>> How much more divided can a country already be when the absolute democratic majority has made their decision months ago to take the shot but 30% are holding everyone back.
> Its worth remembering that division is due to the other side always.
That's an unhelpful muddying of the waters. If some clear minority is undermining a popular policy, especially if it's doing so for irrational reasons or out of spite, you can definitely point to that minority as the cause of the division.
There are a lot of people who have already had covid and now have antibodies, who were also never in, and continue not to be in, a risky demographic. The risk for these people is very, very low already.
On top of that, the vaccine is not entirely without risk. There have been many reports of side effects, specifically heart issues in young males. There have been some deaths.
The counterargument might be, "okay, that may be technically true, but the risk is very, very low." And the people who do not want the vaccine, who are not in a risky demographic, might say in reply to you: exactly, that's the same thing we're saying about the virus.
> I think assuming that it's out of "spite" is an example of not realizing how "your side" might be causing the division.
With "out of spite," I was specifically referring to things like "owning the libs."
> There are a lot of people who have already had covid and now have antibodies, who were also never in, and continue not to be in, a risky demographic. The risk for these people is very, very low already.
So? Getting a vaccine isn't only about managing personal risk. Also, from what I understand natural immunity is often weaker than vaccine-induced immunity, and "hybrid immunity" (natural + vaccine) is superior to either alone.
> On top of that, the vaccine is not entirely without risk. There have been many reports of side effects, specifically heart issues in young males. There have been some deaths.
Is that risk higher than that from COVID infection? No: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocardi....
This is a good example of an irrational reason: I'm scared of a choice that has a very small chance of producing myocarditis, so instead I'll make a choice that has a greater chance of producing myocarditis.
This isn't true.
"Healthy boys may be more likely to be admitted to hospital with a rare side-effect of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart than with Covid itself, US researchers claim."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r...
You shouldn't read a pithy comment as a complete statement on any manner, and mine certainly indicated there's more complexity that wasn't being covered.
That said, in this case, the COVID anti-vaxers are the source of this division.
It’s the difference between small c conservatives who have reasonable concerns about how affirmative action might worsen the problem and flaming racists who think they’re fundamentally superior.
In that case I’ve got news for you. But first, I need you to stay strong: President Kennedy was….
Except! And this is a big "except": when doing the thing the majority wants would violate the civil rights of the minority. The problem (in the US, at least; I can't speak for Germany) is that the minority is trying to paint vaccination as a civil rights issue, essentially. I can see the argument, but it all feels a bit hypocritical, as I expect most of the minority who are complaining now were vaccinated (by mandate) against other diseases when they entered public school as children (and vaccinate their children by mandate before enrolling them in school). And while there is still some resistance to even that in some quarters, it is nowhere near the size of the resistance toward COVID vaccinations.
And I don't think taking vaccines (usually as a child) by mandate in the past changes the ethics of it.
I think it's fair for there to be consequences to refusing the vaccine. Your work may decide they don't want to expose their staff to an unvaccinated human... so you may lose your job. Government may decide that the risk of sitting inside with someone unvaccinated is too high so you may not be welcome at certain businesses. Maybe you have to wear a mask when others don't.
That doesn't cross a line to me, but saying "you absolutely must take this vaccine or we're going to use the force of government to make you" does.
Looking at things through that framework is how we end up with controlled substances, anti-smoking laws, DUI laws, and a whole host of other things.
One's rights in the US usually stop at the point where they impact the ability of people around you to live their life without undue interference.
Now you know why Philosophy professors teach this problem in Philosophy 101.
I'm extremely uncomfortable with granting a novel coronavirus a gigantic reservoir of freely available incubators to infect and try out new ways to use the human body for its own goals, all the while having a way to largely prevent it. The concept of "individual rights" as you present it here is at odds with best practices learned from epidemiology. Is that in-and-of-itself a troublesome fact? Absolutely.
Yet on the left we have many who anti-anti-vax while pro-abortion. I don’t understand the consistency of that position.
Then you should be extremely uncomfortable with vaccine mandates, because this is exactly what mass vaccination is doing. Since none of the vaccines prevent people from getting COVID or passing it on to others, the vaccines are creating an evolutionary environment where there is high selection pressure for the virus to evolve variants that resist the vaccines. Mandating vaccines just makes that worse.
I'm not sure this is true, but even if it is, this...
> variants, therefore, mostly arise among unvaccinated.
...does not follow from it. The key thing driving evolution of variants is not number of replications but selective pressure. Selective pressure is much larger in a vaccinated individual than an unvaccinated individual (or at least an unvaccinated individual that has not had COVID and does not have natural immunity).
No, it isn't, because science cannot make value judgments. Epidemiology can tell you things like: if you do A, B will happen; if you do C, D will happen; etc. That's all "best practices" based on epidemiology or any other science can amount to. But no amount of science can tell you whether doing A to make B happen, or doing C to make D happen, is worth the cost of doing those things or the other side effects they will have. Those are value judgments, and value judgments should not be forced on people.
> The evolution of a novel coronavirus that is both highly infectious and deadly must be avoided at all costs.
Barring any reasonable objection to this (of which I can think of none), the ball is in science's court to prescribe a course of action. If that course of action is mandatory vaccination, then so be it.
Then you haven't thought very hard. "At all costs" is way, way, way too strong. We already have viruses that are much more infectious and deadly than SARS-CoV-2, for example Ebola, and we have not taken this "at all costs" attitude towards them. We expend some effort towards fighting and containing them, but only in proportion, since there are so many other things we also need to expend effort towards doing.
