Re:Decline the 15 Minute Post-Vaccination Waiting Period
by EForEndeavour on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @02:06PM
(#25837330)
All else being equal, you're probably better off taking public health advice from a public health employee over a software developer.
However, if the software developer raises an admittedly good point based on specific, verifiable information (in this case sourced from covid19-projections.com, which sources covidtracking.com, which in turn aggregates data from state public health authorities) which questions the pre-COVID practice of observing a vaccine recipient for 15 minutes, their occupation should not make their point any less valid. This wouldn't be the first time that a well-established best practice turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to do given new circumstances.
The process of evaluating an argument should balance the informative value of the argument-maker's credentials without veering too far into gatekeeping or argument from authority (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority).
However, if the software developer raises an admittedly good point based on specific, verifiable information (in this case sourced from covid19-projections.com, which sources covidtracking.com, which in turn aggregates data from state public health authorities) which questions the pre-COVID practice of observing a vaccine recipient for 15 minutes, their occupation should not make their point any less valid. This wouldn't be the first time that a well-established best practice turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to do given new circumstances.
The process of evaluating an argument should balance the informative value of the argument-maker's credentials without veering too far into gatekeeping or argument from authority (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority).