Libertarians believe that force should be applied to person A to protect person B from person A in certain circumstances.
If person A wants to punch person B in the face, restricting person A by force is perfectly consistent with libertarian values.
If person A threatens to infect person B with a deadly disease due to refusing a vaccine, then a vaccine mandate has some justification under the same ideals. The devil will be in the details (e.g., how deadly is the disease, etc).
It's also why a carbon tax and many other measures are not inherently inconsistent with libertarian values on a first principles examination.
But for some reason, libertarians in practice tend to dislike these policy proposals, even though they can follow in principle from the founding axioms. I attribute that to group-think and a general disbelief in the existence of negative externalities, not to a problem inherent in libertarianism.
The body is the absolute individual. Having maximum control over the individual is probably the most basal libertarian value there is. This is not some external restraint to prevent the commission of a crime. It’s not even punishment for a commission of a crime. It’s the mandated forcing of a substance internally into an individual’s body against their will with a sketchy societal benefit behind its justification. Sketchy because now with Delta there is apparently no scientific basis to believe that the vaccines eliminate the risk of spread of the virus but at this point it only seems to prevent serious illness.
BTW, watch as the GOP uses this mandate to justify the individual state prohibition of abortion. They will be able to too, because this is going to pretty much kill the DNC’s ability to win anything for at least 8-10 years.
But even if we consider literal forced vaccinations, I still don't see that as necessarily inconsistent with libertarianism, due to the reasons I outlined, specifically the non aggression principle.
Suppose that a new disease emerged that had a mortality rate of Ebola and a transmissibility of COVID. Suppose we had a vaccine that was capable of stopping transmission. In such a rare and extreme set of circumstances, forced vaccination (not even mere mandates in workplaces) would be a must under the NAP. The right to choose not to vaccinate is effectively the same as the right to kill people with a disease that you may carry.
Luckily COVID isn't as deadly as that, and the vaccines aren't as effective at preventing transmission, so we don't need to consider such measures. But in the right context, I very much see forced vaccinations as following from libertarian axioms. Just like you would see jailing a serial murderer and depriving them of their liberty to be justified under those same axioms.
For the record, I'm one of the most anti-collectivist people you'll meet. I just pay significant credence to the reality of negative externalities. You can swing your fist all you want, but you can't punch my nose with that fist. In the same vein, you can't cough your deadly virus into my face and not expect to justly have force applied to you.
Same situation if I put a single bullet into a revolver, spun it, and pulled the trigger while aiming at someone's head. There's only a one in six chance that I'd murder that person, but that action should definitely be illegal and force should be applied to anyone who would pull that trigger.
This is why we have drunk driving laws. Some non-drunk drivers do kill people, and most drunk drivers don't kill people, but the probability is highly elevated for drunk drivers, and it is therefore illegal to do it. Drunk driving laws aren't authoritarian, they aren't a result of a nanny state. This is the state fulfilling its duty of protecting person B from aggression by person A, whether that aggression happens with absolute certainty (punching me in the face) or with an elevated probability (drunk driving)
Now, I don't think vaccines should be forced on people for COVID. I just think that it's a valid thing to do in the right circumstances (e.g Ebola with an R0 of 3).
Let me outline an alternative situation where an individual would have no freedom of choice, but where you might agree with the measures imposed. Suppose we identify the first case of Ebola in the US next year. Do you support forcibly quarantining that person? Such an action is eminently necessary in my opinion. But at the same time, such an action violates the two things you've laid out: (1) it doesn't allow the individual any freedom of choice, (2) it is not guaranteed that they'll spread it and is therefore restricting their freedoms merely on the probability of aggression.
My problem is the whole “Minority Report pre-crimesque” aspect of it all. It’s an unnecessary aggression imposed on an individual to maybe or maybe not prevent a something that maybe or maybe not would have happened anyway.
A vaccine that was 100% effective and was 100% safe is probably the only way you can make an argument work. But if it was a 100% effective and a 100% it’s likely you wouldn’t need to mandate it anyway.
P(infect another) = P(get the disease)*P(transmit after getting it)
With the Ebola example, that's P_Ebola = 1.0*P(transmit after getting it).
With the COVID example, that's P_COVID = 0.3*P(transmit after getting it).
Both of these are sub-1 and not guaranteed to happen. In fact, P_COVID may actually be larger than P_Ebola depending on the relative R0 and assumptions we plug into the above calculations. So I don't see why the distinction you raised has relevance.
Detaining someone with Ebola, which we both agree is a good idea, is also a pre-crime measure, because they haven't infected anyone yet and they may never have infected anyone even without detention.
And I will also point out once more (due to your second sentence) that I do not support forced vaccinations for COVID. The COVID disease just isn't deadly enough and the vaccines aren't effective enough at preventing transmission for me to support that. I am merely saying I do support it in the abstract if a sufficiently deadly contagious disease comes about in the future.
It is also not "ineffective" in the hypothetical I was discussing. You seem to insist on the point that I wish to hoist forced vaccinations for COVID, which I don't. I'm strictly speaking in the abstract given a hypothetical where there's a vaccine capable of preventing transmission of a disease that is much more deadly than COVID.