> the ball is in science's court to prescribe a course of action
No, it isn't. Choosing a course of action requires attaching value to different possible future states of affairs. Science cannot do that. It requires value judgments, and science cannot make value judgments.
To take your example, science can to some extent tell you what will happen if you impose mandatory vaccination or if you don't--although since much of what needs to be predicted involves second, third, fourth, and higher order effects and includes various aspects of human psychology and free choice that are not at all well understood scientifically, science's ability to make accurate predictions about such outcomes is limited. But science cannot tell you which of those two possible states of affairs is to be preferred, all things considered.
You're absolutely right about that but there is a cost-benefit analysis here. If we don't want the government to be able to track our every move (to make sure that the unvaccinated don't violate the public interest) then it's simpler and probably more democratic to just mandate vaccination.
I don't buy this phrasing, or the rule. Even if read with best intentions. I can't even imagine how ridiculously bad US would be if it was actually ruled based on what 70% of the population wants.
I am not even joking. I think you may want to rethink your argument.
That being said, if you declare any consideration of the actual policies to be off limits for supposedly being subjective, you won’t ever be able to make any decision.
Specifically, in this case, vaccinations are safe & beneficial. And even if governments are subject to elections, and their powers are subject to frustration even by minorities opposing them, reality is not. A principled argument cannot be made in the abstract, leaving the wisdom of vaccinations open. Opponents pretend that it is possible because they do not stand a chance on those merits, and seek to instead shift the debate to “freedom vs. safety” or whatever safe in the knowledge that it is impossible to argue for either of those conflicting values to ever ‘win’.
What most people expect is a vaccine that works as it was said it would, and isn't in a quagmire of censorship and profiteering. I think those are very real concerns that have not, and will not be addressed - and so, you will never get everyone on board.
We've done a huge scale test -- it thankfully has worked -- and I'm not sure what evidence you are looking for at this point.
It mostly feels like the unvaccinated at this point are 1) cowards, 2) selfish, or 3) believe in some sort of voodoo. Not sure which is worse honestly.
They may have over-exaggerated and come up with bullshit counter-narratives, but they were right about the core of the issue: we can't trust leaders who lie all the time.
This is applicable to every issue we face as a society, but most people ignore most major issues most of the time. There's something else going on with this pandemic and the vaccines. It's been extremely politicized, in part due to the social/political context it started in. It's sad that we can't all come together to figure out the best course of action. Instead, wearing or not wearing a mask, for example, has become an overtly political act.
Also, let's say everyone in the U.S. had gotten vaccinated as early as possible, by last July or thereabouts, what would the impact of that have been? Things were opening back up, and then the Delta wave hit. Perhaps if 90%+ had been vaccinated we wouldn't have had to shut back down again (although it wasn't really a shutdown this time, since pretty much everything is still open).
I'm all ears for a civilized discussion, but until we can agree on some epistemic framework (or narrative) we're not going anywhere except where the current ruling class pushes us.
So for the situation in general: if enough people are less divisive, perhaps a less divided country can occur.
As for the "other side" - this is what democracy is about. So if the elected representatives and majority of the nation are for it, then that's the decision made.
To the fascists: Get the fuck out of our business, and maybe we can coexist peacefully. Or don’t, and see what happens.
In Germany, the subject of the story, support for a general mandate was in the high 50s a month ago and around 70% now. Opposition is a rapidly shrinking minority.
a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls
They're more reliable than your feels, for instance.
> There is nothing “hesitant” about it - we see exactly what is going on, and we will never accept this tyranny.
Come on. Throw around the word "tyranny" like that, and it will lose its meaning. It's like the boy who cried wolf.
> If you insist on testing your odds with this, you will only cause unimaginable suffering, and then lose.
What now? A civil war over vaccine mandates, let alone one with the anti-vaxers winning, is a delusional fantasy.
Hopefully you never find out how hard people fight when they know that they are fighting pure evil.
The problem of course is that once one side lost a fairly held election, the vocal minority went right to violence (see Jan 6). And now violence is acceptable political discourse on one side.
And now it seems like one political party is worse than Russia -- who assassinates it's political dissidents.
I'm pretty sure if you ask around, no patriots wanted Steve Scalise, Ronald Reagan, JFK, Malcolm X, Gabbi Giffords, etc to have been shot.
> It is the Virus that creates a horrible situation
And it is people refusing to get vaccinated that greatly exacerbates this horrible situation. What you've said is misleading.
> We are in this mess together and everyone is spreading the virus, vaccinated or not
Vaccinated people spread the virus less and go to the hospital less. What you've said is misleading.
I recently learned that viral loads is actually the same between vaccinated and unvaccinated people who test positive for COVID19. That's not technically the same thing as the rate of spread, but it is really first and foremost the severity of the disease that the vaccines help with.
(Agree with everything else.)
In fact the buckets with 3 holes are now encouraged to walk around the room.
This is an absolute statement as division is literally caused by dividing between "sides". You get a divided country when the people within it divides each other into sides. Its never been the case when people have said "our side has caused the division". never.
That is the irony you should be finding! If you do finally see this irony you might find more nuance, but maybe more frustration and more uncertainty and confusion but less anger and possibly more empathy to the other. That's why its so easy for people to divide, as its less painful. Dividing and categorizing is how we make sense of the world, but it can be a curse too.