Almost daily, we read reports of those individuals who chose to not get vaccinated or worse yet, also spread misinformation about the virus and the vaccine have become infected and are now hospitalized. Honestly, I’ve had enough. When I hear that one of them has died, I only feel relief that the virus has one less opportunity to mutate and spread. I have no sympathy for the deceased.
I say it is time to turn up the heat on Covid Deniers as they are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Here are some of my suggestions.
- The Justice Department should allow any private insurer to reject any medical claims to their policy holders who have not been vaccinated and have since become infected and need medical care.
- In the case of those on Medicare, any costs associated with a Covid infection to those not vaccinated will be deducted from Social Security payments.
- In the case of Medicaid or anyone unable to pay what their insurance company will no longer cover, any care they receive will be provided on a “stand by” basis by the hospitals, meaning that should a hospital reach its capacity and had non vaccinated patients, those patients will be removed from the hospital and sent to a non-medical holding area in order to open up a bed for a vaccinated individual who needs a bed.
Yes, these are rather barbaric, possibly selfish, and cruel……but no more so than refusing to get the vaccine and spreading misinformation about the virus.
Please share widely!
Amen.
Employees who are fired for refusing be vaccinated should not be eligible to receive unemployment benefits. This is already the case in many states.
Unemployment benefits have never been, nor should they be, available to those who voluntarily terminate their employment. Refusing an employer vaccination mandate is already treated as a voluntary termination in at least some states.
That should be universal, and mainstream media should be hammering that home.
I think it’s time to start calling these nutcases the “American Taliban”.
This week when the real Taliban is resurgent and wrecking havoc, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to invoke that name in the service of political rhetoric.
The events unfolding in Afghanistan are precisely why I chose to invoke it today.
Sedition and wreaking havoc is the entire purpose of today’s GOP. While I agree that the Afghanistan Taliban more accomplished, that is not for want of effort on the part of their counterparts in today’s GOP.
The Taliban show us where today’s GOP is doing all in its power to take us.
I stand by my suggestion that we start calling today’s GOP the “American Taliban”.
Do you seriously think the Republicans would turn the USA into Afghanistan if they could? That sounds to me about as obnoxious as accusations that Democrats want to turn the USA into Venezuela or Cuba.
Republican figures have called for those who mandate vaccines be shot. The entire thrust of the GOP after the 2020 election has been to enable Republican legislatures to overturn election results they don’t like. Multiple Republican states have filed legal action to deny women the constitutional protections that now exist.
Yes, I think today’s Republicans are clearly telling their supporters and everyone else that they are eager to impose their prejudices, superstitions, and vicious cruelty on anyone and everyone they choose.
I think you are abject denial about what has been happening across the entire nation.
It’s a small step from denying unemployment to someone fired for refusing to be vaccinated to denying unemployment to someone who is fired because because the employer doesn’t want to pay the higher insurance rates for people who engage in “dangerous” sexual practices.
Can we at least agree that this would be bad? And that making up insulting nicknames is counterproductive?
Nonsense and rubbish.
Take this conversation back about thirty years and substitute “unprotected sex” for “covid denier”. The approach you advocate has little to do with public health and a lot to do with flaunting your superiority to those other people.
This comment is offensively ignorant, as well as utterly false.
There was no vaccine for HIV. As horrific as the HIV epidemic was, it was not remotely comparable to COVID. The paranoia about HIV/Aids and concomitant hate directed towards its victims was completely without foundation. HIV was never spread by casual contact. COVID doesn’t require even that.
Either you don’t know about the difference between the two diseases or you don’t care.
Your commentary has little do with facts or reality and a lot to do with flaunting your claimed and undeserved superiority towards the few participants left on this site.
And next years “regular” flu vaccine, Uncle Billy dies from covid or regular flu he’s still dead from a “casual contact” disease?
Unvaccinated Uncle Billy is MANY times more at risk from COVID than from flu.
I agree unvaccinated Billy is more at risk from either.
But here’s the question, you want to punish Billy for not getting the Covid flu shot, would you punish him the same if he doesn’t get the regular flu shot? 36,000 people a year die from regular flu.
So where’s your threshold? Only 100,000 a year triggers your draconian measures?
The CDC reports (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm) that 614,543 people are already dead from COVID.
That’s about TWO HUNDRED times the annual death toll from the flu.
Vaccine mandates have been in place since the Revolution — George Washington required American troops to be vaccinated against Smallpox . Most states (including Florida) already have mandates for the following vaccines:
There is nothing “draconian” about mandating COVID vaccines and enforcing those mandates with the same force and power that existing mandates have been enforced for centuries.
Just want to know about next years regular flu shot?
Mandatory or not? Unemployment denied if you don’t get it.
You’re just trolling.
I think it’s very unlikely that next year’s flu shot will be mandatory.
Not trolling just gauging your threshold for when the government can compel action. 600,000 deaths not acceptable so force people but 36,000 are? When you don’t want to answer just say that, don’t deflect.
