Vaccine Mandates are the new Border Wall
Some Republicans in the Senate are threatening to shut down the federal government this weekend (temporary funding runs out Friday night -- there's currently no fiscal year budget in place) unless they can overturn President Biden's COVID vaccine mandates.
Via a variety of executive orders and regulations, the Biden Administration has mandated that federal workers (including active military, reserves, and national guard), federal contractors, health care workers, and employees at businesses with 100+ employees must get fully vaccinated against COVID by certain dates.
Some of these mandates have been delayed by the administration, others have been blocked at least temporarily by federal judges. All of these mandates have exceptions for valid health or religious objections.
Biden has gone "all in" on vaccination mandates as his main defense against COVID, while also requiring masks on airplanes, trains, buses, and at federal facilities -- places where only a small percentage of US residents are located at any given moment.
Meanwhile many Republicans have gone "all out" to fight any sort of defense against COVID. They've "succeeded" in one way that Trump was unable to last year -- now the death rate from COVID is significantly higher in Republican areas than in Democratic areas. In 2020 before vaccination there were no significant differences in COVID death rates around the country as the waves of infection moved back and forth. But in 2021 after vaccines became available, Republican areas have seen death rates go up while Democratic areas have seen death rates go down.
It's difficult to see the effects of Biden's vaccine mandates in the broader population data -- nationwide we're still at only 59% fully vaccinated, and now the majority of the shots given out are boosters to people who were already fully vaccinated. Delays in the deadlines plus numerous court challenges have put off any "bite" from the various mandates until at least next year.
Why do some Republicans see this is as their #1 political issue, important enough to shut down the entire federal government? I don't know many Republicans personally, and I find it difficult to follow them on social media (including here on LJ) because their feeds are usually full of misinformation about COVID, such as promoting ivermectin as a treatment. My youngest brother and his wife are anti-vax, but this was true before COVID came along, for most Republicans their anti-vax positions didn't pop up until after the COVID vaccines were developed and approved (under their own Republican President Trump). My brother claims to know somebody who suffered a stroke after getting a COVID shot -- but this doesn't mean the COVID shot caused the stroke. When tens of millions of people get a vaccine shot, it is normal for some of them to also experience unrelated health problems around the same time. Ironically my brother finally got vaccinated after his employer threatened to fire him, so a mandate "worked" on him.
The hill Republicans literally want to die on now is that the US shouldn't do anything at all about the spread of a deadly disease, as they support their case with misinformation, anecdotes, and paeans to "freedom". And it is literally killing more of them as a result. It makes me miss the days when our biggest disagreement was over whether to build additional miles of southern border wall in the middle of the desert -- a relatively harmless dispute that nevertheless kept the federal government shut down for five weeks.
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The misinformation on the pro-vaccine side has been the attitude that getting fully vaccinated is all you need to do to protect yourself from COVID. As time has allowed us to collect more data about the effectiveness of the vaccines, we can see that some brands of the vaccines work better than others, that the protection from the vaccines tends to decline over time, that the vaccines work differently depending on how old you are, and that overall COVID may still be several times deadlier than the flu regardless of your vaccination status.
Vaccination should be viewed as a good, but limited, tool in our toolbox for addressing COVID, not as the only tool.
But my youngest brother wonders out loud why we're letting this one disease change how we live our lives. And then he says, "Don't try to force your data down my throat."
The data showing that COVID is killing 10x as many people as the flu normally does, even with most of the population vaccinated. The data showing that others are dying because too many hospitals are overrun with COVID patients and unable to provide normal service. OK, if you want to ignore the data and return to normal ...
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Today is World AIDS Day.
AIDS is another disease that was bad enough, at least among some groups, that we had to change how we lived our lives. But even among the groups at higher risk for AIDS -- which kills nearly 100% when left untreated -- there were people who spread misinformation claiming that HIV didn't cause AIDS, and there were people who refused to change their behaviors. And then as preventive drugs finally came out, there were people who saw those preventive drugs as all they needed to do to protect themselves from AIDS (or STDs in general) -- so they wanted to return to normal.
