Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston: low income, home, purchasing)

[justyouraveragetenant]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

Saying that requiring a vaccine is giving up all your freedom is like saying allowing your boss to tell you what to do at work is a slippery slope to slavery. Once your boss can tell you what to do with a single second of your time at work, what’s to stop them from telling you what to do with every waking hour? I guess the only reasonable thing to do is to completely abandon the idea of making people work at their jobs. If you want to do something, that’s great, but your boss can’t make you. Not only that, they can’t even fire you if you refuse to work.

It’s not a slippery slope. It’s a single point on a long continuum. I think allowing employers to require a government-cleared vaccine in the middle of a pandemic is acceptable. That doesn’t mean I think employers should be allowed to require gender-reassignment surgery or unnecessary amputations. Like almost everything, there is a line where something goes from being unacceptable to being acceptable. Not everyone agrees where the line is. That doesn’t mean that we have to agree there shouldn’t be a line.

If you want to ask me where that line is, it is probably based on a two-fold criteria: is it safe and is it necessary. As with everything else in the world, people generally don’t get to just decide for themselves what does and doesn’t fit those criteria. If you want to sell a commercial aircraft, there are government-appointed bodies that approve your plane. If you want to sell a medical device, there’s the same kind of structure. And there is a government infrastructure for determining when vaccines are safe and effective. You don’t have to agree, you definitely don’t have to like it, but when it comes to what others can do and what others can ask you to do, that is how the game is played.


No one has suggested forcibly vaccinating anyone. This is simply a discussion of whether employers can set vaccination requirements for their employees. Maybe we should make the discussion about actual forced vaccination, because when faced with actual physical coercion, simply allowing employers to make decisions about their employees might scare people less.

It's very simple a boss can tell you what to do at work but medical decisions are off limits to them.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant

It's very simple a boss can tell you what to do at work but medical decisions are off limits to them.

No. It’s very simple. You can get vaccinated or your job is terminated.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

Based on some of the comparisons it seems clear that several people know little about the very ugly history of this world and of some ugly aspects of human nature, not to mention the difference between putting something IN your body and following laws governing behavior. smh

No one is being forced to put anything in their body. They get to make a choice: get a vaccine or find another job. Vaccinations have been required for many, many, many years. This isn't a new debate.

I'm curious about these 'ugly aspects of human nature' to which you allude. I think people who put a misguided sense of 'personal liberty' above the need for collective action in the name of public health may be forgetting about the ugly aspects of communicable disease. Do you think it was wrong for Mary Mallon to be forcible detained until her death?

[mdovell]

Slippery slope isn't a real argument, a concept sure but it is not a legit argument. Here's a random question. anyone ever attend higher ed or public school back in the day and know people that could not attend due to sickness?

There's a general expectation that if you gather people around for any purpose that they do not get sick as a result. Knowing passing a potential condition or disease makes one legally liable. Look at the R Kelly case. Yes he's weird and there's allegations but the actual crime is knowing passing herpes. Sort of like getting Capone for income taxes.

Ok let's just cut to the chase here. What EXACTLY is the issue with getting the vaccine? Because tens of millions have had it and frankly complications are small at best. Feeling kinda woozy for a day is a very small price to pay for the second dose. Are you against this vaccine or all vaccines because good luck going to higher ed, public education or the military for starters.

Like I said many times before is that people can tolerate things being open or closed but they don't want to deal with randomness. The more affluent people are the longer they can plan. Do we really want a wack a mole like mentality to this?

https://www.theday.com/article/20210907/N

"Classes were canceled Tuesday for faculty to shift their courses to a virtual format, with most classes resuming Wednesday. Thiele said Tuesday that all professors would receive their Zoom licenses by the end of the day.

Student socializing is now limited to three students outside — socially distanced and wearing masks — and gatherings are prohibited indoors, whereas the green alert level meant no gathering limitations for vaccinated students.

In residence halls, students may only be on their assigned floor. Visitors are restricted and common rooms are closed"

It's September 8th. We didn't even have to wait until after Thanksgiving!

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant

You are on company time so no you can't do heroin at your desk. Just like you can't drink at work. Forcing Somone to take a medicine that could harm them is very different. An employer has no business knowing anything I do medically.

Vaccine requirements have been a thing for jobs and schools for a LONG time. Did you really not know this? There’s nothing more dangerous than people who are both angry and uninformed.

[justyouraveragetenant]

Originally Posted by lrfox

Vaccine requirements have been a thing for jobs and schools for a LONG time. Did you really not know this? There’s nothing more dangerous than people who are both angry and uninformed.