But I agree with your main point that the circumstances should be very extreme before such measures are considered. If there's a contagious disease that is killing 10-50 percent of infected people and early quarantine measures have failed and we have a vaccine that seems effective at preventing transmission, then I'm probably in support of forced vaccinations, although I suspect it might not be necessary since everyone will be desperate to get it.
I’m more concerned with the existing proposed mandate, because it is not hypothetical and I don’t think it satisfies either test (an extreme situation with an effective prevention).
A hypothetical Ebola situation would be different animal just because of the mortality rate being around 20+ times the average Covid rate. The other factor being who it kills. Ebola is pretty indiscriminate. Covid danger is significantly higher among elderly and folks with pre-existing conditions and it looks like many of those folks heeded the vaccination call (85%+ have at least a single dose in the US).
The vaccine costs $20 per dose while COVID treatment in the hospital is $23K (in Canada - likely similar in the US).
Perhaps a less draconian approach would be to allow the unvaccinated to purchase additional insurance to cover these costs in the scenario where hospitalization is required.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cihi-covid19-canada-hospital-...
Nobody stands up and starts with "Lets approach this irrationally and ..."
Libertarianism involves a state as weak as possible so it critically depends on people to individually make good choices for a society to be an appealing place to live. You can sue your neighbor if he burns old tires upwind but you’re really hoping he’s smart enough not to because that’s tedious, slow, and risks retaliation. If you don’t have the equivalent of Social Security forcing people to save for retirement, you have to make your peace with having destitute old people on the streets, etc.
And people keep proposing systems that do worse than that and refusing to critically assess how their ideas work out in practice vs a free market.
> And people keep proposing systems that do worse than that and refusing to critically assess how their ideas work out in practice vs a free market.
Can you provide examples of the baseline you’re using to say that other systems do worse? Successful implementations, not idealized imaginings.
What is the plan? Imprison the person living in the ratty house? Fine them into oblivion? I've never heard of a case of a town council taking over someone's house to repair it - I'm sure it happened somewhere once but that is quite the outlier.
I've seen plenty of dilapidated houses, and lived near some quite large rats. There is no reason to think it would be worse in a more liberal society.
> Can you provide examples of the baseline you’re using to say that other systems do worse? Successful implementations, not idealized imaginings.
goes to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index and scans down the list
Hong Kong, jewel of Asia? Switzerland is probably pretty decentralised too, they certainly have the most democratic government I know of. And the highest-ranked superpower on the list, everyone's favourite USA, is famous for having some of the strongest constraints on their government in the world.
To be honest, I'd be happy if we all just did what Switzerland does. I'll take extreme democracy over any specific ideology if pushed. We can argue the details later.
If you have this little information about how societies work, maybe it would be a good idea to do some reading before making bold pronouncements about how hypothetical systems are better. Cities have various approaches and degrees of success so there are plenty of real world examples you can compare with details rather than treating it like a dorm room hypothetical.
> Hong Kong, jewel of Asia? Switzerland is probably pretty decentralised too, they certainly have the most democratic government I know of. And the highest-ranked superpower on the list, everyone's favourite USA, is famous for having some of the strongest constraints on their government in the world.
None of those are commonly considered libertarian states and they all have many examples of rules which most libertarians oppose (e.g. the Swiss gun control laws) so it would again be better to talk about specific real policies rather than hypotheticals which are too vague to evaluate.
I've seen a lot of derelict properties in my time. It would appear nothing was being done.
What various approaches are you thinking here? I think it is more likely that you aren't paying attention to derelict properties and rats than that I've missed something. If a homeowner doesn't want to maintain their home then there isn't a whole lot that gets done about it.
> they all have many examples of rules which most libertarians oppose (e.g. the Swiss gun control laws)
Switzerland does have one of the highest guns/capita in the world though. Nowhere is ideologically pure, it isn't like you can point to an example of any state that is only driven by one ideology. China has capitalists, the US has socialists, the Europeans have literal Nazis, etc etc. Everyone has a mix of policies based on who is pushing what agenda. There is evidence that if the liberty-authority dial is pushed towards liberty then there are some shining examples of success.
But that is all beside the point I wanted to make - libertarianism just doesn't assume that everyone is making great rational decisions. That isn't how groups of people work. Libertarianism is just noting that the evidence government makes things better on average is questionable. Governments are routinely behind the worst massacres - which is certainly cause for a raised eyebrow and asking some questions. And given the regularity with which the financial system collapses it really isn't obvious the government is helping there either. Then regulation is either making us do things that would happen anyway, or blocking quick responses when the situation is changing radically (eg, the lockdowns were official enforcement of stuff I was largely going to be doing anyway).
> specific real policies rather than hypothetical which are too vague to evaluate.
Korea got the first coronavirus tests, and reliable ones, because they let private enterprise develop them. The US tried a government-led response and badly fumbled the first few months. The regulator was the source of the problems. More libertarian policies in the medical field would have prevented that.
Somebody who has already had covid. They've already taken on risk - why expose themselves to more?
Your argument of people acting rational breaks down in a lot of cases. Plenty of people have self destructive behaviors (many with externalities that affect others) that we are ok with.
Try to find good statistics on the rates and severity of adverse reactions for people who have already have COVID. I've had very little success.
Saying the vaccine is a perfect solution that will solve all our issues is just dellusional
This is all just loud thinking at this point. But it's something you regularly find new studies too because it seems to be a concern.
