[Rama Set]

Are people being held down and injected?

Pretty much. They are being told that they can't go to the hospital or to shopping centers if they don't get the injection:

"From the beginning of August, the health pass will apply to cafés, restaurants and shopping centres, as well as in hospitals, retirement homes and medical and social establishments, and also on planes, trains and buses for long journeys. Again, only those who have been vaccinated and tested negative will be allowed access to these places," Macron said earlier this week.

So no one is being held down and injected.

Ask your government why they tried to balance individual rights against collective rights.

Just a few posts ago you were arguing in favor of breaking the Nuremberg Code to force or coerce people into taking the experimental vaccines. Now you are arguing that being put into quarantine infringes on rights. 

This is spectacularly terrible, even for you. It’s sad and pathetic that you can’t make an argument without absolutely distorting what I’ve said. I regret having engaged. Go back to tilting at windmills.

[J-Man]

It now looks like info of whats in these gene therapy shots is being released. It ain't pretty.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-breaking-discovery-what-covid-injections-do-your-blood-doctor-releases-horrific-findings/5750573

[AATW]

So no one is being held down and injected.

They’re not, but I do think Tom is on to something here.

Ok, so you don’t have to have the vaccine.
But if you don’t then you can’t go into a nightclub (in the UK from September). And let’s say they extend that to restaurants and concerts and theatres. What about shops? So sure, you’re completely free to not have the vaccine. They’re not going to strap you down and make you, but they could certainly make increasing restrictions to the point where there’s not much quality of life if you don’t.

Now, I do think most people should have the vaccine. But most young people who get it will have mild symptoms. So if they decide they don’t want the vaccine then should they be coerced like this? The argument is that they could still catch it and spread it to more vulnerable people but:

1) So can vaccinated people
2) If almost all the vulnerable people have been vaccinated then they shouldn’t be at risk anyway.

I speak as someone who has been fully vaccinated, I’m young enough (just!) that I’m not at major risk, but it did seem like the right thing to do. But I do think there’s a principle here that this sort of coercion to almost force people to have the vaccine if they want to get on with their normal lives is morally questionable.

[Rama Set]

To be fair, Tom isn’t on to something. This is what you, a reasonable person, has teased out of his tripe.

I don’t think there should be government ordinances forcing businesses to act one way or another, but if a business wants to reject unvaccinated people then I support that choice. If the government wants to provide accessible, virtual alternatives to unvaccinated people to use services, I also support that.

[xasop]

The argument is that they could still catch it and spread it to more vulnerable people but:

1) So can vaccinated people

This point keeps being raised, and the best thing that can be said about it is that it is technically true. Depending on the specific vaccine, choosing not to be vaccinated increases your chances of developing symptoms by a factor of between 3 and 10. Even if you do get infected after being vaccinated, you are likely to experience a shorter time to recovery, which reduces the number of opportunities you have to spread the virus.

2) If almost all the vulnerable people have been vaccinated then they shouldn’t be at risk anyway.

Unless a new vaccine-resistant strain develops as a result of widespread recklessness around the spread of the virus, as we have already discussed in another thread.

But I do think there’s a principle here that this sort of coercion to almost force people to have the vaccine if they want to get on with their normal lives is morally questionable.

This is sort of like saying that it's morally questionable to require people with HIV to inform potential sexual partners of their condition. It is, after all, a restriction on their ability to lead a normal sex life. If you are a risk to public health and you choose not to mitigate that risk to others, you get to deal with the consequences.

[AATW]

This is sort of like saying that it's morally questionable to require people with HIV to inform potential sexual partners of their condition. It is, after all, a restriction on their ability to lead a normal sex life. If you are a risk to public health and you choose not to mitigate that risk to others, you get to deal with the consequences.

Hmm. I think that’s a bit of a false equivalence but there is a principle here worth discussing.

I’d suggest that any policy here should surely be based on how much of a risk you actually are to public health.

We are, remember, talking about a virus which has a CFR (Case Fatality Rate) of about 1% here. And that risk is very much skewed towards older people. There is “long Covid” too of course and this pandemic has caused a lot of pressure on health services around the world. But this is not a disease which is decimating populations around the world.

 So any policies to deal with it should surely be proportional to the actual risk. If someone has a disease which kills 90% of people then sure, fuck human rights. You’ve got to lock that down. But that really isn’t the case here. You have the danger of mutations but couldn’t you say that about any virus at any time?

In life we deal with risk all the time. There are rules about how we drive and rightly so. You can’t just let people do whatever they want. But you don’t make everyone drive at 20mph so no one gets run over. You balance the risk against the practicalities of being able to get places.

My gut feeling is that stopping non vaccinated people from going to venues is out of proportion to the actual risk although that is hard to quantify. And I agree with Rama that if individual businesses want to make that their policy then that is literally their business, I’m just uneasy with it being made policy and effectively creating different “classes” of people.

