05-21-2021, 05:58 PM
(05-21-2021, 03:47 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:(05-21-2021, 03:02 PM)jeffster Wrote: Hopefully we CAN get 70% vaccinated. More than enough anti-vaxxers out there to make this an obstacle though.
I hope this leads to better rules around vaccination in general. I’m not sure what the exact rules should be, but the general idea that vaccination is a legitimate condition of employment for all medical workers, social workers, and the like should be adopted universally. Roughly speaking, anybody working in a job where others are forced to interact with them. This should apply not just to the Covid vaccine (obviously), but also the typical universal childhood vaccines and the flu shot.
The exact details need to be worked out by people with medical and epidemiological credentials, with relatively little input from others.
Also, we need to get rid of the notion of “philosophical” and “religous” exemptions for vaccine requirements. The only valid exemptions are medical, as determined by medical personnel.
A philosophical exemption for military service makes sense, as does a religious one; but there is no valid philosophical objection to vaccination, nor am I aware of a valid religious exemption. By “valid religious exemption” I mean an actual bona fide major world culture which has an objection to a practice, not some weird sect which disagrees with 99% of its co-religionists or which was made up in somebody’s backyard last week. For example, any Christian, Muslim, or Jewish “religious” objection to vaccination is invalid, because a huge majority of Christians, Muslims, and Jews have no problem with vaccination.
Note: nobody should be forced to be vaccinated, just as nobody is forced to wear clothes. But the rest of us don’t have to accept those people in our midst. And the actual impact of naked people out in the world would be way less than the impact of non-vaccinated people.
Yeah, I am pretty sure that, at least for the Pfizer, Moderna, Astra-Zeneca and J&J, the religious reasons don't apply (generally if it contains pork and/or blood products, fetal matter, etc) here.
That said, there are a lot of people that are going to avoid it for other reasons. You do have anti-vaxxers, who are against vaccines of any type for any reason. You also have conspiracy theorists regarding this vaccine. The craziest one I heard is that since 1974, the WHO has been working on a disease (Covid-19) that would require a vaccine (the ones currently available) that would sterilize women, so we'd have population control. Also many minorities don't trust public servants (especially the police) and are less likely to be vaccinated.
Lots of other factors as well haven't helped, such as poor media reporting (concentrating on side affects), poor information from all levels of government (like flip flopping on AZ vaccine). Lots of misinformation on social media. Hopefully though we can get to 70%+ for those 12 and up....and I'd imagine that those under 12 might be approved at some point (not because there is much risk, but there would be less spread potential).