I have a friend who is allergic to many vaccines. A bad reaction as a kid led to him needing years of rehab. He's also high risk for Covid. He's pro-vaccine in general I guess I should add, but his doctor told him to not get the covid shots because the risk was too high
Whenever I mention that it's cruel to exclude people like him from society, due to vaccine requirements, when people like him are presumably what all these rules were meant to protect, a little mob came together to denounce the idea and say that he absolutely should never be allowed in public again.
Almost everybody was safe from covid -- it was a handful of high risk people who we were trying to protect. In theory. But instead, all the low risk people wanted to throw the high risk people under the bus to save themselves.
Eg, healthy people couldn't go to movie theatres, but my grandma's care home had outbreak after outbreak, with no resources spared to isolate people like her. Or an other friend who was high risk, but worked in retail -- zero resources available to keep her away from all the sick people (this was back before everyone was quadruple vaxed).
> I have a friend who is allergic to many vaccines. A bad reaction as a kid led to him needing years of rehab. He's also high risk for Covid. He's pro-vaccine in general I guess I should add, but his doctor told him to not get the covid shots because the risk was too high
Has your friend asked another doctor for a second opinion?
It is unlikely that anyone who is allergic to prior vaccines would be allergic to the mRNA vaccines. There is no such thing as a broad spectrum vaccine allergy, there's just allergies to the individual components. If they were allergic to eggs and the flu vaccine they can safely get an mRNA vaccine.
> Whenever I mention that it's cruel to exclude people like him from society, due to vaccine requirements
I know that I’ve only advocated for people who are voluntarily unvaxxed, but medically eligible, face increased scrutiny. I would never suggest anything of the sort for your friend. That’d be like discriminating against someone who requires a wheelchair or cannot see.
I'm deadly allergic to eggs, and the only flu vaccine easily available to me is made with eggs, so I don't take it.
There are many other medically valid reasons to not take a vaccine. There are even some (a very small number) of people whose religious convictions are a valid reason to get an exemption.
The issue is that the overwhelming majority (>99%) of people who choose not to vaccinate, do so for bad reasons, which amounts to making an uninformed medical decision, and one that adversely impacts other people in addition to themselves. These people are what the controversy is actually about.
Anyone bullying people who have medical issues is a bad person and needs to chill.
> I mention that it's cruel to exclude people like him from society
Which is exactly why we specifically don't exclude people like him from society. There are obviously exemptions in every sane country.
In France there are exemptions for this cases and some people still acted like "BuT wHat AbOUt AlleRgIes", like they cared at all. They just didn't want to get vaccinated.
> Whenever I mention that it's cruel to exclude people like him from society,
Your friend was at higher risk from COVID due to to their medical condition. It might be cruel to ask them to reduce their social interaction, but many medical conditions are like that. Their feelings don't change the problem or reduce the risk. It does does not seem to be completely unfounded.
> a little mob came together to denounce the idea and say that he absolutely should never be allowed in public again.
Emphasis on "little", I suppose? This sounds like a strawman. I don't think many would have argued that someone with a legitimate medical reason to not get vaccinated should be excluded from anything.
What surprised me the most was just how vicious and cruel the people in my life could be towards the unvaccinated. It went beyond mere schadenfreude. Many of my otherwise tolerant and empathetic friends eagerly ate up any and all news about anti-vaxxers suffering or even outright dying.
I don't know how much of this was a result of them getting caught up in the social media bandwagon (Twitter, r/HermanCainAward) or because this was the most significant and close to home "us vs. them" situation in our lives up until this point.
When someone gets in a horrific crash because the were driving 50 over the speed limit, do you feel sorry for them?
Or do you say that they "got what they deserved" not just for being individually reckless, but also for selfishly putting other people on the roads in danger?
Ask yourself: Before COVID, in 2019, if you saw an 18 year old's car wrapped around a tree on the news clearly due to excessive speeding, did you lament their predicament? Did you say "they had an individual right to drive as fast as they thought they could handle", or did you laugh and say that they got what they deserved?
When I was growing up, they counted anyone who got vaccinated against something as a "success." So if 80 percent got vaccinated for X, they bragged about that.
These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices.
