Are you for or against vaccine passports for massechusetts? Poll (Harvard: stats, health)

[tribecavsbrowns]

Originally Posted by lrfox

Age and comorbidities certainly have an outsized impact on the risk of hospitalization/death, that's true. As someone who is also healthy, in his 30s, and values civil liberties, I just don't see a vaccine requirement during a pandemic as the hill to die on for that fight. I'm unsure of what issue you have with the data - there are multiple sources - but it's pretty telling. The state's data combined with individual hospital data (particularly the ICU data) paints a pretty clear picture. While I was unlikely to end up in the hospital beforehand, getting the vaccine was relatively effortless and lowered the chances even further. Easy.

We always scrutinize healthcare resource usage like this. I think the key difference here is that it's usually on a more local or specific level rather than a pandemic which is much more widespread by definition. For example, there were many mentions of strains on hospital capacity in the New York area during 9/11. To a lesser degree, there were similar stories about bed availability, overworked healthcare staff, etc. We have hospital ships designed specifically to be mobilized where places major incidents have tank place and resources are stretched. I'm sure you've seen local or national blood drives when major traumatic events or disasters take place. You mentioned drug users - substance abuse and mental health capacity in MA and across the country has been under scrutiny for years (decades) as is the strain put on them due to both demand and staffing shortages. There also is plenty of scrutiny on obese people and drug users, but those are not highly contagious viruses where that are overwhelming hospitals. None of this is new.

If anyone has been calling the vaccine an "easy fix," that's disingenuous and part of the problem with the public health messaging around them. They're not an "easy fix." They are single tool in a limited arsenal designed to alleviate some of the pressure on the healthcare system (or at least prevent it from being overrun as quickly). And yes, I see a booster every six months to a year for the next couple of years as having a pretty negligible impact on my life - how exactly does it make things hard for you? Tens of millions of Americans do it with the flu shot already. Hopefully it doesn't even come to that.

It doesn't "make things hard," I would just rather not do it. Agreeing to do it is sending the message that I am OK with what's gone on the past two years -- "stay at home until there's a vaccine," "racism is the real public health crisis," "you're not going to get Covid if you have these shots," and other "errors" in public health messaging, of which there are FAR TOO MANY to be acceptable to me. My refusal is a challenge: "say I don't need or want your stupid vaccine...what are you going to do about it?" If I face no consequences, great, because it doesn't matter anyway -- I'm healthy and I'm not getting anyone else sick (they're supposedly protected anyway, since they're vaccinated). If I do face consequences, then also great, because then we know we've essentially sleepwalked into fascism (remember, even the kids in school who don't get their MMR shots don't face consequences).

The hill I'm dying on is I absolutely will not do the "middle solution," which is to pretend that by taking this vaccine I'm doing my part for a good cause, to pretend that I don't notice that this push to "take the vaccines to save the hospitals" has a much darker tone and seems to be coordinated globally (as opposed to a simple local public health awareness campaign to get people in a small community to respond to a disaster, for instance). When we play pretend, we tend to usher in leadership that doesn't care about reality as we see it with our own eyes.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by tribecavsbrowns

as opposed to a simple local public health awareness campaign to get people in a small community to respond to a disaster, for instance

So you're saying the communication regarding a global disaster (pandemic) is different from a local disaster?

Very odd!

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by tribecavsbrowns

It doesn't "make things hard," I would just rather not do it. Agreeing to do it is sending the message that I am OK with what's gone on the past two years -- "stay at home until there's a vaccine," "racism is the real public health crisis," "you're not going to get Covid if you have these shots," and other "errors" in public health messaging, of which there are FAR TOO MANY to be acceptable to me. My refusal is a challenge: "say I don't need or want your stupid vaccine...what are you going to do about it?" If I face no consequences, great, because it doesn't matter anyway -- I'm healthy and I'm not getting anyone else sick (they're supposedly protected anyway, since they're vaccinated). If I do face consequences, then also great, because then we know we've essentially sleepwalked into fascism (remember, even the kids in school who don't get their MMR shots don't face consequences).

The hill I'm dying on is I absolutely will not do the "middle solution," which is to pretend that by taking this vaccine I'm doing my part for a good cause, to pretend that I don't notice that this push to "take the vaccines to save the hospitals" has a much darker tone and seems to be coordinated globally (as opposed to a simple local public health awareness campaign to get people in a small community to respond to a disaster, for instance). When we play pretend, we tend to usher in leadership that doesn't care about reality as we see it with our own eyes.

