetic draw and the vaccine didn't protect me like it does 99% of everyone else. That's just bad luck if it does, cant do anything about it.

"Living in fear" means protecting yourself and other people (yes, other people) from a virus storm that's descended upon us seems like common sense to me. ok, since you call it that, you are goddamn right I am afraid of this virus that has long term sequelae for a lot of people who get it. It may not hurt you, but YOU can certainly hurt other people by helping to pass it around. It recently killed my 42 year old, vaccinated friend with COPD. Took her down in a matter of hours. Scariest fucking thing I've ever seen. The ONLY way to control it is to fucking isolate already and let the probability of contacting the virus die down. But we just refuse to do that out of stubbornness and selfishness.

yes, I said selfishness. You're selfish if you are willing to get infected and infect other people because you don't like wearing a mask.

This is not our country's finest hour. I am so disgusted and ashamed of us.

[Mermaid]

And right now, the EDs are completely and totally overwhelmed, so people with other issues can't get seen, or are having life saving surgeries postponed or canceled. IT's right out of a scary mvie. There's SO MUCH collateral damage and it's getting so fucking bad right now that doctors and nurses are breaking down mentally. People are left for days to crash and die in the ED because there are no ICU beds. To refuse to take the pandemic seriously is a gigantic fuck you to the medical community.

[the_antithesis]

Christ almighty, I wish I was dead.

[Shiranu]

yes, I said selfishness. You're selfish if you are willing to get infected and infect other people because you don't like wearing a mask.

So the person who is triple-shotted, wears a mask, and advocates that it's ultimately a person's body and thus their choice if they want to get a shot is selfish...
But advocating for people with guns to force everyone to undergo a medical procedure against their will is selfless...

This really backwards world.

[Hydra009]

Yes, vaccinated people are much, much less likely of being hospitalized or dying.  Everyone already knows that.  Hell, I've posted that statistic myself.  That doesn't answer my question at all.

When the government mandates that businesses have to operate at reduced capacity or cannot open due to surges, the negative effects of the pandemic are extended; negative effects such as increases in consumer goods that aren't going to go down anytime soon, even after the pandemic ends, as companies will now realize they can charge that much and get away with it.

It hurts production, it hurts prices, it hurts consumers... and what good has it done? Countries with strict mandates still have massive breakouts & have traded away their rights.

This -sort of - tries to address things, but forgets facts and opts instead for extremely suspect assumptions and weird, oddly Fox News-like soapboxing.  Definitely not what I had in mind.

States like Texas and Florida, most of the south with some of the lowest vax rates, also have amongst the lowest per-100 infection rates.

Finally, something that's falsifiable.

I plan to get back to you on that later tonight.  But before I do, you could just show me the data that shows that infection rate is correlated to vaccination rate.  That would absolutely devastate my argument.  But yet again, you don't have the facts on your side and you know it and I know it and everybody knows it and I'm giving you a chance to admit that now.

[Shiranu]

Yes, vaccinated people are much, much less likely of being hospitalized or dying.  Everyone already knows that.  Hell, I've posted that statistic myself.  That doesn't answer my question at all.

Then there is no point in continuing the pandemic restrictions; let the unvaccinated have theirs and go on with your life.

...and opts instead for extremely suspect assumptions...

That corporations will be greedy or that businesses with reduced capacity due to government mandates closing businesses lose business and productivity? I think those are pretty common sense assumptions; if you cant work, you cant produce.

Finally, something that's falsifiable.

Sure, let's look at a few from the link I posted...

Texas: 46.5 cases per 100,000 people.  -   Vax Rate: 56%.
Florida - 120 per 100,000 people    -    Vax Rate: 63.2%
Alabama - 40 cases per 100,000 people    -    Vax Rate: 40.4%

New York - 185 cases per 100,000 people -     Vax Rate: 71.6%
Mass - 111.5 cases per 100,000 people    -    Vax Rate: 74.4%
New Jersey: 160 cases per 100,000 people -    Vax Rate: 67%

There are your facts that you chose to ignore.

The heavily vaxed states are the one's make up most of the current "per-100,000" hot spots, so if the goal is the more vaxxed, the less infected... sure aint doing a good job.


When most covid cases are, "I broke my arm, and tested positive in the hospital even though I have no symptoms", then no... fuck the idea that we should have our rights taken away for that. It's frankly baffling to me that so many people here buy into that shit.