It's a dramatic change in attitude and it's very scary stuff because people are increasingly fine with "We shall just force the minority to get vaccinated and make their lives hell if they continue to resist." It's really, really scary stuff and most people don't seem to recognize how and why it's scary stuff.
In my view it's tantamount to abuse, because ultimately what it does is erodes trust.
If you're shouting at someone to do something over and over again, eventually they just stop listening to you and try to get away from you.
The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision.
Otherwise you're acting as a parent. You're not treating them as an equal.
I'm sure that some people will take issue with my specific use of the term "abuse", but it meets the definition as far as I can tell.
It even goes down to the point that people (who disagree) just stop talking about it completely because they're always walking on eggshells.
People flip out, tell you you can't go to XYZ or do XYZ, etc. It's just like, okay, whatever man, I'll say whatever you want me to say for an easy life. Doesn't mean I believe it or trust you.
It's a bit strange here in Canada. 92% of the population in my province has had at least one COVID shot. And disproportionately many who haven't, are children. And we can probably exclude a couple percent of people who are genuinely medically advised against getting it, and the hyper-needle-phobic. So we're talking... about 1 - 4% of the adult population maybe, who could realistically be called antivaxer? They are irrelevant socially, politically, epidemiologically. But at least with the slice of media I consume, everyone seems quite concerned about them.
The unvaccinated played the good role of scapegoat. “Our policy won’t be effective unless 90% people vaccinate” “Only 85% vaccinated, so this wave is because of THEM, they are killing YOUR grandmother.”
It helped channeling public anger at something. It’s textbook Machiavel, I was surprised people didn’t see through that, I wish people read more ;)
Historically there was never a vaccine with only 80% adoption rate, in the U.S at least. Anyone would have considered that a failure for the polio vaccine. All the major vaccines are 90% coverage or better, or at least they did until recent years.
When I was growing up, you had to get your vaccines to go to school or join the military or participate in many aspects of society and anti-vaxers were seen as a fringe minority.
> These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices.
Well, because most of those didn't... and so 99% of people that decided to not get vaccinated screwed over the 1% that couldn't
Basically every nation already uses force to deter certain forms of socially problematic behavior.
If you habitually litter, for example, you'll receive a fine. If you don't pay that fine, you're going to end up with a bench warrant. There is an implicit threat of force. Same for graffiti, smoking in public places, etc.
Vaccine uptake is not actually compulsory under threat of force, and in that sense I have trouble seeing the "dramatic change in attitude".
As soon as a new subset of people have been designated as part of the outgroup, they are basically fair game for everybody to get their kicks in¹. And boy howdy do people love some fully justifiable carnage.
It’s frightening how easily the framing of a very individual risk assessment with collectivist “do the right thing for everyone” messaging can prompt discriminatory attitudes. The threshold to trigger this herding behavior is far lower than I would have thought pre-pandemic, as is the ease with which fear engineering can enhance credulity and dismantle higher order thinking at scale. These triggers also reward a sense of complacency towards fundamental rights, and it seems likely more of these mass cognitive warfare experiments will be seen to intentionally probe for exploits of our current system.
some of the things I heard people say:
"It angers me that people like this are able to vote"
"why should I have to share restaurant space with someone who doesn't care about others"
I thought it was mostly an online phenomenon wherein medical professionals were entertaining the idea of refusing medical care to the unvaccinated, right up until I heard it repeated by a friend of mine who is a nurse admin.
how's everyone else from the control group doing these days? things were never really that bad, discrimination-wise, here in South Dakota, but what was/is it like everywhere else?
(edit: wow I thought we were, as a collective, Largely Over It now—guess that's not the case! I'm glad things aren't as bad as they are in this thread where I live! one has to wonder though: how long will this deep-seated emotion-based discrimination go on for?)
Two doctors told me the vaccine may not be safe for someone with my rare condition (There's a list of medications and interventions as long as my arm that I can't take because they could literally kill me).
In spite of this, neither doctor was initially willing to put their opinion on paper so I could keep my job because of the immense pressure on them to get everyone vaccinated. Thank God, the specialist I saw came back in the room with a change of heart and wrote me the letter.
Interacting with society during this whole time felt quite upsetting. It really felt as if society in general would rather see me risk dying as long as it kept them safer.
Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience.
I really feel for people who've had to deal with that sort of thing for longer than the brief period of time I have.
I'm in Canada, near Vancouver. It's mostly back to normal now, but for a long time:
* couldn't visit restaurants
* couldn't fly/take a train/take a ferry
Still can't:
* Visit my grandparents at their retirement home
* Visit the USA
The general opinion as that you should be vaccinated, but it mostly doesn't come up now. The government is currently passing legislation so they can better mandate vaccination to medical professionals as well as suppress dissenting opinions by those professionals.
Based on the words and actions of the federal government, i've definitely felt like a second class citizen.
in the interest of inclusivity & getting a more complete picture, a followup question: is anyone still continuing to get more "boosters" or whatever? are those still being released? or, if not, at what point did you stop? the second shot? third? fourth? did you ever take/are you still taking one of those non-injectable covid medications?
I'm so out of the loop about this stuff because it hasn't affected my life in any way in months, so this is me genuinely asking to see where people are at with this stuff. I have a feeling that many people got the initial shot and maybe one booster thereafter but since then haven't kept up… but this is just an assumption, and a pretty big one at that. no idea about the non-injectables whatsoever.
So everyone on HN feels like the unvaccinated are part of an oppressed caste? I really don't understand the comments I am reading here. There are large groups of people who are unvaccinated by choice, not because of genuine health concerns. A friend of mine is unable to get vaccinated due to serious health concerns, and she is furious that do many people refuse to get it, as it continues to prevent her from living a normal life.
It's worth highlighting that there is an "absence of evidence" of discrimination the other way except in Germany and the US. I think a lot of people are skipping over the fact that in the US the contempt goes both ways, overlapping to a significant degree with discriminatory attitudes or behaviors tied to factors other than vaccine status. Those who are quick to discriminate in very tangible ways themselves don't get to cry victim the one time they're the one on the receiving end of an unfriendly look.
Individuals lost their jobs, were ostracized from their communities, attacked and vilified for not getting the vaccine… Truly a cruel period in American history.
When my children were born, my father and his mother refused to get the TDAP. I refused them access to my house to see my newborn before they got vaccinated. They eventually relented and got the vaccination. There's a friend of a friend that I know that is anti-vax re: measles, that I refuse to let my children around. I have no interest or time to risk our health (yes, even for 0.01%) for people who refuse do basic medical self-upkeep (allergies aside, my brother is allergic and I make an exception for him).
You get that the hospitals were being overrun by people dying of covid, right? It was to the point where emergency care wasn't available because hospitals were full.
I doubt your claim, but even then, there are plenty of other reasons why having such a high unvaccinated population is a problem.
The discrimination was IMO, little different to a community facing a common disaster, to that of someone feeling safe, didn't care or not their problem who elected to sit back refusing to contribute to the effort to overcome the disaster, even if it was something simple and not much of a task, like keeping an eye out for an arsonist doing nature a favour and burning dead dry forest who didn't care if some had built right up in amongst it.
In regard to covid-19, complicating the simple discrimination issue were the many dogs in the fight not to vaccinate against covid-19 - those I'm aware of, most pulling the strings were part of a privileged exclusive small demographic. The noisiest were the group IMO were the "Here, all you've gotta do is take this cheap little pill and keep on working, no worries ... " Sadly many who were unable to be reassured by their doctor that their medical condition would not interact with the new vaccines, started grasping for "bad to vaccinate" straws
I feel most of the population around my way understood some people were going to be unable to be vaccinated. There were concerns that some people even if they did get vaccinated, due to medical issues would not be greatly protected. However at the end of the day, as I once read, it's good to have a practice run before the real thing.
With this pandemic, it became to hard to explain to the public being vaccinated against the fast mutating coronavirus wasn't just about saving time and money spent in hospital wards, but if most of the community that could vaccinated, it significantly removed "run time" for covid-19 to recombine whilst it was inhabiting in a human body, and re-emerge as a new threat -- it was already hard enough to ask people to vaccinate if they could to save hospitals from being run over, something I found quite frankly, shocking.