Annnnd we're back to sinister internationally coordinated conspiracies again. Where's the evidence?

Like I said before, I am not particularly pro-mandate or vaccine passports (beyond allowing businesses to require vaccines if they want to). I understand bodily autonomy. While I think there's more than enough evidence to make a pretty strong case for the value of the vaccine, I can understand how feeling strongly about bodily autonomy combined with continued community spread even among the vaccinated can lead to some people not feeling that they are worthwhile and taking issue with passports/mandates. But the conspiracy stuff is just nutty.

[tribecavsbrowns]

Originally Posted by lrfox

Annnnd we're back to sinister internationally coordinated conspiracies again. Where's the evidence?

Like I said before, I am not particularly pro-mandate or vaccine passports (beyond allowing businesses to require vaccines if they want to). I understand bodily autonomy. While I think there's more than enough evidence to make a pretty strong case for the value of the vaccine, I can understand how feeling strongly about bodily autonomy combined with continued community spread even among the vaccinated can lead to some people not feeling that they are worthwhile and taking issue with passports/mandates. But the conspiracy stuff is just nutty.

Great, so give up defending the passports/mandates, and take vaccines as you feel best fits your personal situation. Everybody wins. And a lot of these so-called conspiracy theories would go away.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by tribecavsbrowns

Great, so give up defending the passports/mandates, and take vaccines as you feel best fits your personal situation. Everybody wins. And a lot of these so-called conspiracy theories would go away.

Not "so-called," just flat out loony tunes conspiracies without evidence to support them. We get it, you don't like the shot. But none of that amounts to a fascist international goverment/corporate/media conspiracy to take away your freedoms like the Nazis did. I'm sorry you can't see how insane that sounds.

[tribecavsbrowns]

Originally Posted by lrfox

Not "so-called," just flat out loony tunes conspiracies without evidence to support them. We get it, you don't like the shot. But none of that amounts to a fascist international goverment/corporate/media conspiracy to take away your freedoms like the Nazis did. I'm sorry you can't see how insane that sounds.

But that's the great thing about medical freedom (and all kinds of freedom) -- it doesn't matter if you think someone's reasons for refusing an intervention are "loony," I am free to do what I think is best, and so are you. If I'm right, I'm right, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But when the dust settles, we're all still free.

[LLCNYC]

Originally Posted by tribecavsbrowns

But that's the great thing about medical freedom (and all kinds of freedom) -- it doesn't matter if you think someone's reasons for refusing an intervention are "loony," I am free to do what I think is best, and so are you. If I'm right, I'm right, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But when the dust settles, we're all still free.

Amen.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by tribecavsbrowns

But that's the great thing about medical freedom (and all kinds of freedom) -- it doesn't matter if you think someone's reasons for refusing an intervention are "loony," I am free to do what I think is best, and so are you. If I'm right, I'm right, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But when the dust settles, we're all still free.

When I was a kid, I used to cough and sneeze without covering my mouth only to get a sharp rebuke from my parents or my teachers at school. I suppose going by your reasoning, no one ought to be telling kids to cover their mouths when coughing and sneezing because there is no direct evidence that one person could get another person sick by not doing so and the whole ordeal is just another attempt by overbearing parents and teachers to control their children by teaching them unnecessary good manners. Yet hasn't there been scientific evidence that covering one's mouth reduces the spread of germs or do you think every individual has the right to refute such scientific evidence because it violates the rights of the individual?

[tribecavsbrowns]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

When I was a kid, I used to cough and sneeze without covering my mouth only to get a sharp rebuke from my parents or my teachers at school. I suppose going by your reasoning, no one ought to be telling kids to cover their mouths when coughing and sneezing because there is no direct evidence that one person could get another person sick by not doing so and the whole ordeal is just another attempt by overbearing parents and teachers to control their children by teaching them unnecessary good manners. Yet hasn't there been scientific evidence that covering one's mouth reduces the spread of germs or do you think every individual has the right to refute such scientific evidence because it violates the rights of the individual?

Kids should definitely be told to cover coughs and sneezes. It's common sense and it seems to have worked for generations. I have no idea if there is scientific evidence showing it works, nor do I care. People just do it; it's part of being human. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by tribecavsbrowns

It's common sense and it seems to have worked for generations. .

Sounds like masks and vaccines.