Coronavirus

I’m sorry, but this seems so very childish.

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Not to me. I'm the same way. I've been vaccinated (and had the booster), and I'm fine with that. But I don't want to see anyone lose a job over not getting the vaccine, except in certain lines of work like healthcare.

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Their choice. They won’t lose their job if they get vaccinated.

Very divisive subject & that’s all I’m gonna say.

I could provide reasons, but I'm afraid it would be construed as "political".

I'll just say that you catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar.

What drives a lot of people to rebel or resist is the simple act of telling them they must.

And forcing people to choose between feeding their children and a government mandate is not a reasonable choice, rather, as I heard a pro athlete say last night, "It is not a choice, it is an ultimatum."

And there is a vindictiveness to these mandates: they are removing unemployment insurance (U.I.) benefits from people who are fired over the mandate. Why would this be? U.I. is a system workers pay into during their entire working life - this is their insurance policy, but it is being denied as an added level of spitefulness. Same with health insurance - many are losing it when fired over the mandate (kind of ironic since the whole issue is a health issue).

And many such as ER doctors & nurses (who were all hailed as "heroes" last year) have reported they are told they will be blacklisted after being fired as a condition of the mandate so they cannot even seek new employment at any other hospitals or in the future.

This mandate is destroying the lives of people, many of whom have had & recovered from the virus and thus have natural immunity, or those who have health concerns or medical exemptions, and may be destroying the lives of people who are perfectly willing to practice mitigation procedures but may never even contract or carry the virus themselves.

Not to mention what it's doing to society as there are now increasing mass shortages of first responders: police, firefighters, EMT's, doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, soldiers, national guard, various military personnel & hospital staff, utility workers and the list goes on & on.

The very thing the initial Covid-19 lockdowns were supposed to prevent (Hospitals becoming overwhelmed) is now occurring not because of the virus, but because of the mandates.

There could have been many alternatives to firings that would have been more compassionate, less destructive, less divisive, more cost effective and less dangerous than trying to find immediate (and potentially unqualified) replacements for people with decades of experience or suffering sudden, severe staff shortages in the most critical areas.

@Captain Steel I repped your last covid post, not because I'm anti-vax, I'm not...but because I appreciate the way you calmly and intelligently explained your position and made logical points while keeping it friendly too. Good post, even though I'm mostly on the other side of the fence.

Thanks Rules. I also am not anti-vax, as I explained yesterday, only anti-mandate.

The gov should have continued on with messages that all of us will beat this together, we're all on the same team, we are a united country and our common enemy is the virus, it's humanity against the virus, we ARE going to get through this and we will win in 2022 and the best & quickest way to do it... the ONLY way to keep the virus from continuing any longer than it has to... to help yourself and everyone else is to get the vaccine.

I think such messages in a spirit of unity would have been far more effective (and, of course, we'll never get 100% compliance no matter what), but the mandates were just the worst direction to take.

It's simple psychology - the moment you tell everyone they HAVE to (or threaten their livelihoods, income & careers - which is even worse) - is the moment a certain percentage will oppose it just because they resist the government telling them they HAVE to and become angry & adversarial over having their jobs threatened.

Already the mandates have created division, setting one group against another, encouraging a caste system of the "clean" and the "unclean", created resistance, solidified those already in opposition and pushed over the edge many who were just on the fence.

They are literally destroying lives (as I outlined in my last post) while endangering society with staff shortages of our most essential workers in hospitals and many other areas.

Captain, I said this once before but let me run this by you. What would you think if there was no vac mandates but the next stimulus check was tied to getting or having been vaccinated.

*Be vaccinated, get a 1000 bucks!* that type of idea.

No idea is 100% perfect of course, but that idea would have gotten more people vaccinated with less division in the country...and I really feel a big division is growing over this and that's not a good thing.

I actually talked about this (over on the Soapbox) coincidentally.

I wasn't aware any incentives might be tied to stimulus checks so that's news to me.

But I'd heard Biden was toying with the idea of cash rewards to people getting the vax as far back as last spring.

My only problem with that rumor being exposed is now lots of people are holding off getting the vaccine JUST to see if there will be cash payouts - and don't want to miss out.

And the other problem is people already vaxxed will want reparations... "Hold outs are getting paid to take the vaccine, while I was a guinea pig for free?" And I could understand that attitude too.

I'm not opposed to the idea, but it is problematic.

Many places did this: for example, drawing a name every day for a month of people who were vaccinated (including before the promotion began, so early vaccinated people didn't miss out) to win several thousand dollars.

I also feel like . . . there were a LOT of incentives for a very long while. Different places were giving out cash, prizes, tickets, etc.

Sorry, Rules, I misread your post the first time.

I think it's a neat idea (especially the part about no mandates = the "carrot" not the "stick")
but would still have the same problems I mentioned before.

Or heck, avoid any "reparations" problems and just pay everyone who has already gotten or who gets the vaccine in another stimulus check (which I think is what you were saying).

