How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Nite

Canada is in a better state than the Europeans, Americans and Australians right now so i think Canadian governments win on being responsible.

Canada isn't winning diddly shit.

Once again, you are focused entirely on COVID, and have not addressed the other harmful affects of lockdowns. Until you do so, none of the graphs showing how Canada is keeping common cold case rates lower than the US mean anything.

Yay, fewer Canadians have a runny nose and cough than Americans. Yay.

Oh, and America gets 10000000000 points for sending a highly effective vaccine to your arctic asses. You're welcome.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The real question is, how many hospitalizations and deaths (99% of which are occurring in unvaccinated people) are health officials and politicians willing to live with before lockdown measures are implemented again? Hopefully this time they'll just lock down unvaccinated folks via use of mandates for proof of vaccination.

I am fully vaccinated (2 doses) and is everyone in my family and my entourage. I won't take another lockdown sitting down if it's just because of people who didn't get vaccinated. (Exceptions can be made for those who have medical conditions that make them allergic to vaccines for example. But they're not the problem right now, and are only a tiny minority.)

Pretty sure I am not the only person who feels this way.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I am fully vaccinated (2 doses) and is everyone in my family and my entourage. I won't take another lockdown sitting down if it's just because of people who didn't get vaccinated. (Exceptions can be made for those who have medical conditions that make them allergic to vaccines for example. But they're not the problem right now, and are only a tiny minority.)

Pretty sure I am not the only person who feels this way.

I think at most we would see the type of "lockdown" that is happening in France where you need a health pass to enter indoor places, something I would be in support of, since it's the unvaccinated nincompoops that are really the ones dragging us down at this point.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by homebucket

I think at most we would see the type of "lockdown" that is happening in France where you need a health pass to enter indoor places, something I would be in support of, since it's the unvaccinated nincompoops that are really the ones dragging us down at this point.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by homebucket

I think at most we would see the type of "lockdown" that is happening in France where you need a health pass to enter indoor places, something I would be in support of, since it's the unvaccinated nincompoops that are really the ones dragging us down at this point.

Yeah, the foundations of that are already in place where I live. You automatically get a QR code thingy by email after each dose here.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by homebucket

I think at most we would see the type of "lockdown" that is happening in France where you need a health pass to enter indoor places, something I would be in support of, since it's the unvaccinated nincompoops that are really the ones dragging us down at this point.

I'm in support of this too. The unvaccinated are the ones that really are dragging us down.

It's proof that the honor system doesn't work. The stores/restaurants I go to that have signs that say that you only need to wear a mask if you are not fully vaccinated, the businesses that don't even have those signs... I'm VERY SURE that not all the unmasked customers in these businesses are fully vaccinated. Unvaccinated people have been free to go about without wearing masks, spreading this illness to other unvaccinated people. There are the people who outright just don't wanna get vaccinated, and then there are the people who can't---they're allergic to the vaccine, and then there are the underage kids who aren't allowed to get vaccinated. It's sad, really, that this is still spreading. At this point, IMO, this is a totally preventable illness, but because of some selfish people, we in LA County now must all wear masks again indoors in public.

And it's no coincidence that our COVID numbers started rising again after California lifted the restrictions on business capacity limits and masking. DUH.

According to a recent news story I read, there are about 4 million unvaccinated residents in LA County. That's just RESIDENTS, let alone the possibly unvaccinated people who live outside LA County that work in LA County or come in for recreation. I know of two Trumpers at work who refuse to be vaccinated and live in the Inland Empire. Another Trumper lives in the Antelope Valley (in LA County) and also refuses to get vaccinated. This morning he was talking to someone in the hall and complaining about having to wear masks again in LA County, he said "It's proof that the vaccines aren't working!" I wanted to butt into the conversation and say "NO, it's proof that the honor system isn't working."

[the urban politician]

^ Agreed, but some of you guys need to get over this axe grinding about Trumpers.

If you really care about vaccination, you have to acknowledge that vaccination rates are also relatively poor in the Hispanic & African American communities, as well as people in their 20s. Yes, the Trumpers are also bad, but perhaps it would help if we actually acknowledged who is refusing vaccination so that we can focus our efforts?

[JManc]

I've been fully vaccinated since the end of March and and I think I might have even had a light bout with Covid since then but constantly bagging on the unvaccinated is just another front in the culture war...with this 'us v. them' bullshit. If you are vaccinated, you're fine and if you're immunocompromised (and vaxxed) you should be proactive regardless of who you're around. The unvaxxed are the ones playing Russian-Roulette with their well being and I haven't worn a mask in almost three months except to fly.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

I've been fully vaccinated since end of March and and I think I might have even had a light bout with Covid since then but constantly bagging on the unvaccinated is just another front in the culture war...with this 'us v. them' bullshit. If you are vaccinated, you're fine and if you're immunocompromised (and vaxxed) you should be proactive regardless of who you're around. They unvaxxed are the ones playing Russian-Roulette with their well being and I haven't worn a mask in almost three months except to fly.

Yeah, if vaxxed people really want to encourage everyone to get vaxxed then they should lay off the finger wagging.

[10023]

I don’t support the idea as a health pass. It’s an invasion of privacy, an unprecedented curtailment of individual liberty, and an enormous pain in the ass for businesses.