Similarly, because vaccines train your own immune system without staying in your body, it’s extremely unlikely for a side-effect to be delayed in time for more than weeks. Note the timeframes on the relevant historical examples:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....
As to something appearing years later, that seems extremely rare and could happen without getting the vaccine, just being exposed again to the virus. Oh, and neither of us are the people that should be evaluating that because we aren't medical researchers who have closely studied the incidents of vaccines causing reactions years later. I will trust the people who have extensively studied the problem.
The questions to ask are -- how do we define rare? how do we define time to elapse before results show up?
When that rare or time-lapsed event occurs, what is its severity?
Most importantly, what is the severity of the original event (covid infection) to the particular individual?
This risk varies widely between individuals, and parts of it are very much subjective.
For an external entity to make an objective judgement without even considering all the factors is the sign of tyranny.
I am most assuredly not spreading disinformation.
Source for the above?
But vaccination is a community thing more than an individual thing. If it were just about hurting yourself, then I'd agree that the discussion should be framed as paternal.
> Each individual human being is unique and they will react very differently.
Even if society had an extraordinary scientific revolution where medicine was conducted on the basis of a special science just for your body, it would still not change the framing of whether vaccination is of communal concern.
What I mean by punching yourself in the face is: Even if you don't have any family and you hate your neighbours, getting vaccinated is still in your own interests, because it stops you dying.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1
Since the Delta variant is so contagious there will be no significant herd immunity effect to protect the unvaccinated. The virus is now endemic and can't be eradicated so all of us can expect to be exposed multiple times throughout our lives.
https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/80-of-vaccinated-covid-carrier...
RNA levels spike to the same levels on PCR, but they decline faster, and culturable amounts of virus are lower in breakthrough infections, indicating a higher proportion of viral debris in breakthrough infections rather than virus:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v...
Even if you take the worst numbers out there vaccines still eliminate 50% of infections. And symptomology, viral load and transmissibility are correlated -- which means the vaccines is likely to be effictatious against transmissibility just like it is against disease.
The worst-case idea that breakthrough infections, even though they're much less severe, produce identical risk of transmission does not make any sense at all.
I would bet money that if everyone was vaccinated that the R0 of delta would be less than 1.0 and we would not have epidemic spread and that breakthrough superspreaders are incredibly rare.
I've already posted studies which contradicts the idea that breakthrough infections are equivalent to unvaccinated infections in terms of actual live viral load, which should show up as reduced transmissibility. And the reduction in severity of symptoms with vaccination is highly unlikely to come without a corresponding reduction in transmissibility. What is his scientific data showing that viral loads, symptoms and transmissibility have somehow become completely decoupled?
And we seem to have forgotten that most of the spread of this disease is caused by individual superspreaders. Only 20% of the infections are responsible for 80% of the forward transmission. If vaccines reduce severe transmission the same way they reduce severe disease then they could very well have a disproportional impact on r0.
> It's impossible to reach 100% coverage
The fact that we can't hit 100% coverage doesn't imply that vaccines in the population that we can vaccinate aren't highly effective at reducing transmission.
Also if you're just making an argument by authority, then go watch all the recent TWiV episodes. I don't necessarily agree with Herr Professor Doktor Racaniello about everything (delta really is a lot more transmissible/virulent), but the whole crew there would tend to agree with me, and wants to see the real transmissibility studies with real humans infecting real humans.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective...
The CDC article doesn't say anything other than "People who get vaccine breakthrough infections can be contagious" without any citation.
The actual study you cite only tests for viral RNA not infectious virus, they only cultured a single sample from a breakthrough infection to show that it could happen.
Other studies have found that viral RNA drops faster in vaccinated individuals, and that levels of culturable virus are lower at peak in vaccinated individuals indicating the presence of more viral debris than infectious virus:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v...
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v...
We also know that viral loads are correlated with transmissibility and symptoms, and that vaccines reduce severe symptoms. We know there's less infectious virus in breakthrough infections and that they're less severe. It is rational to expect a reduction in transmissibility.
All the kids under 16 have a vaccination rate of 0% and they still count and they commingle and provide a reservoir. The vaccination rate in 16-25 year olds is also probably not high enough to achieve herd immunity with delta. It isn't a particular mystery why its still spreading unless you assume kids don't exist.
A single number for vaccination status and herd immunity would only be meaningful if the population was randomly well-mixed. In reality kids are much more likely to see other kids every day than hang out with the elderly.
We are rolling it out to 16-17 year olds, which happens to be the ages of my kids and both had their first shots about a week ago. There may be some marginal benefit for youngsters, but those dose are better deployed elsewhere. Over 17s are already well vaccinated here.
I'm not at all anti-vaccine, they've transformed the UK, but there's just no point vaccing under 16s. We're deep into diminishing returns with that, and those doses are sorely needed in many other countries.
Maybe against community spread of infection.
The protection vaccines provide against overloaded hospitals, tragic avoidable deaths and paralysing additional lockdowns and mask policies is clear, though.
This all seems to be done in order to blame unvaccinated people - and more specifically unvaccinated Republican voters - for the fact that Covid is still spreading and causing deaths and economic damage. (Vaccination rates are also dangerously low amongst black Democrat voters, but of course it'd be politically unacceptable to blame them in the same way). The press keeps pushing the narrative that we could end Covid and all the damage it's doing if not for those evil unvaxxed people, even though this doesn't seem to be borne out by the experience of countries with higher vaccination rates or the scientific evidence.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/AA47/production/...
