>People have a right to be unvaccinated, and the rest of us have a right to protect ourselves from them.
If your vaccinated and have the protection, what's the real issue?
If you want to go down the whole "protection" rabbit hole - and ostensibly I'm going to assume you mean protection from exposure to the virus, then the vaccinated are far more of a problem. An unvaccinated person can not shed (spread) the virus unless they are symptomatic - ie. have a fever. Checking for a fever is trivial to do in a non-invasive way.
Vaccinated people can not only be carrying but shedding (spreading) the virus while showing zero symptoms. So the only way to tell if a vaccinated person is a potential super spreader is through testing - that is neither as quick or easy as just taking someone's fever.
An utter 180 from your position. If anyone is concerned about protection from exposure, you would be looking at protection from the vaccinated - not the unvaccinated!
>People have a right to be unvaccinated, and the rest of us have a right to protect ourselves from them.
No you don t. You took a vaccine that s supposed to protect you. You don t have any right to impose it through mandates on others. This is hiding malicious intent behind "what about the children" argument. You got your shot, you re protected
and under no threat, move on with your life and leave people and their rights alone.
That isn't true. There are a lot of unvaccinated people - notably any that have recovered from COVID - who pose less danger to their coworkers than someone who has only been vaccinated.
This isn't based on risk assessment, this is based on ideology. There are situations developing where someone who is less likely to transmit COVID is being fired while someone more likely to transmit the disease is kept on - and everyone involved in the process knows it.
So would you be happy if in addition to vaccination and regular testing, regular antibody tests were also an alternative? And do you agree that this would also increase complexity (in my mind to questionable benefit)?
No, I wouldn't accept that approach either. But at least it would be focusing on the risk instead of being a status play. At the moment you're accepting a risk without knowing anyone's antibody titer at all. It says a lot about the situation that nobody is measuring it and nobody minds that it isn't being measured. People's susceptibility to COVID is barely in the conversation. A risk-based strategy is not being employed.
Despite all these measures you are still going to be exposed to the coronavirus. Just like the every flu that we've dealt with for the last however many thousand years. This rigmarole is just upsetting people for no real gain to you.
Of course everyone around you being vaccinated is safer and less risky for you (and for them as well). And sure there are other approaches that might be even more effective at reducing risk (like measuring antibodies), but that would also be much more complicated.
What is "less risk"? If you mean being exposed to someone who can shed the virus, vaccinated people can shed the virus asymptomatically. You are far more likely to unknowingly be exposed to the virus from a vaccinated person than from an unvaccinated person.
Our media and so-called health leaders have dramatically oversold the value of these vaccines. Yes, they can help with the severity of reaction when you are exposed but they aren't some defensive bubble.
And I think that's the real issue here - being exposed to the virus and each persons reaction and risks carried in that reaction to the exposure are two different things, but they are lumped together - which shouldn't be.
Nothing is, but my risk from COVID post vaccination is less than other society risks we accept as normal risks of living in a free society, for example my risk of dying in an auto accident is many times greater than my risk from COVID post vaccination
>> Vaccinated people do still spread the infection, albeit to a smaller degree
I am not sure how this statement is relative to question on if an unvaccinated person poses a risk to me to the point where we must violate their body autonomy for forcibly inject them with a medication against their will
>>Some people cannot be vaccinated, and for others it's less effective
While true, this means those people should take additional risk mitigation, this however is NOT a justification for vaccine mandates, not in my view. These people should wear N95 Masks, take extra pro cations and be extra vigilant about social distancing and/or going to large public events.
>>For the above reasons, it's beneficial to me and society at large if as many people as possible are vaccinated.
Sure, but that is not what is being debated. The question is do those reasons justify the use of force,threats, and ultimately government violence to forcibly inject people.
No one has suggested forcibly injecting anyone. But sure, not allowing people who aren’t vaccinated to participate in all facets of society can be construed as a type of force. Unlike you I see that as reasonable.
All government action and regulations are back by the threat of violence. This is an irrefutable fact, since the is the way government enforces their actions. Sure the first stage maybe masked in the guise of non-violence in the form of fine or other punishments but underlying all of that is the fact that if you resist a person with a gun will show up to force your compliance
Your are correct that I do not find the small risk vaccinated person's have from an unvaccinated person to be at a level to justify mandates as reasonable
Yes, there’s force backing those prohibitions (I literally mention that in the sentence you quoted), but what I wrote was that no one is talking about forcefully injecting anyone. You can decline the vaccine, parts of the rest of society just won’t allow you to interact with them. But if you’re the type to value your negative liberty that much, I’m sure you can manage without?
This is a disingenuous way to frame it.
The current govt is anti-Nazi, but it's never tried to mandate that all employees found to be Nazis must be fired.
The reason vaccines are an issue of employment (only at larger employers, by the way) is that unvaccinated people endanger their coworkers.
People have a right to be unvaccinated, and the rest of us have a right to protect ourselves from them.