What about just popping your head into a shop or bar, then walking out, which is something we used to do all the time? Now you need to wait for an employee to be free to come check you in? F that.

The milestone we needed to hit was universal vaccine availability. If you want to protect yourself you can. And really not even for everyone - the fact that 20-somethings and teenagers haven’t been given the vaccine yet in Europe is a non-issue. Vulnerable people have all had the opportunity to get both shots in most of the countries we are talking about (the US, Canada, UK, most of Europe). Life shouldn’t be limited to keep teenagers or the wilfully unvaccinated from getting Covid (even if many of the latter do die).

[the urban politician]

At some point 10023's point makes sense.

In developed countries, if death rates are very low (like they are now) even with some people not being vaccinated, then.......

.......who cares?

(and please answer this question without using the word 'variant', which is a copout. Obviously nobody can predict future events. In 2019 a new deadly variant of the Flu could have emerged, but that didn't mean that we were requiring Flu vaccine passports and locking people down)

[someone123]

Originally Posted by 10023

I don’t support the idea as a health pass. It’s an invasion of privacy, an unprecedented curtailment of individual liberty, and an enormous pain in the ass for businesses.

There are some subtleties like vaccine uptake in different areas and domestic vs. foreign travel, but basically the burden of proof is on the health pass people to make a strong argument for why their intervention is needed right now based on concrete evidence.

Around here we're at around 80% vaccinated with 11 people in ICU (probably mostly there from a long time ago) out of a population of 5 million, so for the moment the "overwhelmed hospital" scenario isn't plausible. For bars and whatnot people can decide if that's a risk they want to take. If you're deathly afraid of covid, nobody will prevent you from locking yourself indoors or wearing an N95 mask to the grocery store. The objective risk of a bad health outcome due to uncontrollable exposure in normal situations is incredibly low right now, at least around here. In the last week I think the the fatality rate was 0.2 per million.

[sopas ej]

I see having to show proof of vaccination no more of an inconvenience or invasion of privacy than being carded to buy liquor or enter a nightclub.

[someone123]

Another aspect of this that doesn't make a lot of sense is people who believe they are in imminent danger of contracting covid and having a very bad outcome today in places where cases are perhaps 1/10 or less what they were back in the winter.

Do they believe that they recovered before but they have no immunity now on average or their next bout will be worse? When a pandemic runs for 1-2 years and severe reinfection cases are rare there is a ceiling on the rate of serious illness happening at any given time.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I see having to show proof of vaccination no more of an inconvenience or invasion of privacy than being carded to buy liquor or enter a nightclub.

In theory it could be similar but in practice I'm not so sure. Around here we've had lots of incompetence at government storage of health records and so it's reasonable to assume that any electronic data might be breached. We have paper vaccination cards too but they disclose more data than is necessary for a night club owner to see. If you know the date of vaccination here you can work out which priority category the person was in (e.g., maybe they declared indigenous ancestry, maybe they were clinically extremely vulnerable).

[homebucket]

How is showing proof of vaccination an invasion of privacy? Is having your bags searched and going through metal detectors before attending a ball game or boarding a flight an invasion of privacy? Why do people have the mental strength of single ply toilet paper?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by homebucket

How is showing proof of vaccination an invasion of privacy? Is having your bags searched and going through metal detectors before attending a ball game or boarding a flight an invasion of privacy? Why do people have the mental strength of single ply toilet paper?

The issue is what exactly do you have a "right" to do? It's long been settled that you don't have a right to drive; hence you need a license that you must show to a police officer upon demand. Do you have a right to attend a ball game, enter a bar or restaurant or club and so forth? I don't think so and I think it's pretty well established that these businesses require a license to operate and so are subject to conditions set by the licensing authority--usually the local government--which can include requiring proof of vaccination for patrons. Rules and regulations are especially tight for any activity serving alcohol and they require not only a regular business license but usually one to serve alcohol as well.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

At some point 10023's point makes sense.

In developed countries, if death rates are very low (like they are now) even with some people not being vaccinated, then.......

.......who cares?

(and please answer this question without using the word 'variant', which is a copout. Obviously nobody can predict future events. In 2019 a new deadly variant of the Flu could have emerged, but that didn't mean that we were requiring Flu vaccine passports and locking people down)

Anyone who gets very sick or dies cares.

Your argument boils down to how many lives "matter"?

And you can't bar the consideration of variants. It's critical to the reasoning of nearly all virology and epidemiology experts who are concerned about how we are currently dealing with the virus. That you don't understand that makes me very disappointed in your medical expertise.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by homebucket

How is showing proof of vaccination an invasion of privacy?

It's not.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

The issue is what exactly do you have a "right" to do? It's long been settled that you don't have a right to drive; hence you need a license that you must show to a police officer upon demand. Do you have a right to attend a ball game, enter a bar or restaurant or club and so forth? I don't think so and I think it's pretty well established that these businesses require a license to operate and so are subject to conditions set by the licensing authority--usually the local government--which can include requiring proof of vaccination for patrons. Rules and regulations are especially tight for any activity serving alcohol and they require not only a regular business license but usually one to serve alcohol as well.

Legally, you must be licensed to drive and be 21 to purchase alcohol while there are no laws requiring vaccinations (in general or to participate in activities) so no legal grounds to show vaccination record to anyone. It's still very much a legal grey area and one that won't be settled any time soon.