The COVID-19 pandemic

[danbrotherston]

There are some good points here, I'd just like to make a few counterpoints.

Ok my comment generated a lot of discussion so warning for a long comment incoming, I'm going to address several things that were brought up from my perspective. 

First and foremost, I really appreciate that this whole discussion has been civil because that's rare these days, I've brought up my opposition to vaccine passports at other places and basically been ridiculed for it. 

I'd like to clarify that my opposition to vaccine passports is not simply just that I'm against it, but more so the lack of any sort of clarity or explanation around them worries me. 

There has been absolutely no discussion or dialogue around what these vaccine passports will look like or how long they'll last until after they're in effect. 

I am not against mandatory vaccination and/or rapid test (I understand neither of these methods are flawless but they are substantially better than nothing). I'm not a fan of forcing mandatory vaccinations without allowing negative tests it just seems unnecessary and contradictory if the ultimate goal is simply just public health. 

It isn't actually supportive of the same public health goals. One major goal of mandatory vaccination (and vaccine passports) is to get people vaccinated. Permitting rapid testing in preference to that does not achieve that goal. It may achieve the goal of limiting spread, but it doesn't end the pandemic faster.

Secondly, I'm not against temporary vaccine measures, like say a lockdown of unvaccinated until the case numbers drop again. That's totally fair imo and those who are fully vaxed should not have to endure another lockdown if it were to come to that, otherwise what even was the point of getting vaccinated (at least in terms of regaining your freedoms) 

Again, vaccination is not a personal choice, these are social communal acts. The point of getting vaccinated was so that we all can regain our freedoms.

Currently there is no guarantee about the length, or purpose of vaccine passport systems. I would be against such as system remaining in place if we were down to only a handful of cases a day at some point for example. 

I agree there should be a clearer statement of context. But first and foremost, that context include some measure of vaccination rate which is a goal (and the end game for the pandemic), and it should probably not be specific, because we don't actually know right now. And second of all, our world is changing all the time, the pandemic is a major and sudden change. But vaccination requirements are not new, and I don't think I'd oppose making them more widespread. Whether I'd support a permanent proof of vaccination for entering businesses, I don't know, probably not, but in the future, who knows. Would I support it for things like healthcare, hell yeah I would.

It's also not been outlined what specifically the passports will apply to. Travel to foreign countries and require immunization. That's totally fine thats a sovereignty issue. Concerts and sporting events, or movies where you are sitting and standing still in close quarters for long periods of time. I'm fine with vaccine requirements for that too. Preventing someone from entering a mall fully masked because they're unvaxed. I'm not all too keen on that. Or prohibiting outdoor dining for unvaxed as well for example.

I'm also not ok with BCs no exception system and forcing businesses to use the system or risk being shut down. While unfortunate imagine if even 30% of your business is made up of unvaccinated individuals and you either have to throw out that 30% or get shut down after everything that's you've been through in the past two years. I dont think that's fair either and significant overreach. 

My sympathy for people in this situation is exactly zero at this point, so I'll personally disagree, but obviously it's an opinion.

Edit: I should clarify, my sympathy for the unvaccinated anti-maskers. A business which has mostly unvaxxinated anti-vaxxer customers is doing something to achieve that...maybe...I dunno...making BBQ.

But another point occurs to me, businesses actually benefit. I wouldn't eat inside a restaurant or go to a theater, but I might if I knew everyone was vaxxinated. This policy is actually beneficial to businesses.

Additionally there are some obvious differences between something like a health card or driver's license and a vaccine passport. The primary difference being a driver's license does not force you to physically put anything into your body. I don't like the my body my choice argument for vaccines it's  stupid, but one should acknowledge theres a key difference between only being allowed to drive after taking a test vs only being able to go into a store if you've gotten a shot. 

I don't know how bodily autonomy ultimately applies to something like this because I understand both sides, in that people should have the right to choose if they want to get a shot of something injected, but also that someone's rights end where someone else's begin and unvaccinated pose a risk to society. But then there's the question of do unvaccinated pose much of a risk to anyone but themselves, and you have ethical dilemmas if the hospital is full of unvaccinated patients such that vaccinated ones aren't able to access certain healthcare. Its messy and I think it's hard to easily go one way or another on it. 

While I agree that bodily autonomy and driving are different (one being a privilege for example) I would argue that given our society's failure to invest in ANY form of mobility besides driving, being unable to drive for many people (not everyone) amounts to an infringement on the right of free movement. While that is not the same right as bodily autonomy, I personally believe they are equally important. Ergo to me, a drivers license (again, for many people, but not everyone, and especially not most people in this forum) is equivalent.

(And yes, I still support removing licenses from people who are dangerous drivers because the rights of the community--for safety in this case--outweigh the rights of the individual)

I also understand how peoples experiences shape their opinions and having grown up in Hong Kong/Communist China and having seen the takeover and how they did all these little things to slowly chip away at peoples freedom and basically hope people would brush it aside because it was trivial (basically a slow boil) naturally seeing similar types of restrictions pop up here spooks me even if it really shouldn't. 

At the end of the day I don't know what the RIGHT thing to do is, but I do know that blanket vaccine passports with no explanation or transparency dont sit well with me. More than anything I think it's the precedent it sets less than the rationale behind it. 

I agree that we can't have a blanket vaccine passport with no explanation, that wouldn't even make sense right, because how could you do that, obviously it must be explained fully at time of implementation. But I have zero fear that our current government will err on the side of too lenient rather than too oppressive. Our government has been completely unwilling to do even the least intrusive things in order to avoid a worse outcome later. It's a shame, but it does mean I have no real worry about it going too far.

There are of course other things too, like ultimately what is the goal. Is it to prevent anyone from ever getting covid and dying from it, or is it to keep our healthcare system stable. I think it should be the latter and as such restrictions should be made according in my opinion. 

Like I said very long comment. I don't even know if I touched on everything i wanted to but I'll stop now lol. Hope i cleared up my position a little bit.

Obviously keeping our healthcare system stable is a minimum requirement, and one that we haven't really met (I know people who have been impacted by the unavailability of healthcare resources during the pandemic). That being said, I think we should aim higher. The flu is a good example, because everyone says "ahh, COVID just the flu" is of course isn't, but in hindsight, the fact that we were tolerating so many deaths from the flu, in a time and place where we have a (less, but still effective) vaccine against it...that's insane! Literally hundreds of children died of the flu in 2019. Why do we accept that? We have the same problem with road violence, but that's a horse we've beaten here plenty of times.

I'm not suggesting that we should lockdown because of the flu, but given that we have tools that can limit or even eliminate fatalities, why aren't we using them to the maximum extent. I was shocked to learn that the flu vaccine is not even free in BC.