Pandemics and Epidemiology (COVID-19, monkeypox, etc.)

We'll send you the bill next week.

The Netherlands now has a hotline for the vaccination hesitant where they can get information and can talk about their doubts and fears.

Great idea! That will help a lot.

I know we have at least one on the forum. They don’t give psychological advise or care to random people on the internet, as they’d be breaching medical ethics if they did. A trained professional knows better than to dispense anything but the most general medical advise via the internet.

Biden’s chaotic messaging on Covid-19 boosters is pitting the White House against the government’s scientific advisers. I am mentioning this because I've seen concerns that this time it's actually the advisers that are wrong, mainly a) by not using data from other countries and b) not doing proper cost/benefit analyses - a common problem for bureaucrats of all calibers.

Yeah, chaotic messaging is a real problem. In the Netherlands, approval of corona measures is down to 20 percent, because people feel the government has waited too long with restrictions and haven't implemented strict enough measures.

Yes, you heard that right. 80 percent of the population thinks we need more measures. Silent majority, indeed.

Hospital beds full, National Guard deployed amid crushing delta wave: Pennsylvania hospitals are running at 110%, while Maine and New York call National Guard.

Things are not going well in the US.

What's even worse is that this is still Delta for the most part. Omicron is already quickly outspreading Delta, which means we could get an Omicron wave on top of the current one.

Amid violent threats, lawmaker ditches bill to make unvaxxed pay hospital bills: “We just can’t have a reasonable conversation anymore," Illinois Rep. Carroll said.

While I don't condone any threats, I can't help but agree somewhat with the sentiment that this idea was going too far. This feels too much like punishment by implicitly withholding care (because not everyone will be able to pay that bill). Especially considering how price-gaugingly expensive the US health care system already is to begin with.

I think the unvaccinated should certainly lose certain perks, but this is not the right way to do it.

What else can be done then? I feel like things aren't going to improve or improve as quickly if we just let the antivaxx do whatever they want.

You restrict them as much as possible until they are all vaccinated, hermits, dead or immune. That's the tack Italy is taking and I suspect Portugal, Spain and France will follow.

It absolutely was not going too far. Unvaccinated people in their stupidity and selfishness force the healthcare system to waste resources on them, putting the vaccinated at risk.

I commend the Representative for the good first step, but I think a better solution would be wheeling them into a big tent out back so they can avoid wasting resources on people who really don't deserve it.

I reminded of that story of the priest sitting on a rooftop during a storm, and refusing to get rescued. These people had already been offered help in the form of the vaccine, and they've refused. So what are we to do?

Forcing insurance companies to not cover the unvaccinated also seems unnecessary, insurance companies love revoking coverage and are likely to do this all on their own.

As for how to deal with the anti-vax, block them from going places where they will hurt people and impose heavy penalties if they try anyway.

nothing, apparently. People are getting murdered for trying to enforce these restrictions.

They still protest about it.

Now vaccination centers are focused on Markets, oddly enough. Usually to attend the anti vaxxers that accept that have to get the vax, even if only to enter back to buy groceries.

Honestly, anti vaxxers are the a great proof for The Evils of Free Will, seriously.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Dec 10th 2021 at 7:24:04 AM

We generally do imprison people who engage in reckless ‘self-choice’ behaviour that endangers lives and eventually kills people.

I really don’t see the moral differential between drunk drivers and the anti-vax.

I think that might be a good legal basic to operate from, treat unvaccinated going into public the same way you would a drink driving incident. Enough incidents or a deadly one and they get jailed.

We don't do this to people who didn't get vaccinated for the flu and got the flu anyway. Why should we do it for these people?

This just sounds like revenge taking to me. Everyone has an equal right to healthcare, no matter what they did. We don't deny smokers coverage for lung cancer treatments either.

You may not have noticed, but COVID is rather deadlier than the flu.

I’m not talking about denying them healthcare (nor technically is Spartan, they’re talking about making them pay for it themselves), I’m talking about putting them in jail.

You still get healthcare in jail. Addiction treatment is actually common in prisons and could likely benefit from being expanded to include conspiracy theory deprograming.

As for smokers and lung cancer treatment, I don’t believe you’ll get a lung transplant if you yell at the doctors about how the cancer is a hoax and they’re just part of a conspiracy to stop Americans consuming their Freedom Cigarettes.

So what happens when someone is too poor to pay for treatment? Do we just let them die?

And just because the flu isn't as deadly does not mean that hospitalisation does not happen. It does, and they are not punished for not being vaccinated.

As for prison... Have you looked at the US prison system lately? It's already overcrowded and facing massive humanitarian problems. Your prisons are woefully ill-equipped to deprogram anyone, including antivaxers.

It would be treated the same way other healthcare is for the uninsured who don’t have masses of money.

If for some reason you’ve engaged passionately in a debate on the subject of US healthcare without insurance and not thought to learn how that works, I believe the people receive the treatment and then are given masses of debt. They won’t be able to access preventative care or long-term medication without paying upfront, but emergency care will still be provided and they’ll then be hounded by debt collectors.

It’s a horrific and immoral system, it’s also incidentally one that the anti-vax support.

It’s a matter of degrees, but degrees matter. Degrees are the different between a relaxing bath and being boiled alive.

As I’m British I’m thinking in terms of British prisons rather than US ones.

Sure there may be a practical barrier of US prison inadequacy that means such a systems isn’t practical in the US, but that doesn’t mean the system is wrong in principle (which seems to be what you’re arguing). If the system is right in principle but can’t be implemented due to systemic barriers than the next step would be to address those barriers.

The total failure of the US prison systems isn’t normally regarded as a reason to not punish people to endanger/kill others, so I find it strange that it’s suddenly a massive barrier when the potential inmates are the anti-vax.

Should the US stop imprisoning drunk drinkers because the prison system is a joke?

Edited by Silasw on Dec 11th 2021 at 9:58:40 AM

If we assume a more benevolent prison system than the US has, it could work, but I still think it should be only for the worst cases and as a last resort.

Also, you run into legal problems there: what law, exactly, would they be breaking that would warrant prison time? We send drunk drivers to prison, not because of any moral outrage about them putting people in danger (though that certainly is part of it), but because it is illegal by law.

Prisons are to punish those who break the law, not to punish those who violate our sense of right and wrong. We can feel it is wrong to not get vaccinated, but that is not a good reason to send them to jail under the justice system.

So once again we run into the disconnect between legal and moral justice.

Red. Your post to Fourth.

What the hell is this inflammatory puppetry?

Edited by fredhot16 on Dec 11th 2021 at 2:08:30 AM

Uh, "the law" isn't something that just magically springs into existence ex nihilo. Drunk driving is illegal because it gets people killed.

I was making a point through hyperbolic example about how the desire to punish antivaxers with draconian measures like imprisonment and second rate medical treatment can lead to rather dark outcomes.

Sure, in 90% of countries the anti-vax movement isn’t so strong that such dramatic measures are required, but in the US they very much are that strong and it’s a problem.

The ones we pass making being anti-vax in public equivalent to drunk driving.

This entire conversation came about because lawmakers in the US tried to pass a law but backed down after threats of violence. So I’m not sure why you’re having trouble with the concept of new laws being passed to bring about what is being suggested.