we live in a society. basically all choices impact others.
https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/trends-in-overa...
Yes I can. They use a disproportionate share of hospital resources by refusing to get vaccinated. And some hospitals were dangerously full this year (and last year). I know someone who died because their non-emergency procedure was pushed back because of hospital conditions.
And this ignores the vaccines' likely impact on virus spread or costs.
I'm sorry to hear this, but let's be clear about what happened here. They did not die because hospitals were full. Even the previous NY mayor has said multiple times their hospitals were never too full to take in patients.
I also lost a couple people due to hospital failures. I don't blame anyone, it was and is a tough period, but if we did not instill mass panick we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today. Hospital capacity is _shrinking_ nationally. For the first time in decades medical staff employment was on a decline. In 100 years historians will look back and baffle at how a medical emergency made the US decrease our capacity in healthcare across the board. A virus did not make this happen. Panic made this happen. My partners dad died many decades before he should have because he got really bad covid, was put on a ventilator, cleared covid and was recovering for a couple of weeks and then the ventilator failed and the nursing was so understaffed they didn't check on him until he was already brain dead.
There is no doubt in my mind that had that hospital not decreased the wages of some 30% of their staff (leading to a huge exodus of workers) because society demanded they shutdown profitable procedures - my partners dad would no doubt be alive and healthy today.
This particular hospital never approached max capacity even once during 2020. This was purely the repercussions of panic affecting healthcare.
Personally, I think this vaccine has done a great deal of harm reduction and I'm glad people in at-risk categories have access to it, but pretending there is some big social consequence for these people not taking the vaccine is ill-informed. They might be hurting themselves, but literally no one who is alive for the next few years will escape being attacked by covid. Because no one will escape covid, there is no logic behind suggesting people refusing vaccinations is a social consequence. It's a personal consequence alone.