[+] [-] barbariangrunge|3 years ago|reply
Whenever I mention that it's cruel to exclude people like him from society, due to vaccine requirements, when people like him are presumably what all these rules were meant to protect, a little mob came together to denounce the idea and say that he absolutely should never be allowed in public again.
Almost everybody was safe from covid -- it was a handful of high risk people who we were trying to protect. In theory. But instead, all the low risk people wanted to throw the high risk people under the bus to save themselves.
Eg, healthy people couldn't go to movie theatres, but my grandma's care home had outbreak after outbreak, with no resources spared to isolate people like her. Or an other friend who was high risk, but worked in retail -- zero resources available to keep her away from all the sick people (this was back before everyone was quadruple vaxed).
It was disgusting
[+] [-] lamontcg|3 years ago|reply
Has your friend asked another doctor for a second opinion?
It is unlikely that anyone who is allergic to prior vaccines would be allergic to the mRNA vaccines. There is no such thing as a broad spectrum vaccine allergy, there's just allergies to the individual components. If they were allergic to eggs and the flu vaccine they can safely get an mRNA vaccine.
[+] [-] alsetmusic|3 years ago|reply
I know that I’ve only advocated for people who are voluntarily unvaxxed, but medically eligible, face increased scrutiny. I would never suggest anything of the sort for your friend. That’d be like discriminating against someone who requires a wheelchair or cannot see.
[+] [-] epgui|3 years ago|reply
There are many other medically valid reasons to not take a vaccine. There are even some (a very small number) of people whose religious convictions are a valid reason to get an exemption.
The issue is that the overwhelming majority (>99%) of people who choose not to vaccinate, do so for bad reasons, which amounts to making an uninformed medical decision, and one that adversely impacts other people in addition to themselves. These people are what the controversy is actually about.
Anyone bullying people who have medical issues is a bad person and needs to chill.
[+] [-] thiht|3 years ago|reply
Which is exactly why we specifically don't exclude people like him from society. There are obviously exemptions in every sane country.
In France there are exemptions for this cases and some people still acted like "BuT wHat AbOUt AlleRgIes", like they cared at all. They just didn't want to get vaccinated.
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|3 years ago|reply
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-covid-pass#if-you-are-unable...
But maybe all the people respondng to your comments online where from nations that didn't do this.
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|3 years ago|reply
Your friend was at higher risk from COVID due to to their medical condition. It might be cruel to ask them to reduce their social interaction, but many medical conditions are like that. Their feelings don't change the problem or reduce the risk. It does does not seem to be completely unfounded.
[+] [-] hackerlight|3 years ago|reply
Emphasis on "little", I suppose? This sounds like a strawman. I don't think many would have argued that someone with a legitimate medical reason to not get vaccinated should be excluded from anything.
[+] [-] dqh|3 years ago|reply
Just on that point, it’s also worth considering what happens when hospitals are overwhelmed.
[+] [-] BitwiseFool|3 years ago|reply
I don't know how much of this was a result of them getting caught up in the social media bandwagon (Twitter, r/HermanCainAward) or because this was the most significant and close to home "us vs. them" situation in our lives up until this point.
[+] [-] jiggawatts|3 years ago|reply
Or do you say that they "got what they deserved" not just for being individually reckless, but also for selfishly putting other people on the roads in danger?
Ask yourself: Before COVID, in 2019, if you saw an 18 year old's car wrapped around a tree on the news clearly due to excessive speeding, did you lament their predicament? Did you say "they had an individual right to drive as fast as they thought they could handle", or did you laugh and say that they got what they deserved?
Be honest in your response.
[+] [-] hotpotamus|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|3 years ago|reply
These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices.
It's a dramatic change in attitude and it's very scary stuff because people are increasingly fine with "We shall just force the minority to get vaccinated and make their lives hell if they continue to resist." It's really, really scary stuff and most people don't seem to recognize how and why it's scary stuff.
[+] [-] throwaway22032|3 years ago|reply
If you're shouting at someone to do something over and over again, eventually they just stop listening to you and try to get away from you.
The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision.
Otherwise you're acting as a parent. You're not treating them as an equal.
I'm sure that some people will take issue with my specific use of the term "abuse", but it meets the definition as far as I can tell.
It even goes down to the point that people (who disagree) just stop talking about it completely because they're always walking on eggshells.
