The problem with fissile material is the potential for hurting others. Stopping hurt of others is a reasonable function of government.

Legal adults, however, have a fundamental right to hurt themselves.

Yes, I know there are grey areas.

There U.S. Constitution enumerates other powers for the government, including the power to tax and regulate commerce.

Sometimes I think people confuse what they wish/think the government role should be with what is explicitly defined within the social contract between the government and the governed.

If anti-vaxxers just hurt themselves, there wouldn't be nearly as much animosity around these issues. They pose a legitimate risk to other people. Not just through direct infection of other people, but by offering themselves up as a breeding ground for more effective versions of the virus.

Are you saying the vaccine only becomes effective if everyone has it? What good is it then, since we will never reach 100% vaccination?

The claim that unvaccinated people are a breeding ground for more effective versions of the virus sounds like a Big Pharma talking point, rather than something with solid science behind it. My understanding is that environmental pressure results in mutated variants becoming widespread. Couldn't vaccines themselves cause this? The virus hardly mutated for a whole year, but then once inoculations became available it seems that more infectious variants are popping up left and right.

Vaccines are most effective when they enable you to reach herd immunity which extends protection to those who cannot be vaccinated because they are immunocompromised to one degree or another. We don’t need 100%. We need something like 85% for Covid. You’re right that it will never happen because conservatives have weaponized stupidity and selfishness.

Every chance to breed is a chance to mutate. This isn't a binary factor its a continuum. 1% of the population is likely insufficient breeding ground and the virus population would collapse exponentially. 70% vaccinated large in contiguous regions may be sufficient to keep the pandemic going continuously if they successive variants emerge that are sufficiently effective at evading existing immunity.

1 person has no meaningful effect but collectively their actions are capable of doing great harm to the rest of us even if we all collectively act in our own best interests by getting vaccinated and participating in other public health measures.

If your freedom to act irrationally allows you to cause my untimely death I don't understand how my inability to go on living wouldn't represent a net decrease in freedom vs forcing you to vaccinate.

If you look at the break down of anti vaxxer sentiment only 9% are dead set against vaccination under any circumstances. These people's perception of their freedom isn't worth hurting everyone.

All evidence shows it to be the other way around, the vaccinated are far more dangerous to the unvaccinated than vice versa, it isn't even close. Leaky vaccines create more virulent and deadlier viruses in the unvaccinated.

This is incorrect. A vaccine is not an antibiotic; the presence of one does not cause virulent strains. Vaccinations trigger the body's immune response to the virus; nothing else. They provide for a more effective response faster, but do not otherwise provide any forcing function.

Mutations and variants occur all the time as the virus reproduces. Variants are not a response to any vaccine; they have appeared primarily (entirely? I haven't been following all of them) in regions where the vaccine is not yet widely available because that is where the virus is able to multiply (and thus mutate) the fastest.

The general theory is that a virus avoids evolving in a way that is too dangerous to its host because the sooner the host dies the less potential the virus has to spread. As the vaccinated have a weaker response to the virus there is no longer as strong evolutionary pressure against the virus becoming more lethal.

A real life/modern example of this can be found in Marek's disease in chickens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease#Prevention

The counter claim seems to be that because vaccination reduces the abundance of the virus there is a lower chance of mutations. It's hard to say which effect is stronger and it probably varies greatly by virus and by vaccine!

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert, just an armchair enthusiast.

I think it's too soon to say yet if the vaccines encourage mutation. But my understanding is quite a few of the significant variants come from places where there was significant vaccine testing: - Brazil (Gamma) - South Africa (Beta) - India (Delta) - Alpha (UK)

The causation may be backwards here. You need a decent enough medical system both to run clinical trials, and to detect variants.

Interesting theory though, I don't think it's true right now, but potentially there may be evidence I'm not aware of.

What is a leaky vaccine?

I’m not qualified to really discuss, but here’s a study I recently heard brought up. It would be interesting to hear an unbiased opinion of someone with a medical background

“Vaccines that let the hosts survive but do not prevent the spread of the pathogen relax this selection, allowing the evolution of hotter pathogens to occur. This type of vaccine is often called a leaky vaccine.”

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...

This is exactly why I disagree with everyone who argues it’s an issue of personal freedom.

You may have the personal freedom to get drunk—that doesn’t give you the freedom to drive around while under the influence and you endanger everyone else on the road.

The choice to be vaccinated or not is not a choice that affects merely the individual; its consequences affect communities. Regardless of whether it is valid or not to refuse vaccination, it is not solely within the realm of personal freedom and should not be treated that way.

Getting vaccinated doesn't stop you from spreading the virus to other people. If it did, your point would have far greater validity.

> They pose a legitimate risk to other people.

This is not true, any more than it is for vaccinated people.

Viruses will still spread through a fully-vaccinated population, and they will still mutate in a fully-vaccinated population.

The CDC released a report [1] showing proportional numbers of cases coming from fully vaccinated people (74% of cases against 69% of the population fully vaccinated).

Treating people who are not getting the vaccine as enemies is not going to convince us. In fact, this whole thing has made me, in particular, suspicious of other vaccines that I will research and make decisions for myself about.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7031e2-H.pdf

The CDC study gives some credence to your theory but your conclusion is by all evidence wrong. It shows nothing about the transmissibility of vaccinated people who test positive. It also disregards previous evidence before the delta variant that vaccinations widely prevented positive tests. So there is SOME effect there. Taking a study that says “there’s definitely some chance of transmission” and making the conclusion “there’s no difference” only happens due to your predetermined conclusion. A real look at the actual body of evidence on vaccines necessarily draws different conclusions.

One need only look at the overlay of cases and vaccination rates across different US states to show you’re just flat out wrong.

Most of what you say is correct, but saying absolutely that unvaccinated people are endangering other people and vaccinated people are not is also false.

Making an irrelevant but true statement about vaccinated people doesn't make the antivaxx stance correct.

Similar manner to drink driving, sober people can also hurt others when driving.

This is about where we draw the line. When it comes to drink driving and antivaxxers they both endanger others to an unacceptably high level.

Don't get me started on how I'm a better driver when tipsy than the average 80 year old that still has their license...

The tongue in cheek point I'm trying to make is that too much of the conversation focuses on relative risk. Relative risk obsession has people not taking more risky, but still incredibly safe (at least in the short term) vaccines here in Australia. Absolute risk (or its delta) tends to be a much more salient number to the victim.

It does help the antivaxx crowd in some circuitous arguments however, as the chance of an unvaccinated person killing a vaccinated person is low if vaccines work!

You cannot say that unvaccinated people endanger others to an unacceptably high level when we don't even know what that level is!

Also, calling people unvaccinated agency COVID anti-vaxxers, when most are not, is likely to lead to some becoming that.

Do you feel the same animosity towards the bats and/or pangolins which originally produced SARS-CoV-2? Because they're still out there and still incubating new variants as well. Eventually some of those will inevitably jump to humans.