This is a false dichotomy.

Bars and clubs in many cities are open and basic infection control measures are not being taken or enforced by significant percentages of staff and patrons alike.

We enforce the laws against smoking indoors more diligently and stringently than we do removal of masks in crowded areas.

If you take issue with this generalization, then you should also take issue with the parent comment's note that 'we' aren't taking it seriously enough.

Some people, cities, states, are being extremely cautious. Some are not. I moved from Bay Area California to bum fuck Florida during COVID, and it's like being in a different timeline.

Personally I'd be in favor of just forcibly vaccinating people and getting it over with already.

People have lived with governments that forced them to do whatever they wanted. With enough support, perhaps we will see those times again.

The government already has such power so let's quit pretending otherwise and use it for the public weal IMO.

There isn't a single country with 100% vaccination rate, I highly doubt there will ever be. Trusting that the definition of "public weal" won't change once given such power is naive. I wish it worked that way.

Again, what I'm telling you is that the government already has extraordinary power to take away your freedoms. Look into American incarceration rates for instance. The bad part of government power I'm supposed to be worried about is already here.

We should start by banning cigarettes. One of the greatest killers ever.

And Im in favor of banning video games, social media and pornography.

Btw, what do you plan to accomplish by assaulting people who don't want it? The virus isnt going away no matter how draconian you get. Just for fun, imagine forcibly vaccinating Afghanistan. Or Central Africa. Not happening. Not without an army (one that can win wars, America’s doesn't count)

> And Im in favor of banning video games, social media and pornography.

Those are quite bad analogies you have there.

Playing video games, reading/posting to social media (assuming you're not posting content inciting violence etc) and watching pornography (or producing pornography, assuming consent of all involved) are not actions that have any significant potential to cause harm to others. I don't mind if somebody spends their entire day jerking off with their left hand while playing video games with their right, all the while posting to Twitter via Siri. I wouldn't personally want to be that person(or follow them on Twitter, for that matter), but it's their life and they're not hurting anybody.

Socializing without taking proper COVID precautions however puts other people at immediate risk. Getting vaccinated is one of the precautions we can take to avoid that, and it has been shown to be tremendously effective. It is also very quick, and very low risk for healthy adults. So it is our social responsibility to get vaccinated.

FWIW, I'm OK with people choosing to not get vaccinated for whatever batshit reason they may cite. Their body, their choice, right? But my body is not their choice. So if they choose to commit to endangering myself and other responsible people, and potentially contribute to overloading the health system we rely on, then I also expect them to accept the necessary consequences: minimizing social contact, getting COVID tests whenever they want to enter any establishment, potentially having to look for a new job that can be done 100% from home, and waiving their right to be treated for any COVID infection they may contract while unprotected.

You clearly haven't read much about the societal impacts of pornography. Being a enthusiastic consumer doesn’t make you am expert.

But, I’ll take you up on your offer. Its better than the one Im currently facing.

You do realize that viral immunity is possible without vaccination, right?

Yeah, the only downside is increased death; continued disruption to the economy and everyday life for everyone, not just the refuseniks themselves; and continued strain on the medical system for no good reason. Otherwise, letting things run their course is just as good.

> Btw, what do you plan to accomplish by assaulting people who don't want it?

Endemic status of the disease, pretty obvious. It's still around but doesn't disrupt daily life that much, like other respiratory illnesses we've had to deal with all along. Curiously the people least willing to take the vaccine seem pretty confident in their ability to shut the border, but having a relatively porous border isn't actually that much of an issue with 100% vaccination.

Thats not what endemic means. Endemic means regularly found. The virus is already endemic throughout the world.

Either way these vaccines will not accomplish your stated goal. The vaccines wear off too quickly. The virus bifurcates too quickly. With Pfizer talking about the need for quad shots, you cant manufacture enough vaccines for the world in the various variants present.

However, forcibly injecting people (legal assault) with the vaccines will create a very angry, motivated, minority. A recipe for a society to descend to hell.

If you're paying much attention, they're using "endemic to refer to a managed, "steady state" of the disease, comparable to other infectious diseases, as opposed to the current, crisis level it's at.

The claim about the vaccines "wearing off" does not seem to be true. Compelling immunization also does not, in my view, constitute "assault," and I don't care if it makes people upset, something you could say about almost any policy imaginable.

So they should use the word “managed”. Endemic has a very specific meaning.

If you haven't seen the push for boosters, seasonal shots, etc then you’re not paying attention.

As to assault, you’re right. Legally, the sovereign cannot assault (not even MBS in SA). that being said what the sovereign is doing easily falls into the common law definition of assault:

“An intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact”

Note the words “offensive”, “contact” and “apprehension”. As my lawyer friend once explained to me, merely touching someone’s arm who you know doesn't want to be touched is assault.

A vaccination necessarily requires that a needle purposely touches, pierces, and injects a foreign substance into another.

If unwanted it constitutes assault, except that the state (as the BLM folks, thankfully, explained last year) has sovereign immunity.