Change My Mind

A good leader implements policies that best aid those he serves.

I think he's overstepping his bounds, in spirit if not in letter.

https://www.history.com/news/smallpox-vaccine-supreme-court

According to the Supreme Court, he’s doing neither. That being said, this Handmaids Tale version might rule differently.

I don't think the cases are comparable given smallpox and COVID-19 are orders of magnitude different from each other in terms of lethality and ease with which we can combat them. The valid (IMO) arguments presented in that context don't necessarily translate because many factors specific to today's America (E.G the rampant obesity, older average age, etc) aren't at all what they were like in 1905.

People can dispute the numbers all they want, but 1 in 500 Americans have died from COVID (https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html) and we’ve already discovered how many different variants with varying degrees of severity, almost exclusively because of the unvaccinated (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2021/08/08/joe-rogan-is-getting-this-completely-wrong-says-the-scientist-who-conducted-the-vaccine-study/?sh=4d44fb0c7bd1). Most of the ‘breakthrough’ cases are occurring among the elderly and/or immunocompromised (https://news.yale.edu/2021/09/07/study-examines-severe-breakthrough-cases-covid-19) and even then, the risk of death is a fraction vs being unvaccinated (0.005% VS 1.61%).

We aren’t even 100% certain of what will happen long-term to a COVID survivor, even of a mild case. People complain about the costs of healthcare and health insurance now, wait till we break free of the pandemic…which we never will as long as the ignorant unvaccinated are running around like a bunch of Outbreak monkeys.

If you're playing the, "We're not even 100% certain what will happen long-term to a COVID survivor" card, how can you turn around in the same flipping sentence and call the unvaccinated "monkeys", blithely ignoring the fact that we're not even 100% certain what will happen long-term to someone who has been vaccinated against the disease.

Your foundational logic is exactly the same as that of those across the aisle from you on this issue, yet you expect your view to somehow be superior. This is funny.

The unvaccinated are essentially monkeys, as in test monkeys, because that’s where the virus is mutating and propagating. This is a fact. Those who have been vaccinated are also far more likely to wear masks because masks prevent someone from spreading an infection just as much as it prevent one from contracting it.

My foundational logic is bedrock-solid, because my “We're not even 100% certain what will happen long-term to a COVID survivor" is irrelevant to vaccination vs unvaccinated. An unvaccinated monkey is far more likely to suffer severe organ damage and respiratory problems than a vaccinated person because a vaccinated person’s infection will almost never progress to the same severity of the monkey’s.

Still funny? Because I don’t think any of this is. I think it’s really sad that people are so ignorantly selfish to equate a public health emergency with some form of tyranny. You and Marjorie Taylor Greene are in the same logic boat. That’s funny.

Nobody has said anything about tyranny, certainly not me in this discussion. Nobody has said you shouldn't wear masks, certainly not me in this discussion. Nobody has said you shouldn't receive the vaccine if you want it or feel you need it, certainly not me in this discussion. So I'd appreciate it if you didn't throw me in with Rep. Greene, whose views are radically divorced from my own.

My stance on vaccines, for clarity, is that they should be made available to everyone alongside clear and well-sourced data showing everything we know about them, which as of now is that they are safe and effective. Then, anyone who still has reservations for whatever reason should not be compelled to receive one. I still have not, not because I think it will harm me (everything I've seen so far shows that it's safe), but because nobody on earth can scientifically prove it WON'T harm me some years down the line. Again, for clarity, I've received the gamut of immunizations in my day, so it's not like I have an issue with vaccines in general. Far from it. They've saved more lives than anything other than possibly antibiotics/antiviral therapies and screening technology.

This is far removed from the position of the folks against whom (I think) you're railing, who oppose the vaccine either because they distrust vaccines in general or because Biden happens to be President.

Having elucidated on all of this in my own defense, let's return to the core point; COVID is not comparable to smallpox in terms of its established effects on the average human in good health. Therefore our policy towards it should not be identical to that of a smallpox outbreak. That doesn't mean we ignore it. It is more dangerous overall than the cold or flu, as some out there otherwise contend, because it does indeed take advantage of comorbidities to a disturbingly effective degree. But it's not like smallpox, which today would easily kill the vast majority of us who'd contract it. Think Columbian Exchange 2.0. The folks who think COVID should be fought like we'd fight that sort of event are the ones with whom I take serious issue.

I’d invite you to indulge me then on one of my previous sources (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2021/08/08/joe-rogan-is-getting-this-completely-wrong-says-the-scientist-who-conducted-the-vaccine-study/?sh=4d44fb0c7bd1) insofar as the risks to the public at large of remaining unvaccinated and implore you, personally, to get vaccinated.

If you don’t have to the time, here’s a direct quote from Andrew Read, professor of biology and entomology at Pennsylvania State, in reference to where COVID mutations are emanating from:

“Evolution, at the moment, is all happening in the unvaccinated. That's where the majority of cases are. That's the majority of transmission. Every time a virus replicates, it can mutate. So the evolution is, right now, occurring in the body of people who are not vaccinated…

Delta came in India where there was crazy amounts of transmission, not amongst the vaccinated, but amongst the unvaccinated. That's what we need to stop. The unvaccinated need to either get vaccinated or socially distance, mask up, stopping transmission. That's the trick here.”

And while you’re correct in reference to comorbidities, I’ve seen more than a few perfectly healthy people get the holy hell kicked out of them, still struggling with lingering after-effects, and some of them die. At the risk of seeming melodramatic, I’ve seen the ERs overflow, I have friends who were doctors and nurses who couldn’t see their families for months and I’ve seen the refrigeration trucks for the bodies.

I don’t ever want to have to deal with that again. Just get the shot.

I'll read the article ASAP. For now, I again don't disagree that vaccines need to be made available. But to your points at the end; let's not forget that every year there are people in fantastic shape who shockingly die from influenza. Yet we don't hype it or push flu shots nearly as aggressively.

Yes, as you say, COVID is more deadly than influenza. But to what true degree? It's impossible to say. I for one think we need an assessment of how many true COVID deaths, how many compromised survivors, and how many patients currently in the ICU, have obvious comorbidities. I'd go so far as to hazard, and this is NOT supported by evidence, but by predisposition, that the overwhelming majority of unvaccinated cases currently in hospitals are conservative and either markedly obese, smokers/drinkers, or both *at the least*.

Again, supposition. But you don't need to regale me with tales about the body trucks; I had a contact in China who came here in late 2019 and told me he'd seen mobile incineration units parked outside hospitals because their caseload was so high. China keeps a lid on their internal affairs, so it's impossible to say how healthy those dead were, but I wouldn't be surprised if lots of them had nutritional deficiencies (and the resultant weakness that COVID would exploit).

So for now, I will continue to practice the basic hygiene I have my entire life (washing hands constantly, not touching my face before doing so, etc), wear a mask wherever required/asked by an establishment, maintaining my good health, and generally being a conscientious person like we all should. But for me and any like myself I reserve the right to refuse a vaccine for a virus that is unlikely to harm us and whose long term safety is no more certain than that of its vaccine. My self-imposed timeline for getting the shot was one year after its public launch, which means I'm past the halfway point towards getting it. So far I have no reason to stray from that deadline.