I wonder about your threshold for when the government can compel action as well.
I wonder if you also view mandatory seatbelt laws as a “draconian” measure.
I wonder if the tidal wave of innocent blood from gun violence in this nation is enough to cross your threshold for when the government can compel action.
Do you believe that the government mandates for the other vaccines are draconian?
The Polio epidemic of 1952 affected “only” 58,000 cases and killed “only” 3,145. There were “only” 21,269 cases of paralysis. By your standards, the Polio vaccine mandates that have been pretty much universal since 1955 are “draconian” — Polio affects far fewer people than the Flu, and at its worst hit orders of magnitude fewer people than Covid.
See, I think you’re intentionally seeking “gotcha” questions that are driven by politics rather than any sincere concern with facts or data. I don’t know if that’s “trolling” or not, but the result is the same.
I don’t know if there is an exact threshold for mandatory Covid vaccinations. I know that with the current virus and its variants and the current state of our dysfunctional health care system and badly broken data reporting mechanisms, the threshold is more then 36,000 and substantially less than 600,000.
I hope you agree.
You misunderstand my position. The government can and does compel behavior, most often for the greater good. I want the compulsion expanded in certain situations. No entry into the country at the border unless you’ve had your shots. No one should be waiting for a kidney transplant while healthy people are sitting on death row. There should never be a blood shortage while inmates are sitting in prison, donating blood monthly can take a week off their sentence for every gallon they donate. Better general health for society as a whole.
The more commentary you offer, the more you confirm my sense that I understand your position exactly.
You are conflating your personal biases and prejudices with actual data, actual facts, and actual reality.
Your focus on the border exemplifies your cluelessness about the many serious issues that we face. This remains true no matter what the American Taliban on Fox News or the GOP say. Governor Abbot and Governor DeSantis loudly peddle lies that stir up their receptive audiences (apparently including you) and that are flagrantly intended to curry favor with the disgruntled and disgraced Russian asset currently living in Mar-a-Lago.
Illegal immigration is near the bottom of issues that actually influence the general health of society as a whole.
Florida and Texas lead the world in shameful and immoral suffering and death. Tens of thousands of schoolchildren are at extreme risk in those two states alone — that risk has NOTHING AT ALL to do with border security.
Children are dying in Florida and Texas. They are being infected by their family, friends, and neighbors — all perfectly legal citizens — who not only refuse to take simple precautions, but who actively threaten, abuse, and attempt to punish those who do.
No child should suffer disease or death because the masks that will protect them are not allowed in the school they are compelled to attend.
I agree masks should be worn. I wear them myself and have had shots. Having an open border where people coming in the country illegally may or may not have shots certainly doesn’t help control a pandemic does it?
They don’t have passports let alone covid passports. You’re willing to compel citizens to get shots why not them?
I’m not interested in pursuing an irrelevant and racist discussion.
Withholding insurance coverage or providing medical care “on a standby basis” because you think the patient wasn’t careful enough is exactly what bigots proposed back in the 90’s. Proposing it now is still bigotry.
The only difference now is that the shoe is on the other foot.
Smokers pay a higher health insurance premium in many cases. Is that bigotry?
Alcoholics in need of a liver transplant are denied a place in the queue when a donor is available. Is that bigotry?
Let’s start the bigotry by only providing health care to citizens. Again should yearly flu vaccines be required or only this covid shot?
Health care should be provided to all. Should we require this with the flu vaccine? Not at this point but if we had a variant of the flu that was as contagious and deadly as Covid-19, sure.
Vaccinated people have a relatively low risk of getting severe COVID, or so I have been told. So are the steps you propose really justified according to the criteria you are suggesting?
Or are you just pissed off (as I am) with the antics of some of these anti-vaxers?
Unvaccinated people are a petri dish that cultures even more dangerous variants that threaten all of us — the Delta variant is just the first of many.
The proposed steps directly address that risk by using the full force and power of government to reduce the pool of unvaccinated people. Immigration status is irrelevant.
The Delta variant is lethal to school children who are not yet eligible for any vaccine. So long as that is the case, then mask mandates in schools are the only option to minimize the risk to them. Those children who live in the eight southern states that actively block vaccine programs are endangered by the community of unvaccinated adults that surround them.
While it is true that today’s vaccinated population is at low from death or serious illness, it is also true that vaccinated people harbor and transmit the virus just as effectively as the unvaccinated. This is why masking is still required, especially in schools and other indoor gatherings in COVID hotspots.
The short answer to your perhaps rhetorical question (“are the steps you propose really justified according to the criteria you are suggesting?“) is “yes”.
I reluctantly agree with masks in schools for now, but my understanding is that breakthrough cases of any degree of severity are very rare. IOW, the probability of a vaccinated person having even an asymptomatic case is extremely low.
There you go again with phrases like “extremely low”.