Right. It's more like running red lights in an absolutely massive armored vehicle. Little risk to self, potentially fatal consequences for others.
When it comes to vaccine hesitation I am not sure where to draw the line. It's a very emotional topic apparently and it seems rational arguments only go so far.
That said, I think if a society only treats those medical emergencies deemed to have a "non-egoistical" cause Pandora's box will come to haunt us sooner or later. We should save humans whenever we can. That's just the cost of doing business so to speak.
A vaccine goes into an individual body, so it is a personal thing subject to medical privacy.
This is untrue, see this site and the studies in the footnotes: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var...
TL;DR: Vaccines are effective, though not perfect, at preventing infection with the delta variant
The counter-story seems to be based on radically misreading data out of Israel, which seems to show higher infection rates among the vaccinated, a reading which fails to take into account the incredibly high rate of vaccination there.
So yeah, there are more infections among the 78% vaccinated than among the 22% unvaccinated. Given that there are 3.5x as many people in the first group, that's not entirely unexpected. As a percentage of the population, the vaccinated are still less likely to get infected, and less likely to deal with severe consequences.
(Yes, I'm aware the fraction is better against severe Delta infection. Yes, I agree 3x reduction is infection rate is a good thing.)
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021082...
That's not what "effective" means. It means that if your probability of getting infected without the vaccine is p, your probability of getting infected with the vaccine is .34*p. One way to think about it is that the "ineffectiveness" is the relative risk P[infected|vaccinated]/P[infected|unvaccinated], and effectiveness is 1-ineffectiveness.
A vaccine can be 100% effective even if P[infected] is negligible.
P[infected] is per unit time and does not account for the dynamics of the situation. For example, if the vaccine is not powerful enough to make R<1, then everybody becomes infected eventually regardless of the vaccine.
WITH A 95% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF 26% TO 84%
They only statistically modeled how much their unvaccinated population was already recovered from coronavirus based on estimates of community spread, among other issues with that number.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm
And when you have a CI of something like that size, of course you wind up in the middle of it -- the actual value could very well be closer to 80% due to systematic uncertainties in the modeling.
Interesting that moderna continues to do better, and looking forward to seeing the studies VE versus time since vaccination.
e.g. hospitalized above age 60 (חולים קשה - התחסנות)
162/100,000 unvaccinated
40/100,000 2 dose (I think)
5/100,000 2 dose + booster
If you'd just look at the raw numbers, the vaccine doesn't appear so helpful: 226 unvaccinated, 116 with 2 doses, 55 with 3 doses. Looks like it barely helps.
Fortunately vaccines are very still very good at preventing severe cases (hospitaliations), see Figure 2d.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
The document says that >97% of the blood-donor population in the UK has some kind of antibodies, either from natural infection or vaccines. This seems like an astonishingly high number.
Not particularly supportive of the thesis your are arguing for. Perhaps you could narrow down a bit the range of papers that support 'vaccines prevent infection / transmission' thesis?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v...
> Results The delta variant (B.1.617.2) was identified in the majority of cases. Despite similar Ct-values, we demonstrate lower probability of infectious virus detection in respiratory samples of vaccinated HCWs with breakthrough infections compared to unvaccinated HCWs with primary SARS-CoV-2 infections. Nevertheless, infectious virus was found in 68.6% of breakthrough infections and Ct-values decreased throughout the first 3 days of illness.
They do appear to reduce the length of infection which would reduce transmission.
The populace is increasingly being treated as children and pretend adults in leadership. We will force you to wear a seat belt or else. Force you to take a vaccine, circumstances be damned. The ACLU prior to their destruction pre power grab warned us all about what is about to happen… more things will be forced upon us “for our own good.” We are about to have a purge of the government and never has a purge of a government gone well.
When you look at the hold-outs, it's largely young people who are at very low risk of serious illness. (85% of 65 and older are vaccinated, but just 57% of people 18-29.) So it makes sense to me that they are more hesitant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutter_Laboratories#Cutter_inc...
We do however have a virus-caused epidemic, currently.
More importantly, however, it happened in an era where everyone agreed that polio was worth avoiding. The modern antivax movement was founded on Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent attempts to cash in on test kits and lawsuits brought against vaccine manufacturers but it also critically depended on people who had grown up in a world of ubiquitous vaccination and preventative medicine, where vague claims sounded dire because the imagined baseline was “life is basically okay” rather than “I know multiple kids who died or were scarred for life” as their parents had known. Finally, there wasn’t a major political movement putting a billion-dollar propaganda machine to work spreading false claims and downplaying the real impact of a disease.
I can also look at the past and ask if vaccines eradicated the diseases it was meant for... and for that it was incredibly effective.
Edit:// I don't know how truthful it is. But vaccines seem not always the resolving factor. Source of the image: https://learntherisk.org/vaccines/diseases/
objectively, US had a fighting chance in its independence war due to George Washington's forced immunization of armies.
What you are sharing is proof that propaganda works. You are sharing non-scholarly articles from untrustworthy websites..