The transmission of disease is a multifaceted continuum, an ongoing problem requiring ongoing public health interventions and ongoing behavior changes. Micro-organisms and parasites are constantly evolving, coming up with new ways to attack us and new ways to defend against our treatments. But the typical person wants to view disease as an abnormal state in which you go to the doctor to get a pill and then return to normal.
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How do people choose their political priorities? Why was the border wall important enough to shut down the government a few years ago, and now the vaccine mandates are the top issue instead?
I remember at the time, the border wall was very important to some people because of misinformation and anecdotes. Sure, some crime is committed by illegal immigrants, some illegal drugs are smuggled over the border, but if you look at the statistics, if you look at cause and effect -- adding a few hundred miles of additional border wall in the desert was not going to make a dent in these problems.
Most illegal immigrants entered the US legally and overstayed their visas. Most illegal drugs are either manufactured domestically or smuggled in via legal entry points.
Yet people on the Left viewed building more wall as a moral travesty, as though we should have zero enforcement of our borders, while people on the Right viewed building more wall as a moral imperative.
I think the fight over vaccine mandates is overblown, on both sides. Most people are not going to die from COVID, period. For most people, it doesn't matter what restrictions or mandates we impose. A lot of people "know" this in their "gut". But some of us are at higher risk because of age and/or certain health conditions. And a significant chunk of us are at higher risk of dying from other causes if the hospitals are overrun by COVID patients.
So it makes sense to have some society-wide restrictions or mandates to protect those at higher risk, and it makes sense to have some special precautions for people at higher risk.
But instead of talking about what might make sense, now the #1 political issue in the US is a fight between two misinformed sides over masks and vaccines, with one side wanting zero restrictions at all, and the other thinking vaccines alone are good enough.
As though wearing a mask or getting a free shot were huge sacrifices. Imagine if people had to give up their phones instead LOL. Or their Coca-Cola. Or their Netflix.
Look at the society-wide changes we made in response to 9/11, yet as COVID is killing more people week after week than 9/11 did, we're fighting over whether to make any changes to our lives at all.
It's weird how irrational people can be. Not wanting a vaccine because it hasn't been tested sufficiently for them to trust it, yet willingly taking quack remedies that have not been proven to work. Setting up TSA to stop terrorists from boarding planes, but then getting into fist fights over whether to wear masks on planes. As Moose taught me long ago, "and people are stupid".
Via a variety of executive orders and regulations, the Biden Administration has mandated that federal workers (including active military, reserves, and national guard), federal contractors, health care workers, and employees at businesses with 100+ employees must get fully vaccinated against COVID by certain dates.
Some of these mandates have been delayed by the administration, others have been blocked at least temporarily by federal judges. All of these mandates have exceptions for valid health or religious objections.
Biden has gone "all in" on vaccination mandates as his main defense against COVID, while also requiring masks on airplanes, trains, buses, and at federal facilities -- places where only a small percentage of US residents are located at any given moment.
Meanwhile many Republicans have gone "all out" to fight any sort of defense against COVID. They've "succeeded" in one way that Trump was unable to last year -- now the death rate from COVID is significantly higher in Republican areas than in Democratic areas. In 2020 before vaccination there were no significant differences in COVID death rates around the country as the waves of infection moved back and forth. But in 2021 after vaccines became available, Republican areas have seen death rates go up while Democratic areas have seen death rates go down.
It's difficult to see the effects of Biden's vaccine mandates in the broader population data -- nationwide we're still at only 59% fully vaccinated, and now the majority of the shots given out are boosters to people who were already fully vaccinated. Delays in the deadlines plus numerous court challenges have put off any "bite" from the various mandates until at least next year.
Why do some Republicans see this is as their #1 political issue, important enough to shut down the entire federal government? I don't know many Republicans personally, and I find it difficult to follow them on social media (including here on LJ) because their feeds are usually full of misinformation about COVID, such as promoting ivermectin as a treatment. My youngest brother and his wife are anti-vax, but this was true before COVID came along, for most Republicans their anti-vax positions didn't pop up until after the COVID vaccines were developed and approved (under their own Republican President Trump). My brother claims to know somebody who suffered a stroke after getting a COVID shot -- but this doesn't mean the COVID shot caused the stroke. When tens of millions of people get a vaccine shot, it is normal for some of them to also experience unrelated health problems around the same time. Ironically my brother finally got vaccinated after his employer threatened to fire him, so a mandate "worked" on him.