The data is clear and compelling that breakthrough infections of the Delta variant are dramatically increasing among those already vaccinated. That’s why the FDA is in the process of encouraging booster shots for everyone eight months after their initial round.
It should be noted that we still have very little data about the long-term effects of low-grade COVID infections, especially among children. Some (not all) of the emerging data is very concerning.
The current vaccines are safe and effective. They are not perfect. We should expect to have annual or semi-annual COVID boosters for the foreseeable future.
Because the unvaccinated population is so effective at breeding new and potentially even more dangerous variants, our reluctance to mandate COVID vaccination today means that the situation will be very much worse a year from today.
No need to argue with me over vaccines. My point is that masks for the vaccinated hardly seem necessary. I’m only parroting what I’ve heard the experts say about the rarity of breakthrough cases. What I don’t understand is why such reluctance to take the next logical step. Today the Superintendent of the school system in which I substitute teach released a memo announcing that at least to start masks will be required, but only that he is “urging parents to get their eligible children vaccinated”. Why not absolutely require the latter for middle and high school?
Understood.
Masks are needed for the vaccinated, especially in schools, because vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the Delta variant as unvaccinated people.
The primary purpose of masks — at least the cloth and paper masks commonly in use — is to prevent an infected person from spreading the virus to others.
Since children are not yet eligible for vaccines, and since the Delta variant targets children, masks are particularly important around children — especially in indoor settings.
The only reason I can think of is that the vaccines are still offered under an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization). There is a school of thought that mandates are not appropriate until full FDA approval is issued.
The latter is apparently expected in a matter of days.
I understand that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread as unvaccinated people, but they are very unlikely to get it in the first place and thus would have nothing to spread.
Have you been hiding under a rock for the last two weeks?
Vaccinated people with minor or asymptomatic infection with the Delta variant are a major vector in the currently unfolding spike.
The daily new case count in Middlesex County for Tuesday (17-Aug) was 14.545 cases per 100K people. That compares with 2.092 on July 17 and 0.78 on June 17. The Massachusetts threshold for preventing the continued expansion of the disease is 8 per 100k people. The CDC reports that 66.5% of the population of Middlesex County is fully vaccinated, and that number understates reality because some Middlesex County vaccinations end up being flagged as being from an “unknown” county in the CDC database.
The Delta variant is spreading among vaccinated people right here in Massachusetts.
Your perceptions of this pandemic are wildly out of step with reality.
I thought I was still hearing breakthrough cases of any level of severity are rare. I understand that this is true:
However it was still my understanding that the above sentence does not apply to more than a relative handful of people.
Also I still think the thresholds are ridiculously low. 8/100K does not seem worth all this.
Finally, an aside – I just now noticed the word “admin” next to your name in comments you make. When did that happen?
That was true earlier this summer. It is no longer true, especially in the south. There is clear evidence that the efficacy of the original vaccines begins to fade after 6-8 months.
It still prevents most serious and fatal consequences, but it increasingly allows low-grade and asymptomatic (but still very contagious) infection.
That is not an arbitrary number pulled out of the air by popularity-seeking politicians. It corresponds to the observed value of R0 (“r-naught”), a measure of how an infection is spreading in a community. When the daily rate is below the threshold, then the various interventions (masking, distancing, vaccinations, etc) are working and the pandemic is receding. When the daily rate is above that threshold, then the pandemic is expanding.
You might as well complain that the acceleration due to gravity (9.8 M/sec2) or the average human body temperature (98.6 deg F) is “ridiculously low”.
If anything, it is likely to be too high. That value was derived based on how contagious the original COVID virus was. We know that Delta variant is FAR more contagious, and also targets a much younger population. If anything, the threshold should be much lower, because the Delta variant is so much more aggressive.
Further, the Delta variant now dominates new infections. That means that future variants that emerge will be mutations of the Delta variant. We don’t yet know whether the aggressiveness will prove to be persistent.
Your personal feelings are completely irrelevant to whether or not the threshold is accurate. The fact that so many counties in Massachusetts are again greatly exceeding that threshold is a smoking gun that says we are not yet out of the woods.
In the still-unfolding transition of the site as Charley steps aside, a group of us volunteered to help guide the transition. That tag indicates that the individual has elevated privileges for grooming the site.
So how and when do we get out of this vicious cycle?! (A rhetorical question to which I don’t expect you to necessarily know the answer, but boy am I frustrated.) I got vaccinated to help put a stop to this and while I’m certainly not saying I regret doing that, it does sometimes seem these days that it was all for naught. Is it really going to be back to masks and distancing until EVERYONE gets with the program on vaccines? Once children can get the shots we should just stop. The vaccinated can live with the milder cases and the unvaccinated have only themselves to blame.
(Update: I just did a quick search on breakthrough cases and every source that came up is still indicating extremely low breakthrough rates. At least some of those sources were updated this week.)
