Covid-19 miscellany

[Swammerdami]

I've heard those cards are selling for 450 bucks a piece. The vaccine is free. Morons.

Owning the libs? Priceless.

Give them a little credit. They only buy the cards when told $100 of the $450 goes to Trump's "PAC."

 

[Rhea]

I am looking for the science of what happens with the complete immune response (which antibodies/t-cells are present in each part of the body) of a natural infection compared to vaccines.

With this data in hand then modeling of the pandemic can be a lot more accurate.

Potential misuses of this data by politically motivated or paranoid chuckleheads is no excuse to not gather the data in the first place.

I agree that the data is useful, and should not be blocked, and should always include all of the information necessary to give the medically appropriate context, even if chuckleheads can’t understand it, because it can be pointed to in conversation.

WHILE vaccinating everyone, masking up and avoiding disease.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I don't want to give the government power to enforce injections of anything.

The govt. has that power. 1905, Massachusetts vs. Jacobson, the Supremes said:

It is within the police power of a State to enact a compulsory vaccination law, and it is for the legislature, and not for the courts, to determine.

This was about smallpox. Board of Health had this weird idea that vaccinating everyone was in the interest of "promoting the general welfare" as mentioned in the Constitution's preamble.

 

[TomC]

I don't want to give the government power to enforce injections of anything.

The govt. has that power. 1905, Massachusetts vs. Jacobson, the Supremes said:

It is within the police power of a State to enact a compulsory vaccination law, and it is for the legislature, and not for the courts, to determine.

This was about smallpox. Board of Health had this weird idea that vaccinating everyone was in the interest of "promoting the general welfare" as mentioned in the Constitution's preamble.

I don't care.
I don't confuse the legal with the moral.

I still don't want the government to have that much power in the 21st century. There are better avenues.
Tom

 

[Keith&Co.]

The govt. has that power. 1905, Massachusetts vs. Jacobson, the Supremes said:

This was about smallpox. Board of Health had this weird idea that vaccinating everyone was in the interest of "promoting the general welfare" as mentioned in the Constitution's preamble.

I don't care.
I don't confuse the legal with the moral.

I still don't want the government to have that much power in the 21st century. There are better avenues.
Tom

So, letting significant numbers become petri dishes to breed vaccine-defeating variants of the plague is more moral than forcing vaccinations?
Freedom as a suicide pact is the superior choice in your mind?

 

[TomC]

The govt. has that power. 1905, Massachusetts vs. Jacobson, the Supremes said:

This was about smallpox. Board of Health had this weird idea that vaccinating everyone was in the interest of "promoting the general welfare" as mentioned in the Constitution's preamble.

I don't care.
I don't confuse the legal with the moral.

I still don't want the government to have that much power in the 21st century. There are better avenues.
Tom

So, letting significant numbers become petri dishes to breed vaccine-defeating variants of the plague is more moral than forcing vaccinations?
Freedom as a suicide pact is the superior choice in your mind?

That isn't at all what I said.
There are better ways to get people vaccinated than giving the government that much power.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

I don't care.
I don't confuse the legal with the moral.

I still don't want the government to have that much power in the 21st century. There are better avenues.
Tom

Of all the potentially overreach things a government could get away with, I’m thinking the ability to keep extremists from killing 600,000 of us through disease feels like something I can support.

 

[Rhea]

So, letting significant numbers become petri dishes to breed vaccine-defeating variants of the plague is more moral than forcing vaccinations?
Freedom as a suicide pact is the superior choice in your mind?

That isn't at all what I said.
There are better ways to get people vaccinated than giving the government that much power.
Tom

It is what you said. You NOW say there are better ways, but you did not enumerate them, you simply said you didn’t want the government to be able to do it.

Feel free to post again and say what you’re now saying you meant to say - we can discuss that. What avenues. What avenues are better than the government being able to make it happen?

 

[TomC]

So, letting significant numbers become petri dishes to breed vaccine-defeating variants of the plague is more moral than forcing vaccinations?
Freedom as a suicide pact is the superior choice in your mind?

That isn't at all what I said.
There are better ways to get people vaccinated than giving the government that much power.
Tom

It is what you said. You NOW say there are better ways, but you did not enumerate them, you simply said you didn’t want the government to be able to do it.

Feel free to post again and say what you’re now saying you meant to say - we can discuss that. What avenues. What avenues are better than the government being able to make it happen?

One recent one was post #2999. It wasn't the first by any means. I've said this many times.

Empower private entities to enforce their own rules about vaccination and such. Lots of them do it and it works. It would work better with official backup.
Tom

 

[Keith&Co.]

