I'm not so sure about this. Call me a cynic, or even a Libertarian (gasp!) but it is generally not in the nature of government to wind down an apparatus that they paid so much for once "the threat" has passed. Now that governments have the infrastructure for requiring and/or showing proof of vaccination, it really isn't a stretch to think they will want to keep that system and have it be readily available for the next pandemic, whatever it may be.

Also, a lot of government employees' jobs now depend on keeping these systems in place in one form or another...

Indeed, and I also sense a lot of Department of Healths at the state level will seek to track the yearly flu-shoot with this system as well. Not necessarily mandating it for public participation, but as a public health measure. The amount of productivity lost due to the seasonal flu is substantial, and the amount of data that can be gleaned from such a database is too tantalizing to ignore.

FYI, departments of health have already been tracking vaccinations in a database for years before COVID. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/iis/resources-refs/faq...

I mean, it probably depends on where you are, but at least here (Ireland) this isn't true. The contact tracing and vaccination apparatus was run largely with people borrowed from other civil service departments, or hired as contractors. When the mass vaccination capability was stood down last year, they went back to their normal work and it took a while to start it back up again for boosters.

Did your local government actually hire large numbers of new permanent employees to administer this? This is (a) rather unlikely and (b) very much something you can check.

Not really

Who is better situated to respond to a pandemic than the state? What is the alternative?

In Germany there were at least half a dozen members of parliament caught with their hands in the cookie jar for the money meant to buy masks alone. It would be interesting to see how many more used it to enrich themselves but the decisions enabling them where so hilariously badly written that nearly all the money spend on the masks was wasted.

You can write entire lists of how fucked up the governments response was. Government money for tests done under supervision of a professional? The same Dr. listed as on site contact in half the country. Repeated calls to get vaccinated? Government repeatedly blamed Doctors and population but never bought enough vaccines.

The government response around here can be summed up as corrupt incompetents fucking up the economy while playing the blame game. I could not think of a group objectively less qualified to respond.

>The government response around here can be summed up as corrupt incompetents fucking up the economy while playing the blame game. I could not think of a group objectively less qualified to respond.

Assuming you live in a country with democratic (small 'd') institutions, you elected those folks. If they're corrupt and/or incompetent, that's on you and your fellow countrymen, no?

It is mostly the same parties sitting in government as back in Weimar when they helped Hitler ban the biggest competition. I am quite sure some of them even date back to our last Kaiser (not the soccer one). What is a single person to do against political parties that historically should be considered complicit in starting and losing two World Wars and survived without having their ideologies purged?

>"If they're corrupt and/or incompetent, that's on you and your fellow countrymen, no?"

To an extent, yes, but I believe real-life has shown that removing incumbents is very difficult. I sense that the makeup of the district and the composition of party strength is the major factor in determining whether or not a politician is reelected or replaced, rather than popularity or approval rating.

I wasn't proposing an alternative, just chiming in that I don't believe the GP's assertion that "It ends with covid vaccines". Mainly because the government now has a powerful tool at its disposal for fighting pandemics and it will not want to stop using it once the threat is finally past us because it has so much utility and expandability for future health crises.

There is lots of precedent for winding down wartime laws. Libertarians think governments want to be authoritarian for the sake of being authoritarian, but that is not how democracy works.

Let me know when the USA PATRIOT act finally expires (without pieces being made into permanent laws).

Many parts of the USA PATRIOT Act have expired. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/31/411044789...

Other parts have been modified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act

Could the global obesity epidemic not also be handled through mandates?

You can't catch obesity from someone coughing in the same room as you.

But to extrapolate further: Sugar taxes have been tried in countries - Mexico for one. I think there was massive backlash from CocaCola/Pepsi etc, for infringing on their freedom to make obscene profits. I seem to recall discussions here about some of the lawmakers finding Israeli spykits on their phones (the ones pushing for the sugar tax). edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/technology/hack-mexico-so...