It's absurd because anyone can set up a website at anytime with charts/data saying anything we might want and reach any conclusion we want.
This is what you are sharing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learn_The_Risk but I guess you did not do your own research on what you are consuming... Their arguments are disputed in the wikipedia links if you want to inform yourself.
> Arguments against vaccination are contradicted by overwhelming scientific consensus about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.[7][8][9][10]
It's also a non profit set up by an antivaxer that has no research/investigative capabilities, all they do is gather donations and spread fake data to gather more donations.
My rant aside, I think there are better and worse ways to infringe on people's liberty when needed. And given the way the winds are blowing, it would be much better to enforce vaccination at the federal level, i.e. compel people by law to get it. There can be exemption of course, but the point is it becomes between you and the state. The current patchwork creates all kinds of disparity, invades privacy be repeatedly making you tell others about your health and identify yourself, and burdens businesses and others with enforcement. It also lets the government avoid the ire of people who don't want a mandate, by moving the front lines of enforcement elsewhere.
I think business and local level mandates are more popular because they play on people's desire to punish the unvaccinated, instead of working positively to tackle covid.
That's not to say that it's unreasonable to question and philosophize the implications of a mandate. At the same time, barring a more effective plan, the implications of not having a mandate seem particularly horrific.
All the same, I do agree with you that if there is to be a mandate, that it's best to come from the federal government to create a uniform set of guidelines. I also agree that the patchwork of rules has been a mess.
This argument doesn't hold up. First, tying availability of medical care to the "right" behavior unconscionable at so many levels. In a developed country, do we really want to create a tier of disabled or unhealthy people that we've denied care to because we don't like their behavior (maybe dont answer that)
More practically, should you get interviewed at the ER intake and moved down in priority based on factors in your control that make you a higher risk? Smokers, sedentary people, the obese, lifestyle induced diabetics, people who don't go to the doctor regularly, you could probably compile a big list. What is so special about vaccines?
At the same time, there are several implications of that ideal that affect us very personally right now. At the moment, a large portion of the hospitals are full. By now, I'm sure we've read the news reports, but in case someone doesn't understand what that practically means, I'll offer the following. Full means a combination of no physical space and no staff to provide care. Now, the hospitals have done a good job of creating physical space to treat patients out of tents, portable buildings, conference areas, and cafeterias, but many of them really don't have anywhere else to go. Of course, those rooms don't mean a lot if there's not enough staffing of which there is not. Certainly, you can ask the existing staff to do more and they have. A normal ICU staffing ratio would be one nurse to either one or two patients depending on the level of care. The reason that the nursing ratio exists this way is that the care they provide requires that kind of attention. For example, they're required to titrate multiple medications, which means adjust the rate of the drips to achieve some kind of affect such as blood pressure. This can be fiddly given how sick the patients are and, to be clear, this is only one of the many tasks they provide. Current staffing ratios are something like three or four to one in the ICU, which is not standard of care, but where we're at.
As a result of this staffing and space conundrum, we're now at the point where the physicians are essentially being forced to choose who gets to die. My wife is an ICU physician. This week she's working days and is on night call. Last night, about every two hours, they called her because they need hospital beds and none are to be had. They had a heart attack come in who needed a stent. Normally, that would go to the ICU afterwards, but, again, no beds. When that went poorly, her job was to go through the charts and figure out who they were going to bump from the ICU to a step down unit. All of the patients there needed ICU level care. If the rare cases when this happened pre-COVID, they would transfer to another hospital. All of the hospitals for hundreds of miles are in the same situation, full, and we're in a very large metropolitan area. A good portion of these patients will likely die from this reduced level of care when they would normally live.
Now, my point in mentioning this is not to appeal to emotion and perhaps persuade someone to get the vaccine. We're well beyond that. It's more to help understand the consequences of our collective action.
At the moment, the hospitals are filled with with COVID patients. Around 99% of them are unvaccinated. Now, if we are going to treat everyone equally, which both you and I agree with, they get to go to the hospital to be treated. As a result, the hospitals are full. Since the hospitals are full, reduced care is given. Since reduced care is given, more people get to die of ailments unrelated to COVID. That is precisely why COVID differs from something like smoking or obesity. Hospitals are not full due to smokers nor obese people. They are full due to unvaccinated COVID.
Beyond that, I can assure you that the medical staff providing this kind of care are tired and they all want to quit. It's not just the sustained, long hours, it's the complete and utter unwillingness of the general public to take a very simple, preventative step. Further, they're frustrated that the public comes to them to save their life after they get sick, but derides, abuses, and slurs them prior to that point when they tell them precisely how not to be in that situation. Again, this is not to appeal to emotion. We're past that. Another consequence of the pandemic going on like this is that they can and will quit. This will exacerbate the existing hospital staffing shortages and they are not easy to replace because it takes about ten years of training to become an ICU physician.
Really, truly, I do not like medication mandates. I understand; if a vaccine now, what later? That's fine. However, then we're left with a crappy choice. Either get people vaccinated as quickly as possible or be left with a partially collapsed hospital system.
thank you for sharing the anecdote of your wife's work scenario.
But you differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated in Covid.
Do you do the same for the heart attack victim that did not get the ICU bed? Did he smoke? eat junk food?