[Pete Svarrior]

This point keeps being raised, and the best thing that can be said about it is that it is technically true. Depending on the specific vaccine, choosing not to be vaccinated increases your chances of developing symptoms by a factor of between 3 and 10. Even if you do get infected after being vaccinated, you are likely to experience a shorter time to recovery, which reduces the number of opportunities you have to spread the virus.

It's also worth highlighting that someone asymptomatic is, in some ways*, less likely to spread the virus whilst infected. An obvious example: coughing is more likely to project aerosols/droplets over some distance than regular breathing. This is especially significant now that restrictions and other countermeasures are easing in many parts of the world.

* - Obligatory disclaimer that an asymptomatic individual can also be more likely to spread the virus due to insufficient caution - they might not be cautious if they don't even know they're infectious.

[xasop]

I’d suggest that any policy here should surely be based on how much of a risk you actually are to public health.

Agreed.

My gut feeling is that stopping non vaccinated people from going to venues is out of proportion to the actual risk although that is hard to quantify.

That's a position I can respect, but only if you are consistent and also say that lockdown was always an excessive measure. If a vaccine-resistant strain develops, and if lockdown is a justifiable measure against a strain of this virus for which we have no vaccine, then allowing unvaccinated people to spread the virus is only likely to bring another year of lockdown while new vaccines are developed.

So, either there is no significant risk involved and we won't need another lockdown to deal with a vaccine-resistant strain — in which case we shouldn't have had the lockdown we already had — or we should be doing all we can to avoid further lockdowns with incentives to be vaccinated.

[AATW]

My gut feeling is that stopping non vaccinated people from going to venues is out of proportion to the actual risk although that is hard to quantify.

That's a position I can respect, but only if you are consistent and also say that lockdown was always an excessive measure.

My opinion about that has changed a few times during the pandemic.
We have spoken about the consequences of lockdowns - there is a debate to be had about whether this was a situation serious enough to justify lockdowns. I actually spoke to a doctor about this - she wasn't sure either. As she noted, what we can't know is what would have happened had we not locked down. This was definitely a situation which required a response, whether lockdowns were the right response...I'm a bit sceptical about that. Especially about the way they've been implemented here. We have typically locked down too late and with so many exceptions to render them ineffective. It's been lose lose - we've still had large waves of deaths and full hospitals and all the effects that lockdowns cause. Australia seem to have done this far more effectively with lockdowns being imposed quickly and been much stricter. They've had 1,269 cases per million (we've had 83,057) and 35 deaths per million (we've had 1,890).
(source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)
So if you are going to do lockdowns, do them properly or don't bother.

[Roundy]

I go back to the office in a couple weeks, and I'm not looking forward to it. It's going to be challenging to avoid directly blaming every asshole I come across who refuses to get the vaccine for the surges we're seeing right now.

It's become very simple; we are essentially two societies now. One is saying "I'm gonna do what I can to mitigate the spread of this virus in service of the greater good."

The other is saying "Fuck the greater good, MAH RIGHTS! ".

That side that's more concerned about individual rights than the greater good. Well fine, technically maybe you shouldn't be forced to be vaccinated. But understand something.

You are the problem! You! If we end up going through oppressive lockdowns again, it will be entirely your fault! If a new variant comes about that is resistant to this vaccine and sends us back to square one, that's ALL ON YOU! Because freedom!

So, you know, go ahead and cling to this fantasy that you're doing what's right by standing up for your rights ( and that you're not, you know, acting as a political puppet by standing up for your right to not do something for the greater good). In the beginning, this pandemic was everybody's problem equally. No matter what your political affiliation, this problem couldn't be blamed on any of us as individuals. But that changed as soon as effective vaccines were found. From that point on we all took on some
personal responsibility for eradicating this thing.

If you're refusing to get the vaccine you are the problem. Period. Keep whingeing about your rights, whatever. Keep whining that steps taken to ensure enough of the population takes the vaccine to eliminate the problem are fascist. Fine. You have rights as an individual and no one should be able to force you to do anything medical if you don't want to, blah blah blah.

If that's your attitude, all the ill this virus causes from here on out is on your shoulders. Period.

It's going to be very difficult for me to not share this point of view loudly and vocally when I go back in to the office.

[Lord Dave]

I get my first dose next week.

[Action80]

The most absolutely morally reprehensible thing ever foisted upon this forum is the fear mongering pushed by the usual crowd here. A disease that has a survivability rate of 99.7 percent for ALL creatures, great and small.

Think about it. A vaccine for a disease that has (at best, as the numbers were acknowledged to be inflated from the get go by Dr. Birx) a 99.7 percent survivability rate for EVERYONE!

Those pushing the fear agenda should go lie down in a corner somewhere.

[AATW]

A disease that has a survivability rate of 99.7 percent for ALL creatures, great and small.

What is your source for that figure?

[Action80]

Look it up yourself. I am not going to do work for you.

There are 7 billion people in the world.

Even if you take the inflated death toll numbers of this disease (and that is a fact the death toll was overreported and misattributed), this disease is a NOTHING BURGER and the only reason for its hype is to serve the BIG LIE, successfully promulgated and promoted by people like you.

