For example:
"Vaccine passport proponents routinely cite "slowing [the] spread" as a reason to impose vaccination requirements
Yep.
> despite discoveries earlier this year showing that vaccinated individuals can still spread the disease.
If you'd said "can still spread the disease as much as unvaccinated" then this would have made sense. From my understanding the jury is still out on this question with the consensus being "the vaccinated spread it less but we're not sure how much less".
> Likewise, unless the vaccine can reduce R below 1[...] universal vaccination cannot stop the spread of the disease.
Even if we accept this part (and I'm not sure I do) then you again seem to be conflating "can't stop it entirely" with "has no benefit"
Measles has a much higher R value of 12 to 18, yet the vaccination is highly successful.
You’re promoting disinformation.
Just because substance A and substance B are both called "vaccines" doesn't mean that A and B have comparable effects and can be treated the same way.
It is simply not medically possible for COVID vaccination to stop the spread of COVID. We have to accept that and move on with our lives.
The government is not justified in mandating any medical treatment merely because that treatment is good for you. The vaccines seem beneficial, yes. This fact alone does not justify the use of state power. We have a 70-year-old taboo against involuntary medical treatment for a very good reason. The weak threat of COVID combined with the insufficiency of our vaccines suggests that we don't have a compelling case for breaking this taboo.
The vaccines may be beneficial on an individual level but I do not see a case for mandates.
MMR is definitely not a 100% guarantee of immunity; and the vaccine, despite what you’ve been lead to believe, is not a lifetime guarantee.
Herd immunity is what makes vaccines work so well. You want freedom? Get the shot so that one year or two from now, we can get on with our lives without more legislation being put into place.
Because the mandates will be happening if people keep ignoring the “your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins” principle.
If 99% of people were vaccinated then covid wouldn't have populations in which to mutate.
Delta has an R value of 8. That makes it one of the most infectious diseases we know about. Future variants are likely to be even more contagious. (That's the evolutionary pattern we see in other diseases.) Even if universal vaccination were to somewhat reduce the R value, the R value would remain above the critical threshold value of 1.0 regardless --- because R starts out so high naturally. We know R is above one post-vaccination because highly-vaccinated places like Iceland and Gibraltar see COVID waves despite near-universal vaccination. If R is above one, everyone will get the virus sooner or later anyway no matter what, and we are not operating in the regime in which universal vaccination has the kind of large positive externalities that might justify a universal vaccination program for other diseases (e.g. measles).
It's only large positive externalities that can justify state intervention in individual health. (The 1905 SCOTUS case that people have been citing discusses the issue in detail.) Current COVID vaccines, due to the R-value threshold effect, don't have the large positive externalities attached to previous vaccines.
As an analogy: a leather jacket might reduce a bullet's velocity to some extent, but that bullet will still penetrate and kill you. Nothing short of body armor that can actually stop the bullet is effective. Likewise, unless the vaccine can reduce R below 1 --- and no current COVID vaccine can do that --- universal vaccination cannot stop the spread of the disease.
The vaccines may be beneficial, but being beneficial, by itself, doesn't present a case for coercive state action. If it did, we'd probably all eat healthier and exercise more --- and we'd be less free as a people.
There are real social and economic costs to creating a "papers, please!" culture and setting a precedent for state intervention in individual medical choices. As it stands, the low risk posed by COVID and the insufficiency of current vaccines can't the coercive state programs being proposed around the world.