> The agency now advises that vaccinated people be tested for the virus if they come into contact with someone with Covid-19, even if they have no symptoms... “Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the agency’s director, said in an email to The New York Times. “Testing is widely available.”
As the CDC said above, absence of symptoms is not a sufficient indicator for a vaccinated person. If a vaccinated person is tested regularly, they can self-isolate upon a positive test result, since they can't rely on symptoms as a signal.
Absence of symptoms is not a sufficient indicator for the unvaxed either, so your argument falls apart.
Why isn't 90% reduction in ICU occupation and 70% reduction in chance of infection a sufficient argument for the public benefits? Just because it is not perfect, you'd rather let the country's hospitals overload and shut down?
In any case, vaccines don't really change the equation here. Testing for temperature and symptoms with COVID have proven to be ineffective because asymptomatic transmission in the early stages is a thing with COVID-19 even without vaccination.
I'm not sure that people who have chosen not to get vaccinated by this point are going to be the people who follow self-quarantine rules well.
That leaves the subset of non-immune people who are unvaccinated. If this hypothetical person is reckless (as your comment suggests), should they not have already been infected in the past 18 months? If they were not infected in 18 months, that suggests at least some ability to isolate and self-monitor.
I personally had the vaccine because I have very high blood pressure, have pretty high blood sugar (even though I'm fit/in shape) and am almost 40. It was MY CHOICE in the risk vs reward game of numbers it I did it only for myself with a good life insurance already in place that covers death/incapacity from medication too(covers COVID vaccines too).
What if I would of ended up like that BBC presenter? Dead. For me it's down to my family and that is it.
This will be a bit exagerated but (hopefully) shold get the point across: At the end of the day anyone else is disposable as long as my family is safe from harm.
As long as the vaccine is not 100% safe nobody should be allowed to force anyone else to take it.
Edit: One thing that puzzles me though - Why is nobody talking about those that are immune or already have the antibodies and don't need a vaccine? Why force them to have it if those vaccinated are safe?
The mRNA vaccines do appear to reduce risk (of infection and of symptoms) in recovered patients as well. (See e.g. https://theconversation.com/if-ive-already-had-covid-do-i-ne...)
That said, the German "geimpft, getestet, oder genesen" strategy ("vaccinated, tested, or recovered") is explicitly what you suggest.
The tradeoff here, to me, is that:
- If we do not mandate vaccination, people can preserve their individual autonomy and will, nonetheless, probably get infected sooner or later and thus have some immunity. (According to some research, greater than that of vaccinated people against the same strain, but perhaps reduced against other strains.)
- However, that relies upon maintaining sufficient hospital capacity for the additional cases with severe symptoms. So as long as hospital capacity remains an issue, mandatory vaccinations make sense.
I'm assuming you're in Germany/know someone in Germany when asking this and you might of heard something about it: -Is it true that Hungarians are using some sort of medication as treatment? I heard it from a guy at work(hungarian) and was stumped.
Thankfully, the “or test” part distinguishes this from a vaccine mandate. We should have been testing most of the population since last March, and if anything we should have stronger testing requirements than this guidance dictates.
Vaccine requirements have been commonplace for decades now, and society has greatly benefited from it.
With the delta variant every unvaccinated person will likely end up becoming infected at some point. These unvaccinated pockets are where the large spikes are coming from, especially for severe disease.
There is also the problem of having a sense of security when there is a large vaccinated population which causes the vaccinated population to resume a regular life. Those who are not vaccinated are now exposed to more people in general.
Example, my wife and I prior to being fully vaccinated interacted with less than 10 people in the 1.5 years. We had everything delivered and had someone do our Costco shopping and drop it off at our doorstep. With us both fully vaccinated we go to Costco for our groceries and indirectly come in contact with probably 50 people in a single visit.