The article says otherwise:

> “We need to make sure schools are safe so that all parents are comfortable sending their children to school,” said Pan, a pediatrician whose legislation has strengthened oversight of vaccine exemptions in previous years. “And we want to keep schools open.”

Wow, I haven't heard that slogan since 2020. Do you still believe it? Because even the CDC and Pfizer execs and European newspapers are admitting that the vaccines don't prevent infection or transmission.

> It’s not political.

It's hard to fathom that you believe that, because even people in favor of vaccine mandates can recognize political influences, like the many billions of dollars being made by the corporations producing the vaccines and the money they donate to political campaigns.

Yes, I still believe it. Sure, they don't prevent infection or transmission. The vaccines cause you to have less symptoms. By being less symptomatic you're less likely to spread the disease.

> It's hard to fathom that you believe that

Yes, I believe getting everyone vaccinated is not political. It's a public safety issue.

Yes, I can understand that politicians can be influenced. Regardless of whether that's the case here I still would have no issue with pushing for everyone to get vaccinated. The billions being made by the corporations producing the vaccine are a pittance in comparison to all the negative consequences of letting it spread uncontrolled.

> they don't prevent infection or transmission. The vaccines cause you to have less symptoms. By being less symptomatic you're less likely to spread the disease.

You seem to be saying, they don't prevent transmission, but they prevent transmission.

Maybe what you mean is that, while the vaccines don't guarantee that an infected person won't transmit the virus to another person, they make it less likely.

But this doesn't seem to be what the CDC, Pfizer, et al are saying. They're simply saying that the vaccines don't prevent infection or transmission. I haven't seen them qualify that statement with any probabilities; if they had, it would be something one could argue about (productively).

> Yes, I believe getting everyone vaccinated is not political. It's a public safety issue. Yes, I can understand that politicians can be influenced. ... The billions being made by the corporations producing the vaccine are a pittance in comparison to all the negative consequences of letting it spread uncontrolled.

You seem to be saying, it's not political, but it's political.

Maybe what you mean is that, while there are political aspects to the issues and strong political influences, there are other aspects of greater importance that ought to be considered over all other factors.

But how the decision ought to be made is not the matter at hand; we don't live in an ideal world where all of our leaders and experts are unbiased and altruistic. The matter in question is how the decisions are being made, i.e. to what extent politics has and does influence the decisions being made.

And as far as I can tell, recent history has shown that politics has had a tremendous influence on these policies at every level. For just one example, the confession by a former CDC doctor about how the guideline for distance between people in public places was decided on: someone thought that 10 feet seemed like a a good number, but someone else thought it was impractical, so they compromised and came up with 6 feet--but neither number was scientifically sound (e.g. since the virus is transmitted through aerosols rather than just droplets, it lingers in the air, so there is no distance in an enclosed space which could prevent transmission).

So, given that we know that many of these policies--ones which have wide societal and economic ramifications--have been made on a political basis, the question is, what should we think about these policies, and what should we do about them?