Problems or not, it would be a far better and less destructive & divisive solution than what is resulting from the mandates. Probably something they should have considered before making mandates.

Again, there were a whole lot of things they could have done - but they chose the worst course of action that will only guarantee a now very angry percentage of the population opposing the vaccine just on principal over the mandates.

Since we're now actively discussing the mandates (I will still attempt not getting "political" if it's possible to debate government mandates without doing so) - I also wonder if we are not on the cusp of herd immunity?

I've pointed out many times on this thread how long the Spanish flu (of 1918 - 1920) lasted with no vaccines, no treatments & no modern medicine... and how right now we are only about 4 months away from that same timeframe but WITH vaccines, treatments, & the advances of modern medicine.

Now, I realize there are variables - it's not the same virus, the world's population is many many times greater than a century ago, but our modern vaccines & treatments should help even out these variables. (There was no vaccine for the Spanish flu - yet it just "went away" after 2 years & 2 moths... and hundreds of millions of lives.)

So what I'm getting at... after all the destruction of people's lives via these mandates, what if within 4 months, early next year, the virus drops off to minimal levels - then what happens?

Are apologies offered? Are people hired back (remember, these mandates don't mean lay offs, they are firings - which are usually irreparable). Is the blacklisting of people somehow retracted? Are reparations made somehow?

This is another reason why mandates NOW is such a bad idea, because we may be right around the corner to this crisis ending (but then again... we may not.)

I don't know. I've been hearing that we're "around the corner" for over a year now. Every time the numbers go down, people go "YAY IT'S OVER" and take their masks off and have parties and then the numbers go up again.

And herd immunity is all relative. In my county, only 60% of the eligible population is vaccinated. And one group (people over the age of 65) really skew those numbers because there was such an efficient push in vaccinating elderly people here. I would wager that the percent of vaccinated people who are "out and about" (for example, the parents of my students) is much lower, maybe 40-50%. I would imagine that less than half of my students will be vaccinated once children are eligible. This is in stark contrast to my sister's school (in a different county) where vaccination numbers are much higher and many of her students over the age of 12 have gotten their vaccines.

My school's numbers are bad enough (infected students and staff/teachers) that the health department is actively beginning to question if we are at the center of an outbreak.

At a certain point, having a significant number of unvaccinated people in your workplace/hospital/office building makes that place a more dangerous place for everyone to be. And I find it particularly unfair to people who genuinely cannot get the vaccine. How do you make a safe situation? Take the example of my school. Absent a mandate, how do you make my workplace safe to take masks off when several of my colleagues will not vaccinate (or even mask properly)? There is no way to avoid having teachers and students in the same space. I obviously don't want to wreck my colleagues' lives, but at the same time they are the ones actively perpetuating this problem in our school and it's incredibly disruptive to the learning of the students.

You know what else is causing mass shortages? COVID.

COVID is leading cause of death among police officers

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And COVID-related (not vaccine-related) stress. My friends who are EMTs (and one in particular in New Orleans) has been dealing with a ton of co-workers resigning simply out of the stress and trauma of trying to function inside of an overburdened system. My New Orleans friend wrote that she had to leave people in hospital chairs instead of beds and that she was sure that several people she had to walk away from (to go to her next call) were probably going to die just out of not getting care in time.

Yes, our focus is not "have we eliminated the virus" but rather "when can I take my mask off" or "when can I go to a football game".
WHEN WE ELIMINATE THE VIRUS is the answer to those questions. Yes, I'm oversimplifying it for the sake of a rant, but my point is we're too eager to relax the rules every time numbers go down.

As for vaccine hesitancy, I know exactly one person who has expressed to me a sincere concern about the safety of the vaccine. She has no science background, and doesn't seem to question what's in the Taco Bell she eats every night, so I don't know where this hesitancy is coming from, but whatever. If everyone expressed themselves the way she does I might be more sympathetic. But all the other unvaccinated folks I know are of the "you can't make me" club. It's hard for me to keep my patience about it all.

And I'm envious whenever you mention that your county is "only" 60% vaccinated. I wish.
My county/parish is doing ok, but my job is in another parish that's well below 50%.

Fully vaccinated in my state: 44.8%
My county: 32.8%

Numbers are slowly ticking up though and I don't think we're dead last in the states list anymore.

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As much as I love you as much as one can an internet friend, I always root for Alabama to be last.

You know, “Please don’t let NC be last. *Jim Gaffigan voice* “Has everybody forgot about the bathroom stuff, yet?”

lol. There's always south Carolina and Mississippi I guess.

Woof.

Someone said to me the other day that we don't have to worry about vaccines because pretty soon everyone will have had it and they'll have antibodies. I couldn't even respond.

Like, you do realize that "everyone will have it" will involve a portion of those people dying or having long-term health ramifications, right? And that you can get COVID again even if you've had it and recovered?