Should we categorize this victim as well, and likewise give them different levels of treatment.
taking it further, should'nt we ban cigarettes and junk food -- can't think of anything good coming out of them - except that the timelines for its effects are a little longer than covid?
Should not refuse care. A lot of people have unhealthy lifestyles (eating lots of processed foods, sugary soda drinks, don’t exercise, smoke, …). We also don’t refuse healthcare to these people even if they make poor life choices.
Since many people on this site live and work in the USA, I would guess more likely than not plenty of people are obese here. You don’t magically become obese. Yet you deserve healthcare, since you pay taxes, pay for a health insurance, etc…
Also from March 2020: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/coronavirus-death-toll...
> Meanwhile, Diederik Gommers, chairman of the Dutch intensive care association, told television talk show Jinek on Friday evening that 66% to 80% of corona patients on intensive care wards that he had seen are overweight.
> A specialist on the programme gave a similar picture. ‘Almost all the patients on an IC ward are overweight,’ Peter van der Voort of Groningen University’s teaching hospital said.
No we shouldn't, we don't turn people away who drove drunken with 200km/h and crashed.
I'd not mind a way to put folks further down the list if they choose to be unvaccinated or have folks have a special waiting room - but the ER is no time to figure out if someone chose to be unvaccinated or not. It would take up even more time and resources from an already strained system.
Hospital capacity being limited, should ill vaccine refusers be getting priority as they are getting right now?
What if you get super unlucky, and you get contaminated and severely ill despite vaccination? Will they kick an unvaccinated covid patient from the one respirator?
I've tried to rephrase the wording of the ethical dilemma I came up with to make it more neutral:
Imagine there's two covid patients coming into hospital at the same time: one vaccinated, one not. Both are in need of the same care, with the same urgency. Only one hospital bed is available. Which, if any, of these patients should receive priority in treatment?
Let’s say instead of “unvaccinated” that they’re actually wildly radioactive and suffering radiation poisoning. Should we treat that person, or turn them away because they could irradiate the ER?
Do you just make things up? What law is it? Does he get to write it up? There will be legal challenges for it, no doubt.
It is one thing to debate where mandating is right or wrong under the circumstances, and yet another, claiming legitimacy for the action.
People are punching themselves in the face all the time, see obesity crisis for example. Should we ban hamburgers & fries next?
> In a social network, many phenomena have been found to spread interpersonally, such as biological games4, indirect reciprocity5, misinformation or rumors6,7, and infectious diseases8,9. Obesity is one of them10 and is often seen as a contagious epidemic1
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021082...
If you are an adult, would do you good to get vaxed. But seems strange that the OP claimed to be 'libertarian' and yet in favour of forced vax. There is a big difference between 'this is what I think would do you good, but I'm going to respect your decision regardless' and 'get vaxed or else' position so many have embraced of late.
https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
What I am pointing at is that there is a population vaccination level beyond which further vaccination has diminishing returns. There are fundamental principles like bodily autonomy and human dignity that we shouldn't throw away just to chase a slightly lower R number, cumulative deaths with covid, or any hyperfocused metric we use to track the pandemic evolution.
PS. I hold the underlying assumption that covid is endemic and over the next decade we'll keep having outbreaks until everybody builds up sufficient natural immunity.
Assuming you have luck and live in a rich country that offers one of the actually working vaccines.
Everyone is still a very far stretch
1. Young, healthy and fit people who don't have any prior medical conditions. I checked the stats in Canada and I have a lot more chances of dying in a car accident than COVID in my age group.
2. Minorities who have had very bad treatment by the medical community in the past. Numerous examples of blacks, Latin Americans, indigenous being used for experiments.
3. Similar to point 2, anyone who's low income and therefore had poor treatment by the medical community.
4. Everyone who's already gotten natural infection immunity. There's numerous studies of this being much stronger and longer lasting. While they also say that an extra vaccine might boost the immunity slightly more too, there's very little benefit imo, especially if you are already young and healthy.
5. Many vaccinated folks also oppose vaccine mandates because that requires disclosing personal information. Quebec's vaccine passport app already got hacked including name, date of birth, IP address and which vaccines. And the Quebec government was very dismissive of this whole thing too which didn't instil any confidence in them.
Vaccine mandates are also opposed by many in the minority community as they know this is just another reason which will cause more law enforcement actions.
Here's Aba & Preach, 2 of the largest black YouTubers of Canada, explaining why they oppose such vaccine mandates even though they themselves are vaccinated. They explain how historical poor and unethical treatment explains why many minorities or those from poor families are skeptic of the health care institutions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6yHSIqsT9g
So there's many reasons of not getting the irreversible, non-long term tested, declining efficacy and short lasting vaccine. There's no guarantees of how many boosters and how often they will be required. Israel is already talking about the 4th booster shot.
Also this whole mandate thing just makes the public even more accepting of more surveillance.
A rapidly developed vaccine using new experimental tech, with an emergency use approval…and someone in our government suggests that the black folks should line up first. Talk about clueless.
If you want to build a system as large as 300,000,000 people, you need some way to control the dynamics of that system so that outliers don't cause catastrophes, and the larger the system, the more extreme the outliers you'll encounter.
You are telling me that I am not allowed to disagree with you.
