I think that depends on the theories that one has. Either choice would be based on missing or incomplete data.

For example, one could question the potential for autoimmune conditions due to the way the mRNA vaccine works and how the immune system typically targets multiple proteins on the cell. There's no data or studies our there about this longterm possibility or even the incidence of autoimmune antibodies produced by vaccination. This likely isn't a problem for the elderly since it can take years or decades to present/progress, and their value proposition is different than for younger people. It starts to get more questionable as the value proposition changes dramatically in the youngest age groups. The question of vaccinating one's child for covid is certainly a topic with a diverse set of opinions and very little data to perform a thorough longterm cost/benefit analysis.

100% this. Which is why the only group of people I will not question their vaccine hesitancy are those already recovered from Covid direct infection.

It is not illogical: those people have two fears instead of one.

Some chance of high probability of damages, vs full chance of low probability of damages.

This is why numbers are important... Fuzzy equation members like 'some', 'high' and 'low' are inadequate for this decision making.

are you overweight, elderly or otherwise immunocompromised? if not your risk of hospitalization or death [from covid19] is miniscule.

>it being hard to be a part of society if you refuse to take one of the most basic steps to protect other people in it.

there are a huge number of diseases you can knowingly spread with far more severe long term consequences while still being 'part of society'. frankly i do not think free and democratic societies can survive while trying to also fulfill the moral compunction not to let anyone die ever from transmittable illness, it is simply at odds with our biology. we, like all mammals are walking bags of filth and disease and no amount of indefinite containment will ever change that reality.

Worrying about getting other people sick when you do not reasonable suspicion that you are sick is a moral trap. If something is "everyone's" responsibility, then it really is _no one's_ responsibility, because there is no way to determine who spread the disease to whom. In this case, it's best to simply take the steps you feel necessary to protect yourself and your loved ones.

> I’m very much in support of it being hard to be a part of society if you refuse to take one of the most basic steps to protect other people in it

Flu vaccine? Smoking cessation? Hand washing? Race/gender/religion sensitivity training?

These seem like pretty basic steps. Should we bar entrance to society based on these?

"Once vaccines are approved for children, I think people's options should be to either vaccinate their child or homeschool them"

Alternative perspective, why should the unvaxed kids be forced into homeschooling? Maybe the parents of vaxed kids should be given the option of putting their vaxed kid in a school that has a mix of vaxed and unvaxed kids, or to homeschool? Given the general demographics of the unvaxed I'd say that's far more likely to happen then a school vax mandate. They would never get away with turning away a bunch of African-American kids going to some of the strapped inner city schools. Food for thought.

An alternative that could happen is vaxed / unvaxed kids in separate classes or schools. Though that wouldn't be possible everywhere.

Yes. It's still true. Arguing otherwise requires applying that same logic universally. Any life decision that could result in worse health outcomes "takes a hospital bed away from someone else." Once you go down that road, you now need a way to define what is "healthy," so that you can legislate what to do with people who made poor health choices. If we delegate the definition of "healthy" to the FDA, then trying out something as benign as a novel diet could end up in medical discrimination. That's not a world I want to live in.

Replacing “unvaccinated” with “obese” here gives an argument for forcing obese people on diet against their will.

> So is smoking inside restaurants.

But not smoking in your car or at home. There are tons of American parents who hotbox their kids with cigarette or marijuana smoke on a daily basis which not only harms them with second hand smoke but increases their chances of smoking themselves by an astronomical factor.

Parents legally harm their children constantly by setting bad diet patterns (child obesity), or substance abuse patterns just to name a few ways. Should we make that illegal and have the state raise those kids?

There is a great chasm between direct action resulting in tragedy and inaction for the preservation of autonomy having an infinitesimally small probability of directly resulting in tragedy.

Comparing choosing to drive drunk with not choosing to take a particular action that has an infinitesimally small probability of directly causing tragedy are not remotely comparable.

> Getting really drunk and driving home is also a decision about your body. So is smoking inside restaurants.

Smelly analogy is smelly. You're talking about the difference between very specific behaviors being prohibited versus blacklisting half of the population from participating in society with vaccine mandates (many of whom are black, by the way). It's not even close to a valid comparison.

I get the sense that the overlap of people who are pro-mandatory-vaccine and pro-choice is pretty high, being that they are both liberal positions. "My body, my choice" is just fine for women's reproductive rights, even if it meant taking away a baby's chance to live. All of a sudden "my body, my choice" doesn't sound so good?

