Yeah, at this time of the year they are being filled by all types of seasonal respiratory diseases, like it happened for most years in recent times, even before Covid. The flu shot is widely available and recommended for most over-55 (I think?), but you don't hear anyone claiming that it should become mandatory.

Actually, that's not true.

We have some hypotheses that children are the flu reservoir and that if we required them to get an annual shot it would tamp down flu seasons.

The primary difference is that the flu vaccine is predictive and can miss. It's kind of hard to demand that people take something that may not work.

If we got something genuinely terrible like Spanish Flu, yes, everybody would be demanding that people get a flu shot.

So let me get this straight, what you are asking is why not add one more huge problem to an already near-collapse system because there are already huge similar issues that caused it to be in that state?

What I am saying is that we have for two years already heard that the restrictions and mandates were to avoid overloading a then-unprepared-and-taken-by-surprise health system, but the US still can't even have large-scale availability of rapid tests.

I am also saying that if problem of the health system is lack of personnel, then firing healthcare workers who refuse the vaccine (even after being infected) is counter-productive and can only be seen as a bone-headed political move.

But most of all what I am saying is that we should not accept the policy theater. Making this about vaxxed vs unvaxxed is just yet-another way for governments (worldwide) to hide their ineptitude.

It's been two years already. Countries in Europe with comparable levels of vaccination to the US are already treating Covid as "just a endemic, seasonal respiratory disease". Yet the US still wants to pretend that things just don't get solved because of rednecks and "problematic people" that need to submit to the will of the elite.

So vaccines are "the will of the elite"? I can't wait until this guy finds out most vaccines are mandatory to enter the public education system and has been that way in most countries for decades, even in red states like Texas.

Don't be stupid.

It is not the vaccination, per se[*]. It is the political maneuvering and using the unvaxxed as a cover for their failures, this perpetual "if only they did what we are asking of them", etc. The will of the elite is that we accept this perpetual terror until we give them carte blanche for them to do whatever "Big Reset" they want.

In Germany we are testing our kids twice a week at a minimum, and everyday when/if a positive test is found in the school. Case numbers are high, measures are in place, but people are mostly living their lives without waiting for Mary from Bumfuck Alabama to get her shot. Why is it so hard for the US to drop the empty pointless rhetoric and get their shit together?

[*]If it helps you, I am not against the vaccines. I got mine, boosters and all. What I am against is the policy theater. What I am against is schools being closed and causing a lot more long-term harm to kids than the potential risks of them getting covid. What I am against is firing health care workers for political reasons while claiming that the system will collapse unless everyone complies.

I actually think children are much better off with what you call "long-term damage", this generation will now be way more likely to be ready for the next pandemic which is _not_ a question of if but _when_, with this first-hand experience hopefully they will avoid many of those failures you complain about (when many of the reach political positions in their adulthood); and is not like they are getting anywhere near serious long-term damage like during the black plague when most children saw half of their family die and there was no internet, or electricity or any of the niceties they now enjoy.

You are kidding, right?

Granted, a very cynical view of the educational system is most Western countries is that it is a glorified time-waster for kids to be busy while parents work. But even that was lost during the pandemic. Most schools basically have given up on getting students to learn anything this past year. Lockdowns have acted as prolonged stunt on children's socialization opportunities. Anxiety levels for teenagers are through the roof.

The effects of these two years on younger kids will be profound and long-lasting. They are paying a lot more than their share of risk. And saying "they are not dying" is not a consolation because - unlike with the Plague - kids are basically zero-risk compared with other age groups.

> At least they had internet and other niceties

Are you serious? The last thing you should want for kids is for them to become dependent on something like the Internet. Such a comment is almost offensive to a parent that does not want to see their kids turning into mindless, socially-inept drones like the average HN-commenter.

Actually, they do. It's not the young unvaxxed athletes who end up in ICUs, it's those people with obesity and other comorbidities who fill up hospitals.

You are being pedantic, in this context I obviously meant vaxxed smokers, vaxxed obese people, et al.

And most of the people (vaxxed or not) who need critical care with COVID have those pre-existing conditions.

Well that is not true actually - they likely are filling up hospitals quite a bit. The big difference is that smoking, metabolic diseases, car accidents, etc etc are all relatively PREDICTABLE diseases year to year. Our medical system then sizes to be able to deal with these predictable rates of disease.

Unvaxxed are not filling up the hospitals at a higher rate than vaxed now. The two doses you got in the summer doesn't work anymore.