[AATW]

Look it up yourself.

I have, some time ago, and I got a very different answer. So I'm interested in your source.

Even if you take the inflated death toll numbers of this disease (and that is a fact the death toll was overreported and misattributed), this disease is a NOTHING BURGER

I disagree. Here are the age adjusted figures for all cause mortality in the UK. It's 30 years of data with a consistently falling mortality rate and then last year it jumps up. And it's worth noting that many of the Covid deaths came in 2021 so it'll be interesting to see what the graph will be like when this year's data is added.



So something caused a lot of extra deaths last year, and looking at the data in the UK this Jan/Feb I suspect we'll see that this year too. So it's clearly not nothing.

The problem here is none of us have lived through a pandemic before. Some people seem to be expecting piles of bodies in the street like in Contagion. I don't think that's how these things play out in real life.

The CFR is about 1% in a developed country from the things I've read. And that's skewed towards older people. Plus there's people who get "long Covid". Sure, they might not die but they're getting quite poorly for a long time. This isn't just the flu. It's clearly a situation which demanded a response. I'm not convinced lockdowns were the right response but a lot of people were dying, a lot of others were getting ill enough to require hospital treatment and that was putting a lot of pressure on health services and meant it required a response.

Whether it was the right response is a different debate.

[Action80]

^ Claiming that a single disease wiped out over .3 percent of the world's population last year.

AMAZING!

[Roundy]

The most absolutely morally reprehensible thing ever foisted upon this forum is the fear mongering pushed by the usual crowd here. A disease that has a survivability rate of 99.7 percent for ALL creatures, great and small.

Think about it. A vaccine for a disease that has (at best, as the numbers were acknowledged to be inflated from the get go by Dr. Birx) a 99.7 percent survivability rate for EVERYONE!

Those pushing the fear agenda should go lie down in a corner somewhere.

I'm really not trying to fearmonger here. I'm just being real. If you want to put your individual rights above getting rid of this thing for good that's your prerogative; you're right, you have the right to be a douchebag and ruin life for everyone else. Just understand that that's what you're doing by standing up to the rights that Tucker Carlson tells you you should be standing up for. Enjoy that empty exercise of "freedom". But I will be blaming you personally for everything bad we have to deal with from this thing from here on out, including any further restrictions on our freedom. If we have another lockdown it's your fault, Lackey. If a variant comes about that is resistant to the vaccine it's your fault, Lackey. Because Tucker Carlson told you to stand up for your rights, you puppet.

At this point I'm not going for fear. I'm more going for shame and possibly ostracization.

[AATW]

^ Claiming that a single disease wiped out over .3 percent of the world's population last year.

AMAZING!

Is that a response to me? How the hell did you get that from my post?
You really have to stop straw manning people.

[Lord Dave]

Look it up yourself. I am not going to do work for you.

There are 7 billion people in the world.

Even if you take the inflated death toll numbers of this disease (and that is a fact the death toll was overreported and misattributed), this disease is a NOTHING BURGER and the only reason for its hype is to serve the BIG LIE, successfully promulgated and promoted by people like you.

There's no point in debating if you don't understand statistics, the basis for why this virus was so dangerous, hospitalization rates, or that 99.99999% of species "great and small" can't get this disease so the survival rate for them is 100%

[Action80]

The most absolutely morally reprehensible thing ever foisted upon this forum is the fear mongering pushed by the usual crowd here. A disease that has a survivability rate of 99.7 percent for ALL creatures, great and small.

Think about it. A vaccine for a disease that has (at best, as the numbers were acknowledged to be inflated from the get go by Dr. Birx) a 99.7 percent survivability rate for EVERYONE!

Those pushing the fear agenda should go lie down in a corner somewhere.

I'm really not trying to fearmonger here. I'm just being real. If you want to put your individual rights above getting rid of this thing for good that's your prerogative; you're right, you have the right to be a douchebag and ruin life for everyone else.

At this particular point in time you have ZERO evidence for even making this statement.

Hence, you are not being REAL, you are being FALSE.

Just understand that that's what you're doing by standing up to the rights that Tucker Carlson tells you you should be standing up for.

Just understand I do not do what others tell me to do, unless they are in a position of authority over me (at this point in my life that would be my father and my current supervisor, and even in those cases, I would weigh any potential consequences in a determination as to whether or not I would comply with the directions given, as all thinking people should do). So, you are still not REAL and remain firmly FALSE.

Enjoy that empty exercise of "freedom".

I will enjoy every moment of my life, not bound by your ilk.

But I will be blaming you personally for everything bad we have to deal with from this thing from here on out, including any further restrictions on our freedom. If we have another lockdown it's your fault, Lackey. If a variant comes about that is resistant to the vaccine it's your fault, Lackey. Because Tucker Carlson told you to stand up for your rights, you puppet.

At this point I'm not going for fear. I'm more going for shame and possibly ostracization.

LOL!!! Good luck with that.

Both actions you describe are "children of fear."

You entire post is simply weak and silly. Not surprising in the least.