It was never as wide scale as it is now. It's always been wrong. No inconsistency here. Now they are adding that requirement for entering businesses and purchasing items

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant

It was never as wide scale as it is now. It's always been wrong. No inconsistency here. Now they are adding that requirement for entering businesses and purchasing items

Go get informed. Do you have kids in public school? Just check out the extensive list of required vaccinations for students in my town. And last fall, Baker added influenza to the list. To single out Covid as somehow being exceptional to this norm, especially considering it's been proven to result in so much death and havoc, is irrational.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...hxfEppK_I/edit

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

The behavior is a problem, just like mask study which showed less compliance with safety measures when people used masks as a panacea. Your article indicates they have found no evidence of a problem as of March 2021. I wouldn't call that a slam dunk conclusion. I would also add that this was before they learned that the viral load in vaccinated people carrying the virus is as as high as the non-vaccinated: https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/...inated-n405034.

Given this emergence of information I would take a more reserved approach to forming conclusions. Actually, I would always take a more reserved approach since science is a method of ongoing inquiry and, in the grand scheme of things, there's much we don't know.

I think this article from February 2021 does a better job of presenting the information with the caution that it deserves.

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/96570...vid-19-mutants

This study from 2015 also is also worth reading given the transmissibility of this virus coupled with the high viral load found in the vaccinated. This is also where behavior becomes an issue. Again, the rush to declare the vaccines a quick end to this problem, like the masks, may be compounding things. https://pennstate.pure.elsevier.com/...-highly-viru-2


I don't have the answers and it's likely that at least some of the variants emerged long before the deployment of vaccine, but I do have lots of questions that have yet to be answered. I would also caution those who are in the high risk groups to continue with their precautions and rely less on those who are telling them that x, y, z will simply "end" the problem.

The problem with taking a ‘reserved’ approach in this instance is one cannot do so in vacuum devoid of alternative consequences. At this point there are multiple studies which have addressed ADE concerns and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that the ADE risk is near zero, albeit short of zero. Primary concern is loss of vaccine efficacy over time due to antigenic drift, which we’ve already seen with the Delta variant.

At this point it’s advisable for individuals without immunity (natural or artificial, with the former I agree with the GBD thought leaders) to seek immunization, both to lower disease risks and possibilities of infection / antigenic drift. There is currently no better alternative path, assuming lockdowns are a non-starter for a variety of reasons including child development, mental health, economic, etc.

Pointing out challenges with existing approaches is fine, but we must also review the alternatives … which in this case is what? The GBD approach? I think current hospitalization numbers in low vax communities and the challenges of truly identifying and protecting ‘high risk’ populations are severely over simplified from both a systems and ethics standpoint.

In short, vaccinations are still the best path towards a manageable endemic and a socially and financially inclusive society for ‘high risk’ individuals. IMO.

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Go get informed. Do you have kids in public school? Just check out the extensive list of required vaccinations for students in my town. And last fall, Baker added influenza to the list. To single out Covid as somehow being exceptional to this norm, especially considering it's been proven to result in so much death and havoc, is irrational.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...hxfEppK_I/edit

Lead testing is another big one that some school systems are big on. No lead test, no admittance.


After sending 3 off to public schools, required immunizations is really nothing new or unexpected.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

The problem with taking a ‘reserved’ approach in this instance is one cannot do so in vacuum devoid of alternative consequences. At this point there are multiple studies which have addressed ADE concerns and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that the ADE risk is near zero, albeit short of zero. Primary concern is loss of vaccine efficacy over time due to antigenic drift, which we’ve already seen with the Delta variant.

At this point it’s advisable for individuals without immunity (natural or artificial, with the former I agree with the GBD thought leaders) to seek immunization, both to lower disease risks and possibilities of infection / antigenic drift. There is currently no better alternative path, assuming lockdowns are a non-starter for a variety of reasons including child development, mental health, economic, etc.

Pointing out challenges with existing approaches is fine, but we must also review the alternatives … which in this case is what? The GBD approach? I think current hospitalization numbers in low vax communities and the challenges of truly identifying and protecting ‘high risk’ populations are severely over simplified from both a systems and ethics standpoint.

In short, vaccinations are still the best path towards a manageable endemic and a socially and financially inclusive society for ‘high risk’ individuals. IMO.

It also takes us out of the current situation where we’re going to bankrupt all the hospitals because they have to pay $6k/week for traveling nurses after all their staff quits from treating all the idiots who aren’t vaccinated. The financials for the hospital holding companies who own the regional hospitals in red states is really ugly. CHS is on the ropes. That’s 84 hospitals that are almost all in low vaccination rate regions. Boston largely doesn’t have that problem because even the low income areas had big community outreach and have relatively high vaccination rates.

Again, it’s your civic duty to get vaccinated.