People flip out, tell you you can't go to XYZ or do XYZ, etc. It's just like, okay, whatever man, I'll say whatever you want me to say for an easy life. Doesn't mean I believe it or trust you.
[+] [-] retrac|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eastbound|3 years ago|reply
It helped channeling public anger at something. It’s textbook Machiavel, I was surprised people didn’t see through that, I wish people read more ;)
[+] [-] jeffbee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hotpotamus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilyt|3 years ago|reply
Well, because most of those didn't... and so 99% of people that decided to not get vaccinated screwed over the 1% that couldn't
[+] [-] nwiswell|3 years ago|reply
If you habitually litter, for example, you'll receive a fine. If you don't pay that fine, you're going to end up with a bench warrant. There is an implicit threat of force. Same for graffiti, smoking in public places, etc.
Vaccine uptake is not actually compulsory under threat of force, and in that sense I have trouble seeing the "dramatic change in attitude".
[+] [-] teddyh|3 years ago|reply
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33802663
[+] [-] adamiscool8|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] autokad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmelton|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamrezich|3 years ago|reply
(edit: wow I thought we were, as a collective, Largely Over It now—guess that's not the case! I'm glad things aren't as bad as they are in this thread where I live! one has to wonder though: how long will this deep-seated emotion-based discrimination go on for?)
[+] [-] TrevorJ|3 years ago|reply
In spite of this, neither doctor was initially willing to put their opinion on paper so I could keep my job because of the immense pressure on them to get everyone vaccinated. Thank God, the specialist I saw came back in the room with a change of heart and wrote me the letter.
Interacting with society during this whole time felt quite upsetting. It really felt as if society in general would rather see me risk dying as long as it kept them safer.
Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience.
I really feel for people who've had to deal with that sort of thing for longer than the brief period of time I have.
[+] [-] curmudgeon22|3 years ago|reply
* couldn't visit restaurants
* couldn't fly/take a train/take a ferry
Still can't:
* Visit my grandparents at their retirement home
* Visit the USA
The general opinion as that you should be vaccinated, but it mostly doesn't come up now. The government is currently passing legislation so they can better mandate vaccination to medical professionals as well as suppress dissenting opinions by those professionals.
Based on the words and actions of the federal government, i've definitely felt like a second class citizen.
[+] [-] adamrezich|3 years ago|reply
I'm so out of the loop about this stuff because it hasn't affected my life in any way in months, so this is me genuinely asking to see where people are at with this stuff. I have a feeling that many people got the initial shot and maybe one booster thereafter but since then haven't kept up… but this is just an assumption, and a pretty big one at that. no idea about the non-injectables whatsoever.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] christkv|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] chrsig|3 years ago|reply
I doubt your claim, but even then, there are plenty of other reasons why having such a high unvaccinated population is a problem.
[+] [-] wavesounds|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daVe23hu|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] TOMDM|3 years ago|reply
It's been done for ages for the flu. The flu vaccines are also only mitigations not immunities.
Do you have the same feelings towards the flu vaccine?
[+] [-] anenefan|3 years ago|reply
In regard to covid-19, complicating the simple discrimination issue were the many dogs in the fight not to vaccinate against covid-19 - those I'm aware of, most pulling the strings were part of a privileged exclusive small demographic. The noisiest were the group IMO were the "Here, all you've gotta do is take this cheap little pill and keep on working, no worries ... " Sadly many who were unable to be reassured by their doctor that their medical condition would not interact with the new vaccines, started grasping for "bad to vaccinate" straws
I feel most of the population around my way understood some people were going to be unable to be vaccinated. There were concerns that some people even if they did get vaccinated, due to medical issues would not be greatly protected. However at the end of the day, as I once read, it's good to have a practice run before the real thing.
With this pandemic, it became to hard to explain to the public being vaccinated against the fast mutating coronavirus wasn't just about saving time and money spent in hospital wards, but if most of the community that could vaccinated, it significantly removed "run time" for covid-19 to recombine whilst it was inhabiting in a human body, and re-emerge as a new threat -- it was already hard enough to ask people to vaccinate if they could to save hospitals from being run over, something I found quite frankly, shocking.