Further update – saw this just today:
Of course the vaccines are working. After I received the first Shingles vaccine six years ago, I still had an outbreak. It was so mild I thought it was bug bites or an allergic reaction so I went to my doctor to check it out. When he told me it was Shingles – he pointed out that the vaccine still worked because my case was so mild. Sadly, a friend of mine who did not get the vaccine early enough had a major outbreak and lost some vision in one of his eyes.
Vaccines work.
I’m not questioning that vaccines are working individually to mitigate the severity of any case I might get. I’m saying my primary motive for getting one was a collective rather than individual benefit and I’m not able to take advantage of that the way I was hoping to.
The collective benefit is that when enough people are vaccinated to cross the “herd immunity” threshold, then a virus is unable to transmit itself to enough people to sustain its growth.
R0 (“R-naught) is the average number of people that one infected person transmits a virus to. When R0 is less than 1, then the virus eventually dies out.
Vaccinated people are less likely to become infected than unvaccinated people. The efficacy of the traditional mumps component of the MMR vaccine is about 65% after one dose and 85% after two (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15950329/). That means that a vaccinated person still has a 15-35% chance of getting mumps (although the symptoms are less). The near 100% vaccination coverage in this country means that the US population has achieved herd immunity against mumps. Cases still occur, but it is not the scourge it once was.
The primary public health benefits of COVID vaccination are to:
We are almost certainly going to have to live with at least occasional masking, distancing, and lockdowns (along with isolation and quarantine regimes) for at least the next few years.
Our health care system was already dysfunctional and this pandemic has almost surely broken it. Our culture is now so toxic that anti-vaxers are literally assaulting teachers, school-board members, and health-care providers. What’s left of one major political party has made vaccination opposition (along with masks and social distance) a centerpiece of its suicidal public policy.
Because America is more polarized, more ignorant, and has a far more dysfunctional health care delivery system than the rest of the first world, we can expect to be among the last of the first world nations to leave all this behind — if we ever do.
Repeat after me:
Your comment shows confirmation bias in action. You apparently do not notice the KEY point that you’re missing.
Masking slows the SPREAD of the virus. Masks are needed because many vaccinated people are being infected by the Delta variant. That infection produces minor immediate symptoms. The lack of symptoms does NOT mean the person is not contagious.
Please read the following statement from the CDC about their breakthrough case data (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html, emphasis mine):
Please read the highlighted text slowly and carefully. Since May of this year (four months ago — before the Delta spike), the CDC “breakthrough case” reporting includes ONLY those who are hospitalized or die.
The number of current Covid infections is very different from the number of current Covid infections that cause hospitalization or death.
The COVID vaccine, like the Chicken Pox and others, protects against serious consequences. It is far less effective at preventing infection, especially as the months click by.
It is important to follow the science. It is important to read all the words in a government statement.
The COVID vaccines prevent us from being hospitalized or dying. They do NOT prevent us from being infected, and they do NOT prevent us from infecting others.
I did notice the change in reporting, which is fine because IMO the hospitalizations and deaths are all we really should have been worried about all along. Reporting the overall case count without context or nuance has just contributed to the hysteria it seems. I wish you would stop referring to my supposed biases; I really am pretty routinely double checking stats to make sure that doesn’t happen. So often after these discussions I recheck expecting to find higher numbers only to come away thinking “That’s all?!”
Also, why should the individuals and states which are doing the right thing be punished for this?
Earlier in this thread, we had this exchange:
Now you write:
and then:
I don’t know how else to respond to your commentary. You still apparently do not see how your opinion about what “we really should have been worried about all along” is blinding you to the reality of the crisis unfolding this very morning.
You assert several times, and incorrectly, that the statistics about breakthrough cases means that vaccinated people cannot contribute to the pandemic (and presumably should not have to be “punished” by masking). You cite an article talking about breakthrough counts that are orders of magnitude lower than the daily new cases we see happening every day — including in states like MA, where many of those new cases are among vaccinated people.
I show you the statement from the CDC that explains your error, and you dismiss it.
You may be routinely double checking stats — yet you steadfastly refuse to see what those stats are showing us. That is the canonical definition of “confirmation bias” — you actually SEE only those stats that support your pre-existing beliefs.
The health care system here in MA is just as broken — or more broken — than anywhere else. I agree that we are doing a far better job of managing this pandemic than most other states.
I don’t know what you mean by “punish”. We are seeing dramatically spiking case counts. Our schoolchildren cannot yet be vaccinated. Our hospitals and ICU beds are crowded — not at the crisis levels of the worst regions, but still crowded.
We MUST take steps to respond to the reality of what is unfolding with this virus. We cannot avoid the impact on MA of absolutely suicidal choices being made in Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and elsewhere. The variants that are even now being bred in those backward states will kill us in MA just like they will kill people where they originates.
Data-driven mask mandates, social distancing, and even lockdowns are not “punishment”. Mandated vaccines are not punishment.
The only punishment I advocate is for those who obstinately refuse to follow those mandates and whose willfully ignorant self-centeredness endangers ALL of us.
