The vaccine limit the spread of the disease, that's a fact. By how much is up to debate but it is not just effective at making the disease less severe.

The wave of infections caused by the delta variant is faster, larger and deadlier in places with low vaccination rates. The vaccinated are less likely to test positive by about half, symptoms or not.

Not perfect but the vaccine protects others. If the unvaccinated took the necessary precautions to avoid infecting others, it would be their problem (if healthcare is not overwhelmed...), but usually they don't. Just look at anti-vaccine protests, you don't see a lot of masks...

And of course, if almost everyone in your area is vaccinated, most cases will be breakthrough cases.

Because the unvaccinated are:

1) Filling ICUs and taking up other hospital resources unnecessarily. Leaves that for people who are injured in accidents.

2) Dying. We don't want our fellow humans dying. Only anti-social jerks don't care if their fellow humans die from easily preventable causes.

3) Carrying larger viral loads for longer.

> their bodily choices?

If it were only their body it wouldn't be a much of an issue. However, it's not just their body. See above.

1) Fair point on ICU beds.

2) Yes, but lots of people make personal choices that cause their own premature death. We aren't muzzling obese people for trumpeting the values of an all-bacon diet.

3) True, but this circles back to the fact that vaccinated people also carry viral loads and if you get infected while vaccinated it's much less severe so it almost negates any longer term carrying argument.

The real point of contention is the unvaccinated taking up resources that vaccinated people need because if you're in the hospital for covid then you're running your life like an idiot and I can't get my broken leg fixed from when I broke it doing parkour last weekend.

Except that the unvaccinated are doing in en mass, if there were 1/2 a million deaths from parkour us pro-social people would be screaming about it too.

In the end staying unvaccinated for no real reason (mah freedoms! is not a real reason, nor is any other misinformed gibberish like 'it's not a real vaccine' or 'I don't want to be in the experiment') is antisocial and should be squashed as any other antisocial behaviour like graffiti, stabbing car tires, sucker punching strangers, puking in doorways, dine and dash, etc... Yea yea yea, some of those are actual crimes. But that's not my point. It's selfish and unnecessary. Shame, shame, shame.

What's the R0 of an all-bacon diet?

Infectious disease is just that: infectious.

It doesn't stay put. It travels, from host to host. And the more the hosts act in a manner to promote that transmission, the further, faster, and harder it spreads.

My infant daughter had a fever the other day and the doctor's office said that normally if your baby has a fever for this long they would want you to bring the baby in to be seen by a doctor but they're not seeing any patients with fevers right now so just monitor the baby and see if it gets better.

they weren't taking these precautions just a few months ago when case numbers in the area were lower, so I would assume yes they would feel more comfortable if everyone on the planet was vaccinated, as the case numbers in the area would then be much lower.

> The unvaccinated are showing an extreme lack of empathy.

I see this sentiment a lot and it indicates to me a fundamental misunderstanding what is driving people to avoid vaccination.

There is a very strong correlation between vaccination rates and trust in the government. Groups with historically low trust in the government (like conservatives, blacks, and hispanics) have the lowest vaccination rates. Conversely, groups with historically high trust in the government (like liberals and asians) have the highest vaccination rates. This suggests most people decided on whether to get vaccinated long before it was available based on their trust in the government which is pushing so hard for it. The resulting spread in misinformation is just the result of mass confirmation bias.

The "lack of empathy" argument depends on the unvaccinated actually believing the vaccine is safe and effective, yet still ineffective enough that their vaccination will help protect others. But they obviously don't believe that.

Suppression of misinformation wont help because - as I'm sure you've seen many times by now - the very act of suppressing information will only reinforce their confirmation bias. It's quite the dilemma.

I personally believe the only solution is for people to hear these people out to patiently, compassionately reason through their concerns. And I believe we should do this knowing full well that many will not be convinced the first time and many will not be convinced ever. Of course, it would help if we collectively agreed to stop harassing them and treated them like concerned humans with misunderstandings instead of malicious fools. Sadly, social media rewards the opposite of this behavior.

Fair point on the ICU beds. Maybe hospitals can require proof of vaccination before treatment. If no proof can be provided they have to go to a different department. That way the unvaccinated aren't taking resources away from the vaccinated. If we're going to take away their 1st amendment rights then why not take away their other rights?