So, letting significant numbers become petri dishes to breed vaccine-defeating variants of the plague is more moral than forcing vaccinations?
Freedom as a suicide pact is the superior choice in your mind?

That isn't at all what I said.
There are better ways to get people vaccinated than giving the government that much power.
Tom

If we're depending on education or incentives to get people to do 'the right thing,' we're competing with bad actors who are manipulating the same people into doing the wrong thing for the actors' agenda.
And this policy WILL result in significant numbers of petri dishes.
Which is a growing threat to the rest of us, including the vaccinated, eventually.
Thus, yolerating my anti-vaxx uncle and the disinformation he cherishes will eventually put me in the hospital.

If not, can you show where i am mistaken?
Or what superior method you might know of?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Empower private entities to enforce their own rules about vaccination and such. Lots of them do it and it works. It would work better with official backup.
Tom

So, how much official backup will such entities get in Florida? Nebraska?

How likely are entities such as any Trump Hotel to implement this? Garth Brooks concerts? Does Ted Nugent tour?

I think about Goya. I dunno, though..The CEO would be against it, fellating Trumperism, but their board seems less inclined to tolerate his bullshit...

Anyway, this still allows enclaves of plague rats. Even with official encouragement, you're leaving it up to the individuals who run the companies. And many of them have ceded their thinking to FIX.

 

[southernhybrid]

Seems like some things never change

I thought I would add some more details to Keith&Co.'s post.


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

In 1901 a deadly smallpox epidemic tore through the Northeast, prompting the Boston and Cambridge boards of health to order the vaccination of all residents. But some refused to get the shot, claiming the vaccine order violated their personal liberties under the Constitution.

One of those holdouts, a Swedish-born pastor named Henning Jacobson, took his anti-vaccine crusade all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's top justices issued a landmark 1905 ruling that legitimized the government’s authority to “reasonably” infringe upon personal freedoms during a public health crisis by issuing a fine to those who refused vaccination.

The broader battle over the validity of vaccination science reached a fever pitch during the smallpox outbreak. Anti-vaccination groups, citing alleged cases of death and deformity from bad reactions to smallpox vaccine, called compulsory vaccination “the greatest crime of the age,” claiming that it “slaughter tens of thousands of innocent children.”

In response, newspaper editorials characterized the smallpox vaccination controversy as “a conflict between intelligence and ignorance, civilization and barbarism.” The New York Times dismissed anti-vaccine activists as “a familiar species of cranks” who were “deficient in the power to judge [science].”

The Supreme Court rejected Jacobson’s argument and dealt the anti-vaccination movement a stinging loss. Writing for the majority, Justice John Marshall Harlan acknowledged the fundamental importance of personal freedom, but also recognized that “the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.”

This decision established what became known as the “reasonableness” test. The government had the authority to pass laws that restricted individual liberty, if those restrictions—including the punishment for violating them—were found by the Court to be a reasonable means for achieving a public good.

So, there is no legitimate reason not to manage a vaccine that is in the interest of the population at large. Public health mandates have been around since the 1700s, and children have been required to have certain vaccines for over 50 years if they are to attend public schools. The people who are against public health mandates don't seem to understand the need to protect the public sometimes means giving up small or inconvenient so called freedoms.


Btw, I'm old enough to have had the smallpox vaccine as a very young child. I'm old enough to remember the polio epidemic and how thrilled we were when a vaccine was developed for that horrible disease. Sadly, there have been people who have fought against these vaccines for long, long time.

Sometimes mandates are necessary to protect us from stupid people. That goes for all kinds of things from requiring seat belts when driving to wearing masks and taking a vaccine during a deadly pandemic that has put a tremendous burden on the healthcare system.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Btw, I'm old enough to have had the smallpox vaccine as a very young child. I'm old enough to remember the polio epidemic and how thrilled we were when a vaccine was developed for that horrible disease. Sadly, there have been people who have fought against these vaccines for long, long time.

My mother's uncle was an anti-vaxxer during the polio epidemic. His son got polio as a result. This led to paralysis of his legs for his whole life and many complications and a tough life in a wheelchair and a shortened life.

 

[TomC]

So, how much official backup will such entities get in Florida? Nebraska?

This is apparently where we differ.

You want people like DeSantis to have the power to give you a shot whether you want it or not.

That's what giving the government that power means.

Personally, I don't trust them that much. Largely because of people like DeSantis.
Tom

 

[Toni]

The govt. has that power. 1905, Massachusetts vs. Jacobson, the Supremes said:

This was about smallpox. Board of Health had this weird idea that vaccinating everyone was in the interest of "promoting the general welfare" as mentioned in the Constitution's preamble.

I don't care.
I don't confuse the legal with the moral.