If you do not want me to characterize your commentary as biased, then I encourage you to learn how to reduce the bias of your commentary.
I never said that vaccinated people cannot contribute to the pandemic at all, just that breakthrough cases which could make that happen remain very rare. I have also said masks are appropriate for schools. Because there are so many adults who refuse to get vaccinated and we repeatedly hear that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated at this point it feels to me that any restrictions that still affect me are the fault of such people. I don’t believe you have actually shown me contrary stats to what I am seeing. We may just have different interpretations and tolerance levels.
When you say “breakthrough cases”, do you mean infections that cause hospitalization or fatality”? That’s the definition that you say you’ve read from the CDC. I agree that those cases are very rare.
The trouble is, that’s not relevant to the question of what is causing the current spike and it is not relevant to the question of masking.
The current spike is being spread in part by vaccinated people who are infected with the Delta variant and are asymptomatic or have symptoms so mild that they aren’t even tested. These infections among vaccinated people are not rare and are a major vector in the current spike. They are also NOT included in the count of “breakthrough cases” that you so frequent mentioned upthread.
There is a significant number of people who are vaccinated and who are contagious — and who do not show symptoms and are not included in the CDC counts of “breakthrough cases”.
We who are vaccinated must still mask and social distance in some settings because we may be infected — and therefore contagious — and not realize it.
This is not punishment, it is the unfortunate reality of dealing with the combination of a very aggressive virus and a large number of willfully ignorant self-centered and aggressively hostile anti-vax Americans.
There is growing evidence that immunity from the three current vaccines wanes enough that boosters are required after 8 months.
I agree that the spike of hospitalizations (and eventually fatalities) is primarily a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The rub is that when ICU beds and ERs are filled with unvaccinated COVID victims, there is no capacity to treat victims of heart attack, stroke, falls, trauma from car crashes, and all the other things that require immediate and effective care to resolve.
I enthusiastically agree with you that the focus of our impatience should be on those who refuse to be vaccinated.
The various restrictions are needed because of those people and because this variant is so aggressive towards children (who are not yet able to receive the vaccine).
Everything I have read continues to indicate that ALL breakthrough cases are rare, and that those that lead to hospitalization and death are even rarer. The CDC website still defines breakthrough cases as:
No mention of symptoms, let alone severe results. The reporting form available on the website also provides for the reporting of asymptomatic cases. I also continue to hear and read that this a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and that if everyone would just get their shots we could crush this thing and asymptomatic spread would truly be irrelevant. I feel as long as I am still affected despite having gotten my shots I am being made to suffer the consequences of those who have not.
The paragraph you cited is on the same page as the highlighted paragraph we’ve both read that further describes the CDC data gathering.
Sadly, both the CDC and FDA appear to have been badly damaged by the sabotage of those agencies during the prior administration. Once the gold-standard of objective science, both agencies have been deeply — some fear mortally wounded — by the draconian and destructive measures taken by the prior administration. Many career scientists and researchers were forced to leave, and many more left on their own after being threatened, harassed, and punished by incompetent political hacks injected into the agencies by the previous administration.
Just as a micro-example, many of the sites and databases that have been used for reporting data from across the nation and world were shut down. The research community is still scrambling to repair the resulting damage. Many of the southern states are either not reporting data at all (Texas) or are reporting in ways that make the results meaningless (Florida, Georgia, and some others).
Just one microexample is described in this piece from June of 2020 (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/inside-story-how-trumps-covid-19-coordinator-undermined-cdc). From that piece (emphasis mine):
It will take years to replace those valuable people and assets, and the institutional wisdom lost is irreplaceable.
Sadly, all of us are being made to suffer the consequences of those who are being willfully and — in my opinion criminally — irresponsible.
I share your displeasure with the impact these seditionist cretins are having on the rest of us.
Much to my dismay I learned today that maybe I was wrong about a political angle on this. Apparently, Donald Trump was booed at his own rally when he suggested people should get the vaccine. I thought sure that if Dear Leader started promoting vaccines his loyalists would start tripping over themselves to do what he told them to.
Immigration status is irrelevant to this discussion.
Since the non-vaccination rate for blacks is high than for whites, “turning up the heat” would also affect blacks disproportionately.
We need to keep working on accessibility, but I don’t have much more sympathy for black people using Tuskegee as an excuse than I do for own-the-libs Trumpists.
This does not concern me at all. If there is a more deadly Phi Kappa Psi variant as a result of those who refuse to get vaccinated, I could not care less about the color of their skin, nation of origin, political leanings, or if they are right or left handed. They gave aid and comfort to the enemy. Screw them.
When you end your comment with “screw them”. It’s pretty hard to believe that your post had anything to do with public health.
Screw anyone who gives aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no acceptable excuse.
This is How Hundreds of Thousands of Americans Spent the Summer of 2021 — During the Worst Pandemic Since 1918 (wallstreetonparade.com)
Lot’s of people giving “aid and comfort to the enemy”. Good luck rounding them up and screwing them.