I got both of my shots but I am so tired of people blaming anti-vaxxers. Give me a vaccine good enough that I don't have to worry about it. Today, I'm literally going to get a COVID test despite having both my vaccine doses. Why? Apparently my government isn't capable of providing useful guidance to keep me safe. We keep hearing about masks, but the mandate got dropped and there was never any talk about mandating the clearly superior KN95 or N95 masks.

Anti-vaxxers have been consistent from the beginning that they're not getting vaccinated. You know whose position keeps changing? FDA & CDC. Whether it's how effective the vaccine is, what the side effects are, do we need to wear masks, how much social distancing is required, whether or not a booster is useful...

You and everyone else blaming anti-vaxxers are letting the government redirect blame for its own failures.

drive it drunk on gvt owned roads? where you have a license to operate it if you abide by specific rules? and you lose the license if any of them are broken?

that’s a very different comparison to something like going to a private business

what about driving drunk on your own land away from anyone

Except that in reality there aren't 20 vaccinated people and 5 unvaccinated people with COVID. There is 1 vaccinated person and 49 unvaccinated people with COVID.

Regardless, your argument doesn't make any sense. If anyone -- vaccinated or not -- has COVID, they should be required to stay home. If an unvaccinated person does not yet have COVID, we should push them to get vaccinated, because then they will be much less likely to get the disease, and if they do get it, serious illness or hospitalization will be vanishingly unlikely.

Vaccination also reduces the "breeding ground" for mutations. At this point it's critical that we slow down the creation and spread of new variants that might do a better job of getting around our existing vaccines.

Health leaders and politicians entire job is to build and maintain trust. Mistakes like this only reinforce vaccine hesitancy. Those that are hesitant know that the science is settled - until it isn't. The only method to account for unknown unknowns is time.

It would have been entirely possible for Fauci et. al to say "The vaccine data appears to show 95%+ efficacy, but we will be waiting to lift lockdown mandates be sure". That kind of messaging shows both a respect for science and a commitment to everyone's health. However, it was an unpopular political decision, so mandates were lifted.

This isn't the first time they've changed their course after making a decision prematurely. To the vaccine hesitant, why is this FDA approval any different? There's massive political pressure to approve these vaccines.

No, kelnos, there exist unvaccinated that take all possible precautions not to be spreaders. I know people (asymptomatic supposedly non infectious but-you-never-know) who lock the car windows and airflow when they pass into inhabited areas; I know people that have broken shoes and are not going to a shop to replace them (I am not joking). Their cynicism is at level "if a particle roams the air and enters the window, tough luck..." - if you want to blame at that level, ok. (If you want to also note the damages for the shoe industry and all the equivalent, that would be understandable.)

Other people are much more leaning towards frowning upon the partytime people "let us hug and stay together and forget about it all". Those other people believe that if people had been careful, the damages would have been minimal. Using some of your words,

«the virus could be [...] controlled by now in any country with a sufficient» carefulness in the population.

Governments are prolonging the restrictions and lockdowns. Unvaccinated people are not doing that. Governments are.

Demonizing unvaccinated people is the language of an abuser: "Look what you're making me do to you." The way out of abuse isn't ever to comply with the abuser's demands.

Nothing is going to stop covid, and pitting people against each other isn't going to do any good. We'll still have to live with each other.

Wow, amazing. I hope I never stand next to you. The shiver would probably freeze me to death.

This is no quote, so please dont make it look like one.

Also, the comparison is nonsense. If someone drinks and drives, they did intake something into their system which made them a risk to others. What you want is the reverse. Everyone is by default a risk to the society, and only if the get a biannual shot from the latest and greatest experimental medicine, you deem them no danger to society. You are trying to outlaw the human condition. There are people who think this is a big deal and needs to be opposed. I agree.

It only sounds silly because no one would say that. You cannot change the argument and pretend you won a fight

It was 84% for the original covid. Anything lower was a lie.

Mutations were obviously going to happen from the get go. When questioned about this exact thing "experts" still stated that 70% would prevent this from happening, until they were wrong.

It will be interesting to see if those cases result in many deaths. Typically when viruses mutate they become less deadly, so there's a chance these new cases won't have nearly as negative an outcome as the previous waves. The data is still coming in, but initial numbers look like a negligible amount of deaths compared to their historical numbers.