(2) There is an almost endless list of things people do that are to their detriment. A core part of libertarianism is that people have to be free to make their own mistakes. We don't mandate exercise, prudent spending, safe sex practices or sensible family planning. The reasons to mandate vaccination are not robust enough to justify mandating that either.
Although I think it is humourous that the "my body my choice" slogan is being studiously avoided by both wings of politics at the moment.
Besides, there have been crazy ideas floated like making an issue out of vaccinating people who have already had & recovered from COVID. They're less likely to spread the coronavirus around than any other demographic.
I'm not sure if you chose this binary line of thinking or if it was by accident, but you present the outcomes based on a 0 or 100% efficacy when it's not the case.
It matters/ed what other people do, and if more people got vaccinated (or could do so earlier) it might've stopped covid. Whether it could now is a crap-shoot, but more protection is always better than less.
It isn't, immune systems are quite complicated:
"White House immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci offered the warning while giving an update on efforts to develop vaccines at an online US Senate hearing on Tuesday. He said: ‘I must warn that there’s also the possibility of negative consequences, where certain vaccines can actually enhance the negative effect of the infection.’ Dr Fauci later explained that in rare cases people vaccinated against a condition could end up contracting the virus they thought they’d been protected against, and falling more seriously-ill with that disease as a result" [0]
We should be letting people make their own choices.
[0] https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/12/americas-top-coronavirus-doct...
This is not the case with the covid-19 vaccines. So yes, regarding covid, more protection is always better than less. The rest of my points were also specifically about covid, as is apparent if you were to quote its entirety.
> We should be letting people make their own choices.
Should people make "their own" decisions on how much diesel exhaust their cars produce, or whether they can carry around airborne nerve gas?
Plus if I recall correctly there is some evidence that people who get COVID after being vaccinated (ie, breakthrough cases) get worse cases. We haven't had time for the Phase IV trials yet, so it is entirely possible that there are some interactions that haven't come to light yet.
> Should people make "their own" decisions on how much diesel exhaust their cars produce, or whether they can carry around airborne nerve gas?
Yes to the diesel. And no to the nerve gas.
But I'll point out that coronavirus is quite different to nerve gas - you're going to be exposed to it anyway regardless of vaccination rate. And statistically speaking, the person who exposes you is likely to be vaccinated.
Please find the source, otherwise I assume this is from misinformation around Israel statistics, which doesn't say that at all.
> Yes to the diesel.
"The excess emissions of harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) exhaust gases can be linked to 38,000 premature deaths worldwide, according to the new research." [0]
[0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2131067-diesel-fumes-le...
> But I'll point out that coronavirus is quite different to nerve gas - you're going to be exposed to it anyway regardless of vaccination rate.
[citation needed]
> And statistically speaking, the person who exposes you is likely to be vaccinated.
Misleading. Please tell me adjusted to group size which group (vaccinated/unvaccinated) is more likely to expose me.
On reflection, it didn't make any sense. Obviously the worst case scenario for covid is death and so it isn't possible for a vaccine to make breakthrough cases worse.
Regardless, you're still wrong. It isn't the case that more protection is always better. We know that there are circumstances where a vaccine can make a disease worse. And we don't know what future variants of the coronavirus will do.
On the diesel; yeah, it causes deaths from air pollution. Lots of things do. Life is not without risk.
> [citation needed] ... Misleading.
I mean; it is kinda obvious that COVID isn't going away. And you can tell from the case numbers that it is mostly vaccinated people getting it, because there aren't enough deaths for it to be raging through an unvaccinated population [0].
It isn't misleading, it is just facts.
[0] EDIT - Eg, New York is at around 33 deaths v. 4,400 cases in the last 7 days. CFR of 0.7%, let alone IFR. Compared to a batting average of around 55k / 2 million cases overall which is >2%. Suggests around 66% of cases are among vaccinated people minimum, maybe higher.
I'm still wrong because I point out based on facts that I'm correct? The covid vaccines are much better than no vaccines.
I'll throw in another point:
"For every 10 million people who receive the first dose of AstraZeneca, about 66 more will suffer from a blood-clotting syndrome than during normal circumstances, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal. This figure compares with 12,614 more incidences recorded in 10 million people who have tested positive for Covid-19." [0]
> On the diesel; yeah, it causes deaths from air pollution. Lots of things do. Life is not without risk.
Is your freedom not impeding on other peoples freedoms (to live)?
> I mean; it is kinda obvious that COVID isn't going away. And you can tell from the case numbers that it is mostly vaccinated people getting it, because there aren't enough deaths for it to be raging through an unvaccinated population.
> It isn't misleading, it is just facts.
"Prevalence in those aged 5-49 was 2.5 times higher at 0.20% (0.16%, 0.26%) compared with those aged 50 years and above at 0.08% (0.06%, 0.11%)." [1]
It would've been nicer with more exact data, but older were vaccinated earlier, and ages 5-12 have 0 vaccinations yet.
Your "facts" seem based on simple reasoning that I can't reconcile with what I consider facts to be, nor do I agree with the reasoning to begin with.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-26/blood-clo...
No, you're wrong because you said "more protection is always better". That isn't true - sometimes the protection turns out to be worse than nothing.
> Is your freedom not impeding on other peoples freedoms (to live)?