That article says nothing about vaccinations in those crowds, and it’s probably impossible to know.
Nobody is proposing to “round up” anybody.
People who are eligible for the vaccine and have chosen to refuse it should be last in line for ICU beds and ER care. People who are unvaccinated and occupying an ICU bed should be evicted from that bed when it is needed for a heart attack, stroke, or trauma victim.
Unemployment benefits should be denied anyone who is eligible for the vaccine and has refused it.
Health care insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, for anyone who has been offered the vaccine and denied it should be expensive or impossible to attain.
Americans who are vaccinated and who are doing our part in bringing this pandemic under control should not be forced to pay for the irresponsible, willfully ignorant, and brutal callousness of those who attack us — many times violently.
The article you cited is willfully and blatantly incorrect and misleading.
In particular, the Lollapalooza Music Festival. Paul Krugman offered a more accurate insight into that event in his column of last Friday (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/covid-masks-vaccine-mandates.html)
From that piece (emphasis mine):
That second paragraph deserves special attention in the context of the hit-piece you cited:
This stands in stark contrast to the Sturgis gathering — and to ALL the GOP events that have contributed to the catastrophe unfolding in those states that are actively striving to maximize the horrific impact of this virus.
Those reasonable steps were effective. There is no data to suggest that the Lollapalooza Music Festival was anything but a success story in how to manage events like this.
I fail to see any constructive intent in your commentary.
So wearing a mask and social distancing don’t matter if you’ve been vaccinated? It’s not possible to spread COVID when you’ve been vaccinated?
Should any of the sanctions you advocate apply to a vaccinated person who went to one of these events?
Should we say “screw them” to these people as well as to the anti-vaxxers? Please apply your constructive intent to your reply.
Wearing a mask and social distancing matter if you’ve been vaccinated. It’s is possible to spread COVID when you’ve been vaccinated. What is not highly possible is getting hospitalized and putting unnecessary strain on our health care workers, many of whom are running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. If you believe vaccinated people are getting infected anyway, so what’s the point?, the vaccine was built to prevent hospitalizations and deaths from severe illness. Instead of fatal pneumonia, those with breakthrough infections have a short, bad cold, so the vaccine has already proved itself. The vaccinated are not dying of COVID-19.
So spreading COVID doesn’t count as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”? John, you are tying yourself up in knots.
Only one participant in this thread is tying themselves up in knots, and it isn’t johntmay.
The criteria is simple and straightforward: these sanctions apply to any person who is eligible for the vaccine and who refuses it.
Any knots in this exchange are the result of your efforts to twist what has been said into a dizzying variety of lies that have NOT been said.
It seems obvious from this thread. Tom, that you and John have a clear idea of who you want to punish, and no clear idea of why.
Otherwise this incredibly stupid idea would never have seen the light of day.
Really? Stop paying for medical care and cutting off unemployment benefits for people who are sick because you think their behavior doesn’t measure up? Would you apply the same standards to drug overdoses? To drunk driving accidents? To the obese? To the people who didn’t wear masks at the motorcycle rally, (but not those virtuous people who started wearing masks halfway through the lollapalooza rally)?
This idea is so vicious, hostile and morally repugnant that it seems almost besides the point to say that it would also be totally ineffective. But who cares about effectiveness? “Turn up the heat”!, “Screw them”!
In other words “I’ve already made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts”.
The proposal is simple and neither vicious, hostile, nor morally repugnant — vaccine mandates have been effectively, quietly and routinely in place for decades. They prevent diseases far less dangerous than COVID.
Do you also have the same hostility towards those who enforce the mandated Polio vaccine? How the mandated MMR vaccine?
If the “why” is unclear to you, it is because you refuse to read what has already been written multiple times.
Widespread vaccination is the single most effective way to protect millions of Americans from serious disease and hundreds of thousands of Americans from death.
As of today, 628,000 Americans have died from COVID. Nearly 40M Americans have been infected.
Had vaccines been available and used, the death toll would have been at most in the hundreds.
The rest of your rant is meaningless noise.
Bob,
Last year, a friend of mine died of a liver disease. He was an acholic. He was denied placement on a waiting list for a liver transplant. The medical community made the decision to deny him so that others not abusing alcohol would receive donated livers instead. Is it your opinion that the medical community is wrong?
Also, being obese, or smoking alone in ones home, does not spread obesity or lung cancer.
There is no reason for 99.99% of us to not get the vaccine. It’s free. It’s been approved. There are minimal side effects, if any.
If the medical community thought they were fighting alcoholism, they were wrong.
Everybody should get the vaccine, I have never disputed that. What I think is wrong is this attitude that we have to “turn up the heat” on people who aren’t convinced.
Healthcare is a right. The argument that we can grant or withhold it to compel behavior that we want is pernicious.