The hill Republicans literally want to die on now is that the US shouldn't do anything at all about the spread of a deadly disease, as they support their case with misinformation, anecdotes, and paeans to "freedom". And it is literally killing more of them as a result. It makes me miss the days when our biggest disagreement was over whether to build additional miles of southern border wall in the middle of the desert -- a relatively harmless dispute that nevertheless kept the federal government shut down for five weeks.
-----
The misinformation on the pro-vaccine side has been the attitude that getting fully vaccinated is all you need to do to protect yourself from COVID. As time has allowed us to collect more data about the effectiveness of the vaccines, we can see that some brands of the vaccines work better than others, that the protection from the vaccines tends to decline over time, that the vaccines work differently depending on how old you are, and that overall COVID may still be several times deadlier than the flu regardless of your vaccination status.
Vaccination should be viewed as a good, but limited, tool in our toolbox for addressing COVID, not as the only tool.
But my youngest brother wonders out loud why we're letting this one disease change how we live our lives. And then he says, "Don't try to force your data down my throat."
The data showing that COVID is killing 10x as many people as the flu normally does, even with most of the population vaccinated. The data showing that others are dying because too many hospitals are overrun with COVID patients and unable to provide normal service. OK, if you want to ignore the data and return to normal ...
-----
Today is World AIDS Day.
AIDS is another disease that was bad enough, at least among some groups, that we had to change how we lived our lives. But even among the groups at higher risk for AIDS -- which kills nearly 100% when left untreated -- there were people who spread misinformation claiming that HIV didn't cause AIDS, and there were people who refused to change their behaviors. And then as preventive drugs finally came out, there were people who saw those preventive drugs as all they needed to do to protect themselves from AIDS (or STDs in general) -- so they wanted to return to normal.
The transmission of disease is a multifaceted continuum, an ongoing problem requiring ongoing public health interventions and ongoing behavior changes. Micro-organisms and parasites are constantly evolving, coming up with new ways to attack us and new ways to defend against our treatments. But the typical person wants to view disease as an abnormal state in which you go to the doctor to get a pill and then return to normal.
-----
How do people choose their political priorities? Why was the border wall important enough to shut down the government a few years ago, and now the vaccine mandates are the top issue instead?
I remember at the time, the border wall was very important to some people because of misinformation and anecdotes. Sure, some crime is committed by illegal immigrants, some illegal drugs are smuggled over the border, but if you look at the statistics, if you look at cause and effect -- adding a few hundred miles of additional border wall in the desert was not going to make a dent in these problems.
Most illegal immigrants entered the US legally and overstayed their visas. Most illegal drugs are either manufactured domestically or smuggled in via legal entry points.
Yet people on the Left viewed building more wall as a moral travesty, as though we should have zero enforcement of our borders, while people on the Right viewed building more wall as a moral imperative.
I think the fight over vaccine mandates is overblown, on both sides. Most people are not going to die from COVID, period. For most people, it doesn't matter what restrictions or mandates we impose. A lot of people "know" this in their "gut". But some of us are at higher risk because of age and/or certain health conditions. And a significant chunk of us are at higher risk of dying from other causes if the hospitals are overrun by COVID patients.
So it makes sense to have some society-wide restrictions or mandates to protect those at higher risk, and it makes sense to have some special precautions for people at higher risk.
But instead of talking about what might make sense, now the #1 political issue in the US is a fight between two misinformed sides over masks and vaccines, with one side wanting zero restrictions at all, and the other thinking vaccines alone are good enough.
As though wearing a mask or getting a free shot were huge sacrifices. Imagine if people had to give up their phones instead LOL. Or their Coca-Cola. Or their Netflix.
Look at the society-wide changes we made in response to 9/11, yet as COVID is killing more people week after week than 9/11 did, we're fighting over whether to make any changes to our lives at all.
It's weird how irrational people can be. Not wanting a vaccine because it hasn't been tested sufficiently for them to trust it, yet willingly taking quack remedies that have not been proven to work. Setting up TSA to stop terrorists from boarding planes, but then getting into fist fights over whether to wear masks on planes. As Moose taught me long ago, "and people are stupid".