There isn't a freedom "to live", it doesn't mean anything. Everybody dies in the end no matter what. Nobody has ever had a "freedom" not to catch diseases, if I had that one I'd have exercised it a few times in the past; I don't like throwing up.
> "Prevalence in those aged 5-49 was 2.5 times higher at 0.20% (0.16%, 0.26%) compared with those aged 50 years and above at 0.08% (0.06%, 0.11%)." [1]
They only opened up vaccinations to people aged under 40 in May, and it takes a few months to get both doses of the vaccine and that paper was issued in mid June. I'm not sure that tells us anything. Obviously if the majority of a population is vaccinated then unvaccinated people will be the majority of cases, that isn't in question.
> Your "facts" seem based on simple reasoning that I can't reconcile with what I consider facts to be, nor do I agree with the reasoning to begin with.
We're not disagreeing on any numbers here. I doubt you consider your reasoning to be superior due to excessive complexity.
You're arguing the semantics of "always" while ignoring the context provided. You're trying to win an argument, regardless if it's relevant to the topic.
The protection against covid (the vaccine/s) isn't worse than nothing. That is a fact, and what I'm arguing. You're stating I'm wrong, by carefully navigating around that into something entirely pointless.
> There isn't a freedom "to live", it doesn't mean anything. Everybody dies in the end no matter what. Nobody has ever had a "freedom" not to catch diseases, if I had that one I'd have exercised it a few times in the past; I don't like throwing up.
So does that mean that I have complete freedom to endanger others with my actions? I assume you don't think so, so there's obviously a line somewhere.
> They only opened up vaccinations to people aged under 40 in May, and it takes a few months to get both doses of the vaccine and that paper was issued in mid June. I'm not sure that tells us anything. Obviously if the majority of a population is vaccinated then unvaccinated people will be the majority of cases, that isn't in question.
That is exactly the point. The prevalence is 2.5 times higher in a group with much fewer vaccinations.
Are you not trying to make an argument? I would suggest you challenge yourself about why you are arguing so much if you don't want to. You have the option of stating your opinion then leaving it at that.
> The protection against covid (the vaccine/s) isn't worse than nothing. That is a fact, and what I'm arguing.
If you don't mean "always" then you should take the easy path and say "Well, you're right it isn't always better, but it is different words". Some people got vaccinated and then died from it - it is pretty clear that is worse than nothing. It is hard for the outcome of a vaccination to be worse than death. It is most certainly not an unalloyed good, there are risks even assuming the manufacturers don't stuff it up.
> So does that mean that I have complete freedom to endanger others with my actions? I assume you don't think so, so there's obviously a line somewhere.
Sure, but people being unvaccinated isn't the biggest risk, particularly since something like 30% of them have probably already had COVID and developed antibodies the natural way - and the diesease may well burn through the unvacced population before the authorities manage to strap them down and force-vaccinate them. If you go down the list of risks from biggest to smallest, the larger chance is getting COVID from someone who is vaccinated and never had the original disease.
I was talking to a doctor friend of mine who was emphatic that the vaccines didn't stop the spread at all, and I didn't understand why at the time but I've since learned it was probably because the vaccines didn't target the mucosal immune system. So it doesn't make sense to forcing people to do something they don't want to do, for a not-that-meaningful gain (everyone is still going to be exposed to coronavirus sooner or later, vaccines or no).
If a sizeable chunk of the population chooses not to participate in that collective action, they endanger themselves (which can be argued is their fair choice), but also those around them who are unable to take the vaccine. There is no individualist refusal to vaccinate, the effect is still collective, just in a negative direction.
Depressing that it wasn't enough.
It is easy to blame people for what could be your shortcomings. But this is not 5% or 10% of your population, it seems to be around 40-50%. This is more of a crisis of faith on both public and private institutions and it certainly doesn't get fixed with sticks and by removing more rights (and thus reinforcing the believes that made these people refuse the vaccine in the first place).
Again, this is your shortcoming. It doesn't get fixed by forcing people to have something injected inside of them and have their movement restricted by sanitary passports.
Being persuaded and being informed are hopefully related, but demonstrably different.
This is just false, though. The whole point of democracy is to allow folks to have a voice in their politics, not to avoid forcing folks to do things. We force folks to do things all of the time. This is what laws do: Sometimes they are easy to follow, but we also know that if we don't have, say, building codes and food safety laws that some folks will cut too many corners building or add weird things to bread (like in the 1800's).
Simply put, you aren't always going to be able to use words. And it seems vaccinations are similar.
Every rational person. If i gave you a free medicine (drugs for example) will you take it ?
The problem was that the political class undermined all trust in vaccination: promising more liberties to vaccinated people, contradicting the responsible state agencies ( this was the worse they could do), pouring money in Pharma companies and then buying their products ( looks like corruption), lying that the vaccines have been tested but in reality they had express approval, dismissing other vaccines ( Sputnik) for political reasons and forcing the people in a so called lockdown which (except in some countries) had no effect on the pandemic because the measures were pure propaganda (for example the child must stay in quarantine but the rest of the family, not)
I can make art for free if I really put my mind to it, and leave it in the forest for others to possibly enjoy.
Near the start of the pandemic, I thought the most intrusive state powers would barely be needed. Why would you ever need to make a vaccine mandatory? What rational person would refuse a lifesaving medicine offered to them for free?
Well, I've got my answer.