No, but on a higher meta-level it is contagious. Obesity is more prevalent in societies where high-caloric foods are more readily available. Now I'm more libertarian leaning myself so I wouldn't actually advocate for this, but if we mandated a cap on calorie-per-serving for "foods", you'd see a drastic drop in the availability of high carbohydrate foods (particularly sugar) which would essentially cause forced sugar-withdrawal in most of the population.

A couple months later? Everyone's sugar-thermostats are reset, the lower-calorie food tastes nearly as good – if not better – and obesity rates would plummet.

However, since we don't/can't coordinate such a thing on a national level, everyone gets exposed to constantly increasing carb content in their food, and maintaining a lower calorie diet requires significantly more effort. I can speak from personal experience, I simulated this on a personal level when I moved to South Korea for 2 years where sugar is nearly non-existent. As a modestly thin person I lost an additional 15-20 pounds while I was there without having to work hard or suffer with worse-tasting food (well, I did experience sugar withdrawal for the first couple months).

Quoting the NYT for anything related to Israel is likely biased.

No matter what one's stance is on Israel, or the Palestine question, it's hard to blame the actions of one company on the Israeli government.

I should have clarified NSO group. They are an Israeli company with many ex members of Israeli NSA (whatever it's called).

Obesity is a complicated disease that manifests through a variety of biological, behavioral, and environmental factors. These factors differ widely between individuals. I think there are mandates that could help make the disease less prevalent, but it is very much ingrained in our daily life, so I'm cynical as to the efficacy of such measures. It's very difficult to mandate behavioral (look at how many people don't even want to put a mask on) or environmental (think what foods are available in a region based on scarcity, culture etc - and yes this is a real factor in obesity) changes. A concise video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZC4rfSMq8c

>Obesity is a complicated disease that manifests through a variety of biological, behavioral, and environmental factors.

Obesity is not a disease. It is a condition defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of >30[0].

Yes, there are a variety of factors that contribute to a BMI >30, but like "tobacco use disorder," it's emphatically not a disease. Some obesity may be related to actual diseases, but obesity in itself isn't a disease.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/defining.html

It wasn't my goal to argue nomenclature, but a disease is: "a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury." or "a particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people." (Oxford Languages) By this definition it makes sense to me to call obesity a disease. For what it's worth, I was trying to convey that obesity is far more complicated than many consider - the official definition may imply that you can just "lower BMI" and solve the problem. I also see immense value in understanding obesity as a disease in order to de-stigmatize it - you wouldn't tell someone with high blood pressure to "just relax", or imply they aren't trying hard enough to cure it - which is what a lot of the public stigma around weight related disease is effectively doing. Also, BMI when combined with waist circumference can help to correct issues with BMI to better understand your individual risk: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/obesity/in-de... https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/how-to-measure-your-wai...

FYI, clicking on another page from your link states obesity is a ”serious chronic disease”. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/about-obesity/index.html

True, I imagine that would be quite frightening and have a lot of data to support a number of initiatives that the population would vehemently disagree with.

Even in grade school, I remembered dreading when they would have us run a mile as fast as we could and record the times.

Fat taxes are a form of this. I think the primary difference is that they have strong economic incentives aligned against them. I don't see this as the case with vaccine and mask mandates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_tax

If you could avoid getting obese with two shots in the arm and wearing a piece of cloth every time you leave the house for a couple years.

It's been a while since this was a "covid countermeasure", but how about food curfews! Government mandated intermittent fasting between the hours of 8pm and 8am :)

You becoming obese doesn’t affect me the way you catching Covid does. Yes obesity eats up healthcare resources as well but not to the degree and certainly not as quickly as Covid cases do.

Obesity is the #1 reason covid is a problem though. And metabolic syndrome, nearly the same thing.

True but my colleague become obese doesn’t make me obese by working next to him. (Unless he insists on sharing all his snacks lol. Even then I have a choice)

You don't get fat, because your neighbour coughs on you.

It would be more democratic if the people were making the decision themselves by directly voting the laws. With the elective system we delegate decision making to people we choose from a very limited pool of candidates which aren't selected democratically. In a way "elect democratically" is a bit of an oxymoron.

I'm honestly jealous of your lack of cynicism.

I thought this last spring. Then, way too many people decided to refused to get vaccinated.