If you say it’s okay to do it to stop the spread of a disease there are two things I would ask. First, are you applying this penalty to everyone who is not doing enough to spread the disease? That’s why I ask about masks and gatherings.
Second, do you really expect this approach to achieve full vaccination? Or does it just punish the anti-vaxxers?
I have a hard time pinning you down on just what your goal is.
If your goal is to stop the spread of COVID, masks and social distancing are just as important as getting anti-vaxxers into line, so why not apply the same sanctions to all these categories.
If the goal is to prevent overloading the medical system, then going after drunk drivers, smokers and the obese would be justified.
But it’s not justified. The last thing we need is a medical system which gives preference to the deserving sick over the less deserving.
John has been crystal-clear about his goal this entire thread. His goal is to force those who are eligible for the vaccine to get it.
The last thing we need is another full-blown spike of the pandemic this fall.
Vaccine mandates are the most direct way to accomplish that. A mandate without consequences is not a mandate.
If you want to avoid a full blown spike of the pandemic, then do everything possible. Get the vaccine distributed worldwide, mandate masks, and do lockdowns as well as mandating vaccination.
Don’t decide that all our problems are caused by “covid deniers” and try to solve that problem by targeting and threatening them. Threats and coercion and hostility will undermine confidence in the medical system without producing enough new vaccinations to prevent a spike.
Yes, including using economic pressures on those who choose to not get the vaccine and then require medical attention that they could have easily avoided. Their condition is not the result of a lifelong affliction, an inherited behavior…unless we define stupidity as such.
Very simple: Get the free vaccine or pay for the consequences out of your own wallet. Freedom!!!
Bob, not doing all that is in ones power to stop the spread is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. If we were all vaccinated, the odds of this Delta variant filling up the ICU beds at the hospitals would be much lower. Getting the vaccine and putting on a mask takes less time that it does to read this post.
Where did I say anything remotely comparable to this? You’re making up nonsense and putting it in my mouth.
This doesn’t make any sort of logical sense, it’s impossible to answer. A mask and social distancing protects OTHERS, not the individual wearing a mask.
The only possibly relevant sanction is for a person who ignores an employer mandate for masking (or vaccination). If the individual is fired for ignoring that employer mandate then yes, the individual should not be entitled to unemployment compensation.
We should say “screw them” to any and every individual who willfully refuses to comply with a vaccine mandate.
” Let’s hope full approval of the Pfizer vaccine will encourage reluctant Americans to get vaccinated. Remember — 2 months ago there was an average of 11K cases a day. Now it’s more than 147K. There was an average of 200 deaths a day 2 months ago; now it’s 1,000 deaths.” Wolf Blitzer
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, they reported a Doctor’s Walkout at a hospital in Florida where they are worn out, tired, frustrated, and just about had enough of spending endless hours and countless days treating people who refused to get the vaccine and now need their help.
No doubt these doctors would be thrilled to find out that medicaid, medicare, and private health insurers wouldn’t pay the doctors for the care they did provide. Your proposed sanctions aren’t very well thought out, John.
If the proposed sanctions were in place, then there would be far fewer unvaccinated patients needing care. If those sanctions were in place, then the reprobates would have been stopped by the same gatekeepers who today turn away patients without a co-pay in hand.
Nothing about today’s health care system is very well thought out. John’s suggestions would be a great improvement over the current chaos.
Presumably, any sanction would produce fewer unvaccinated patients. “Far fewer”? That’s just a guess.
There is no limit to the array of sanctions we could impose as long as we don’t care how effective the sanctions are and we don’t care about what damage the sanctions cause.
My argument is simply that the sanctions that John proposes will be ineffective and damaging. There is no evidence that the difference in vaccination rates in different places has anything to do with sanctions. Particularly with draconian, mean-spirited ones.
Meanwhile, weaponizing Medicaid and other insurance payers will do enormous damage. Not only to COVID victims and their families, but to any prospects there are for improving our medical system. Good luck making progress toward single payer after we’ve demonstrated that the single payer can be used to “turn up the heat” or “screw” misinformed patients.
COVID is a public health emergency, not an opportunity to indulge in payback toward political antagonists.
We agree about that.
The evidence is compelling that existing vaccine mandates (which have similar “draconian” enforcement provisions) have been safe and effective at preventing the spread of Polio, Measles, Mumps, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis and host of others for generations.
South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, for example, tweeted last night:
She will apparently therefore reverse the bans on Polio, MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella), and Tdap that have been protecting children in South Dakota for decades. All while new COVID infection counts explode in South Dakota.
This is the first time in the modern era that right-wing demagogues are explicitly endangering entire states by spreading flagrant and knowing lies about any vaccine. There is no evidence about this particular emergency because nothing so preposterously insane has been done in any prior one.
Your commentary reminds of the right-wing outcry that accompanied an earlier textbook public health success — the fluoridation of public water supplies. Water fluoridation is safe, affordable, and incredibly effective. It is especially effective at protecting the teeth of the least fortunate children, children who typically have no access to toothpaste, tooth brushes, and dental care.
