This is the point where we have to stop making trade offs of choice and liberty in the name of "security". Give the public open data about the effectiveness of the vaccine and then let people make their own decisions about what to do. The moralization and judgement about the vaccine has become ludicrous.
If you're scared to do things around others even if you're vaccinated, then that's fine. We cannot accept a societal change towards mandating choices for people. It will be very, very hard for us to walk that back.
> then let people make their own decisions about what to do
As we see, they go to crowded places, unvaccinated, and spread the virus. I think that's irresponsible. Is that "ludicrous moralization and judgement?"
irresponsible to who? The other people that have made the same decision and accepted the risk? or the people who are vaccinated and have pretty close to zero risk?
Vaccine effectiveness is changing every day. In Israel they're seeing 16% efficacy 6 months after the 2nd Pfizer dose.
Also, benefits are only one half of the cost:benefit analysis. Where is the public data on side effects? It doesn't exist because all we have is completely unverified VAERS claims.
You can't make an informed decision when you only know half the equation.
> If you're scared to do things around others even if you're vaccinated, then that's fine.
This has been a societal change in the making for quite some time. It used to be that if one were uncomfortable they were free to not participate, one's requirements were not an onus on others. Now people feel free to create onus on others.
Today people feel free to demand that others comply to their requirements to feel safe rather than relying on/increasing their own self protection and isolation standard.
I'm sorry but the whole "let people make their own decisions" is BS.
Making epidemiological decisions isn't something that most people are qualified to do. I have seen the takes from random people and 99% of them are abject garbage.
The exact point is that we don't know, but if we're going to discuss who's got good takes and who doesn't, I want that to be an informed debate between informed people looking for constructive arguments based on data, not internet randos.
The science around covid has been fluid this entire time. We aren't even sure if these vaccines will work against other covid variants in the future.
What makes anyone qualified to make decisions over someone else's choice of what they should put in their body? If the vaccines are effective, then you can make the choice if you feel comfortable getting them and then being around other people.
I don't even think people realize what they're saying when they say "most people aren't qualified to make decisions". I mean, seriously?
The death rate of covid for healthy individuals is still very low. Even lower if you're vaccinated. We should _not_ sacrifice personal choice in the name of public safety.
Give people the data and let them make their own choices.
> The science around covid has been fluid this entire time. We aren't even sure if these vaccines will work against other covid variants in the future.
Science _is_ fluid by its very nature because it's a process, not an outcome.
But processes can be well-executed or not. Scientists, with all their human and institutional flaws, are still just so, so much more qualified than the lay public to make informed opinions that it's not even funny.
It's the same as with doctors: a medical second opinions is obtained from another doctor, not by yourself, because ultimately expert opinions may be challenged by others who have at least a similar amount of training and expertise.
Lay opinions have gigantic, brutal knowledge gaps. The gaps are so huge as to make lay opinions essentially useless.
I have spent an hour a day, every day, since the beginning of the pandemic, reading up on the scientific literature of COVID. I am overeducated geek with a computer science degree. Do you know how many reasonable assertions I can make about the pandemic? About as much as validating that the calculations behind the p-values of studies are correct, and nothing more. I can, at most, summarize and explain the high-level reasoning behind most epidemiologists' and governments's decisions, with the pros and cons that they themselves have suggested.
We are talking about over 600 hours of research as an educated layman and still no novel conclusions. To think that people who have spent at most a fraction of that time, with no university-level knowledge of statistics or basics of germ theory, can make reasonable assumptions, has no relation to reality.
Science has been fluid ... as additional facts, experience, data, and expertise are gained.
The science-denying objections to the science has been ... remarkably consistent in shrillness, interneal inconsistency, and studied refusal to accept facts and demonstrated evidence.
I'm not scared for myself, I'm scared for people on anti-rejection medicine (for example) who have taken vaccines but still can't produce the necessary antibodies. These people have to contend with their fellow man deciding against all rational thought to become a potential walking plague vessel.
It is as if some subset of humanity decided to start driving their cars blindfolded and the internet commentariat proclaimed, "their car, their choice! Spare us your ludicrous moralization and judgement!"
The mortality rate for younger individuals is very low, and was low prior to a vaccine being available. We are almost 20 months into this pandemic. The virus is definitely more lethal for at risk groups but the lethality for the general population is overblown.
The biggest reason is disinformation coming from social media and conservative media outlets. That can't be fixed while respecting the first amendment.
That approach is being tried with some positive results, but it doesn't alter the fact that there is a tide of disinformation being pumped out day after day, a phenomenon few seem willing to engage with.
I'm not getting it because I had covid before it was even cool(Jan 2020). I also have zero trust in the FDA(See Docu Bleeding Edge) have experienced AE and SAE personally from flu, tdap and hep vaccines and I've watched my step daughter go from speaking and developing normally to pissing herself while rocking and screaming, to be told by medical staff that "it's impossible this was caused by the vaccine, take some ibuprofen".
So yeah, multiple levels, very little trust in the "system" to take care of me and my family.
If you're scared to do things around others even if you're vaccinated, then that's fine. We cannot accept a societal change towards mandating choices for people. It will be very, very hard for us to walk that back.