"The voluntary phase is over" - Bill de Blasio
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/08/03/new-york-c...
> The Mayor will also be initiating a “Key to NYC Pass,” which is like the Covid-19 passport talked about a few months ago. It's a carrot-and-stick approach, as people will be required to show that they are vaccinated if they want to go to restaurants, gyms and other events. No vaccinations, no entrance. “If you want to participate in society fully, you’ve got to get vaccinated,” de Blasio proclaimed. “If we’re going to stop the Delta variant, the time is now,” said the mayor. “This is going to make clear, you want to enjoy everything great in this summer of New York City? Go get vaccinated.”
> In an interview with MSNBC, de Blasio dialed up his frustration over the unvaccinated. “We’ve got to shake people at this point and say, ‘Come on now.’ We tried voluntary. We could not have been more kind and compassionate. Free testing, everywhere you turn, incentives, friendly, warm embrace. The voluntary phase is over,” de Blasio said last week. “It’s time for mandates, because it’s the only way to protect our people.”
De Blasio is talking about restricting access to entirely optional events and locations based on vaccine status, not mandating anyone get it or else.
Covid is a disease that overwhelmingly targets the obese.
But you can't go to a gym.
Do you consider working out an "optional" endeavor?
Not only is it essential to beating covid, but, working out keeps people sane. More young people have died from increased alcohol abuse, suicide, and drug overdoses than Covid. This all coincides with the insane push to de-humanize humans. We are social creatures. We are active creatures. For the past year and a half we have been denied these human needs. What is optional to you, is essential to others.
Personally, I don't care too much about losing the prospect of eating out, or hanging out in a bar. For others, especially young people seeing their entire social prospects evaporate before their eyes- this is life ending. For me, working out keeps me sane and not suicidal. I don't have the luxury of a home gym.
I chose to continue working out during the pandemic, training at "secret" gyms. For my health and my sanity.
All my other friends in my age group have put on weight and are more unhealthy than they've ever been. How does this help fight the pandemic?
Beyond that, I agree that mental health services are essential and should be provided at no cost to anyone who needs it, especially when precautions against a pandemic have a negative affect on mental health.
In Australia you can see the next step already where it’s being applied to grocery stores. You have to start pushing back before it gets to that.
also, I can't find anything like what you're talking about with Australia, just more sensible precautions like this: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/31/from-social...
NBC News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBMCXkjaMxQ&t=778s
"Through the remainder of 2021, racially- or ethnically-motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists will remain a national threat priority for the United States. These extremists may seek to exploit the emergence of COVID-19 variants by viewing the potential re-establishment of public health restrictions across the United States as a rationale to conduct attacks. Pandemic-related stressors have contributed to increased societal strains and tensions, driving several plots by domestic violent extremists, and they may contribute to more violence this year.
Foreign and domestic threat actors, to include foreign intelligence services, international terrorist groups and domestic violent extremists, continue to introduce, amplify, and disseminate narratives online that promote violence, and have called for violence against elected officials, political representatives, government facilities, law enforcement, religious communities or commercial facilities, and perceived ideologically-opposed individuals. There are also continued, non-specific calls for violence on multiple online platforms associated with DVE ideologies or conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud and alleged reinstatement, and responses to anticipated restrictions relating to the increasing COVID cases."
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisor...
Doesn't sound Orwellian to me at all.
I'm under the impression that the vast majority of mandates have exceptions for existing immunity, no?
Public schools, colleges, and the military have been requiring vaccines for decades.
>It ends up feeling less like the decisions are guided by science and more like they’re guided by petty tyrants wanting to control what others do.
This sounds like a result of reading about what health care and government officials are saying instead of actually reading what they are saying.