These proposals are obvious and needed enforcement provisions for vaccine mandates.
As you observe, COVID is a public health emergency. A vaccine mandate is the most important single step that can be taken. John is proposed simple, commonplace, and easily enforced measures to enforce that mandate.
Maybe the SD Governor ought to think twice before she sounds like she endorses nullification. That said, are any of the other vaccine mandates federal?
I don’t know.
I wonder of the CEO of Delta Airlines reads BMG?
Delta Air Lines will charge employees on the company health plan $200 a month if they fail to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a policy the airline’s top executive says is necessary because the average hospital stay for the virus costs the airline $40,000.
CEO Ed Bastian said that all employees who have been hospitalized for the virus in recent weeks were not fully vaccinated.
The steady expansion of BMG influence continues and accelerates.
“The steady expansion of BMG influence continues and accelerates.”
Heaven forfend.
If you are unable to distinguish between an insurance surcharge and cutting people off from any coverage at all, I guess it is possible to arrive at that conclusion. The phrase “a world of difference” comes to mind.
I see that without a cute little smiley you are incapable of recognizing irony, facetiousness and sarcasm.
Vaccine mandates are an absolute necessity. The word “mandate” is meaningless unless there are consequences for ignoring it.
Heh. The executives at Disney World as well (https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/08/24/1030780696/disney-unions-vaccination-agreement-florida):
Oregon says people fired for refusing vaccines generally can’t collect jobless benefits.
Yes indeed. That is likely to be the case here in MA as well.
In most states, a worker who refuses an employer’s COVID vaccine mandate and is therefore terminated is not eligible for unemployment compensation because that termination is viewed as voluntary.
In nearly every state, a voluntary termination does not allow the worker to qualify for unemployment benefits.
Here’s an interesting twist of fate in Arkansas.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Friday signed into law legislation allowing doctors to refuse to treat someone because of religious or moral objections, a move opponents have said will give providers broad powers to turn away LGBTQ patients and others.
The measure says health care workers and institutions have the right to not participate in non-emergency treatments that violate their conscience. The new law won’t take effect until late this summer.
I’m not a medical or legal expert, but it looks to me that unless the patient is in imminent treat of dying, a doctor or nurse in Arkansas can opt out of taking care of the eligible but non-vaccinated victims of Covid.
Interesting that you made the connection between opting out of treating the unvaccinated and opting out of treating the LGBTQ community. Tom is deeply offended by such comparisons.
Wow, not the connection I was looking for, but you know that!
I think his point was be careful what you wish for. Besides, getting the vaccine is a choice you make whereas being LGBTQ is not.
From the point of view of the health care provider I don’t see that as much of a distinction. Also, the refusal to treat can always be rationalized as being about behavior. That was the excuse during the “90’s.
Do you oppose a COVID vaccine mandate?
If not, then how do you propose to enforce that mandate?
I’m fine with mandates. But the idea that you can enforce a mandate by intimidation has been discredited for some time. It can be very frustrating to deal with people who oppose arguments with empty slogans and abuse. (Believe me I know.) But giving in to the temptation to come down like a ton of bricks and make an example of people who are frustrating you won’t improve behavior.
I invite you to offer an alternative enforcement protocol that would be more effective.
Lots of things can be rationalized – doesn’t make it always appropriate.
Exactly. It wasn’t appropriate then and it’s not appropriate now.
It wasn’t appropriate then; it IS absolutely appropriate now.
“When I hear that one of them has died, I only feel relief that the virus has one less opportunity to mutate and spread. I have no sympathy for the deceased.”
Appropriate then? Appropriate now?
I don’t know where that quote is from and it does not reflect my views. To feel relief that one has died of disease is inhumane unless the point is that the deceased is no longer suffering.
Scroll up, Christopher. The quote is from John’s original post.
In a state of war, how should one feel when a member of ones tribe is killed while conspiring with the enemy, an enemy that has killed many of the tribe?
Is this a “war” against the pandemic or just against the anti vaxxers?
We are in a civil war led by white supremacists and Seditionists. The anti-vaxers are a battalion of the Seditionist army.
The January 6 attack on Capitol was an organized, planned, and executed act of war. The relentless flood of lies from Fox News and the leaders of the Seditionists was an explicit and successful recruiting campaign for the anti-vaxers.
The chaos, suffering, and death unfolding in the South is the intentional consequence of the Seditionist strategy.
The GOP is, today, a domestic terrorist organization that seeks the violent overthrow of the legitimate government. The anti-vax and anti-masking agitation of the Southern states — especially in Florida and Texas — is an on-going terrorist attack just as real as any suicide bomb attack in Kabul.
The pandemic is a virulent disease. It is a battlefield, not a war. The war is the ongoing insurrection. The anti-vaxxers are knowing and intentional food-soldiers in that war.