I still don't want the government to have that much power in the 21st century. There are better avenues.
Tom

We're currently living in the so called 'better avenues.' How are you liking the pandemic so far? I hear it will be with us for some years.

If you mean the better avenue is that everyone is smart enough, community minded enough, well educated enough and has enough access to get vaccinated at their earliest opportunity and to mask up, socially distance, stay out of crowds, etc. then sure, I'd love that and I think everyone else (except the GOP and snake oil salesmen) would love it too. But we're not even close.

To me, universal vaccination is to ensure that everyone is as equally protected as possible. That it must be compulsory is sad, sure but then it's also sad that we have to have laws against murder and theft and child abuse but we do. It would be nice if everyone had enough self control and morals to avoid those things but not everyone does. So we have laws.

Community standards really help eliminate risks that are known to exist, even if those risks pertain more to a particular population than to the general public. But here's the other thing about community standards: they help reduce the decision making.. Just think how much less stressful it is to drive anywhere or walk in most towns and cities because there are established traffic laws. And how much easier it is to do in person shopping because the store has stated its hours of operation and payment options available. Just to name a couple of things everyone deals with all the time.

If we buy a car, even a used car, we know it was manufactured by some minimal standards. When we go to the doctor or to the barber, we know they have the required education and credentials and licensure to properly provide the service we need.

We all know what money is and how it works so there's only barter in some special circumstances where the parties prefer to barter.

You're near to my age, so I know you had a smallpox vaccination. We all did. And my kids didn't have to (except for the one in the ARmy who was being deployed to an are where there was still small pox). Thank heavens! You and I didn't have to worry about polio because our parents were wise enough to get us vaccinated. And schools required vaccination. Personally, I am thrilled--more than thrilled! that I was able to get my kids vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella and pertussis, which nearly killed me, according to my parents. I'm thrilled we have antibiotics! My hearing is really compromised because of repeated ear infections, something I was able to prevent in my own kids. And thousands of other advances, some medical and some not.

I see requiring COVID19 vaccine not as giving up freedom. We've already agreed, as a society, that we can require other vaccinations. This is just one more. The only people crying that this is somehow compromising their freedoms are those who see vaccination as a political choice. It's not.

 

[TomC]

Btw, I'm old enough to have had the smallpox vaccine as a very young child. I'm old enough to remember the polio epidemic and how thrilled we were when a vaccine was developed for that horrible disease. Sadly, there have been people who have fought against these vaccines for long, long time.

My mother's uncle was an anti-vaxxer during the polio epidemic. His son got polio as a result. This led to paralysis of his legs for his whole life and many complications and a tough life in a wheelchair and a shortened life.

I totally get you. I never realized that legally required vaccination was even a thing until recently. I got all my shots at school. My parents didn't see it as an infringement on freedom. Quite the opposite, they saw a professionally managed vaccination program as a perk of paying tuition at a pricey Catholic academy.

But still. I was a gay kid. I'm sure that if Governor Mike Pence could force health care choices on people, I'd have been stuck in some "reparative therapy" program(possibly run by the RCC).

I just don't trust the government all that much.
Tom

 

[Keith&Co.]

So, how much official backup will such entities get in Florida? Nebraska?

This is apparently where we differ.

You want people like DeSantis to have the power to give you a shot whether you want it or not.

That's what giving the government that power means.

Personally, I don't trust them that much. Largely because of people like DeSantis.
Tom

Okay, you distrust some of the government. Good on your father.

Now, do you know of a way to deal with the hole in the 'better avenues' scenario? Cuz it still looks like a suicide pact to me.

 

[TomC]

We're currently living in the so called 'better avenues.' How are you liking the pandemic so far?

No we aren't.
People ignore private rules all the time. Because the government won't back them up.
Tom

 

[TomC]

Now, do you know of a way to deal with the hole in the 'better avenues' scenario? Cuz it still looks like a suicide pact to me.

How about this?
Respond to someone, unvaccinated and unmasked, breezing into a public venue(like a store) without either one like the police respond to someone who breaks the window of the store and grabs stuff?

In other words, empowering the private entities who do have rules.
Tom

 

[Keith&Co.]

But still. I was a gay kid. I'm sure that if Governor Mike Pence could force health care choices on people, I'd have been stuck in some "reparative therapy" program(possibly run by the RCC).

Small problem with this scenario.
The govt. has had this vaccination power for 100+ years. And yet Pence did not bung you into a reparative therapy compound. With or without RCC participation.

So, in this discussion, the threat is more of a bugbear than a reasonable caution. Either because an individual's sexuality is an apples/oranges thing compared to airborne diseases, or changing it is a little beyond a 'reasonable' infringement.