This is where America constantly shoots itself in the foot. The idea of a national identification system is "Orwellian" or "the mark of the beast" or "what the New World Order wants", but then we keep having a national government that runs national programs that require a national identification. It's why your identity was stolen by your college landlord who you gave your SSN to for a credit check; it's why your voter registration got canceled because someone shares your name in Kansas and therefore it must be you and you must be a Kansas resident now; and it's why your vaccination status is a nice cryptographically secure QR code if you were vaccinated in CA, but a flimsier version of a hastily signed baseball card if you were vaccinated in MA. We're simultaneously obsessed with being the most powerful country in the world, and also somehow not actually a country.
I know a lot of women with endometriosis. I think it might be caused by prolonged exposure to dōTERRA
Ehh, I think Biden's going about it the wrong way. This move is guaranteed to fire up the "muh freedumbs" crowd even more than usual, where I think he should've just given them exactly what they've been asking for. "You don't want the vaccines? Cool, don't take them. I am now directing hospitals that they are FREE to set their own treatment priorities, a sort of "pre-triage" where they can admit who they want into their ICU's instead of first come first served. So if you show up unvaxxed, sorry! A cancer patient might need that bed." That's how freedom works.
One of these things is constitutional and able to be implemented by the president, the other isn't. I know we like to imagine a just world where we can wave a magic wand and things happen exactly according to plan and logic, but realistically, we need to work within the framework of laws we currently have. The way Biden has implemented this is pushing the line to the powers he holds in his position without needing the senate/house to legislate something. It's not forcing people to get the vaccine, it's just making it incredibly difficult to participate in society if you don't want to get one. At the end of the day, and this holds true for the majority, people are inherently lazy and will push back to a point where the cost to them personally is minimal. Once it goes past that, people will bend to whatever requires the least amount of effort.
It would appear the whole "I don't wanna get vaccinated for family planning reasons" excuse to not get vaccinated has not worked out well. https://canoe.com/news/local-news/m...d-19/wcm/e73817a8-3687-4b79-b27a-99b6d8d343c6
Can you explain what you mean here a little? The pharma companies were given some exemptions from being sued for the side-effects of the vaccines (again noting the consideration here: there has never, ever been a long-term side-effect from any vaccine because that's just not how vaccines work). How does that correlate with the rest of this discussion and downndirty's points? The pharma companies are in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to protecting their employees. I'm not sure I really understand the insurance questions, either. Insurance pays for medical treatments. If a medical treatment is required as a result of an acute or chronic condition, does it matter whether it's attributed to long-haul COVID or not? There may be differences between US and Canada insurance that I'm not aware of here, which is why I ask. If I go to to the doc and say, "I'm tired all the time and get easily winded," they're going to do tests and potentially prescribe medications that will treat my symptoms, and insurance pays for that. Obviously in the US that's all private insurance. And they can't just say, "sorry, COVID is a known risk," and exempt me; there used to be the ability to refuse treatment from pre-existing conditions that existed prior to obtaining the insurance, but I believe that's now illegal as part of the Affordable Care Act in the US. However, they couldn't refuse treatment for something that occurred while you were covered by insurance.
I received our first notification phone call ever, that a student in my child's school had tested positive, that all contact tracing had been done and all affected were in quarantine. I assume the school would have done the same notification last year, but we never received any. Perhaps this was the first child in this elementary school to test positive during the school year since this began. Perhaps our area has been that careful and lucky this whole time. We still haven't reached 3,000 cases in our county.
Regarding the exemptions: There have been a very small number of people injured by the vaccines themselves - blood clots, cardiovascular issues, etc - and they have no recourse for damages because the government has forbade any kind of action against the companies who produced them. I don't bring it up to be lawsuit happy; rather, it means that the producers have no skin in the game in terms of worrying about immediate or long-term problems. It's the difference between owning a house and renting one. Sure, you keep an apartment neat and clean, but do you care if the furnace lets go or the roof leaks? Only so far as it's an inconvenience to you. A homeowner tends to be more pro-active because they're on the hook for the damage. And, to be frank, this is a new technology for vaccines that started widespread administration this year. There ARE no long-term effects to speak of. We just...don't know right now. [And everyone calm down: whatever the side effects of the vaccines, they are vastly outweighed by the side effects of Covid. Hence why I think it's wise for most people to be inoculated. D&D can correct me if I'm wrong, but I interpreted his post to be talking about concern for long-haul Covid, enforcement of rules and overall liability. My comments were my thoughts and concerns about the liability issues and the need for litigation on the matter. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with how brutal insurance companies can be. Or you've never had to go to the WSIB (whatever your equivalent of that is) and prove that your injuries were, in fact, sustained at work. Insurance companies will look to mitigate any payment as much as possible. They'll throw all kinds of clauses at this because the expense of treatment right now if you're badly hit is ungodly. Probably the first thing that most will say is, "If you don't have a vaccine, your medical treatment is not covered." They're not looking to pay the bills on their policies; they're looking to maximize profits for shareholders. Which is why proving long-haul symptoms matters. How do you prove that you have brain fog? What reliable, universally recognized test do they do to show that you have it, and how do you prove that six months ago you DIDN'T have it? The burden of proof will be on the claimant, and the red tape on this one is going to stretch to the moon and back. It matters greatly for businesses, because it comes back to liability: are the individual businesses responsible for the damage caused by someone catching Covid at work, the same way they would be if you cut your arm off in a machine at work? Is the worker's comp board responsible? To what extent does that responsibility lie (secondary and tertiary infections)? Is it all on the government? The individual? If the government demands that employers do X, how does the employer prove it? Who is enforcing this? I don't know the answers to these questions. Maybe there's legal precedent that answers this, but I'm not sure what it directs. If I'm Walmart, I tell my employees to get vaccinated or get tested every week. I, Walmart, am not going to pay to test them. That's on the employee's dime. Do I have to ask the employee each week for their paperwork? Is it a passive system? I already have no staff to speak of and can't get rid of the trained workers I do have regularly showing up...what's my punishment if I look the other way? This is super complex and just like the government to think a stupid mandate like this will help, rather than generating unreal paperwork and an administrative nightmare. Also, this quote: And they can't just say, "sorry, COVID is a known risk," and exempt me; there used to be the ability to refuse treatment from pre-existing conditions that existed prior to obtaining the insurance, but I believe that's now illegal as part of the Affordable Care Act in the US, really gets me. No, they can't deny treatment (maybe). But they sure as shit will charge you for it. If you think the insurance companies will happily fork out for any and all medical treatment, may I direct you to what the first responders are still fighting for 20 years after 9/11. Firemen and EMS couldn't get their medical bills paid from injuries suffered THAT WEEK, never mind the cancers that settled in years later. My prediction is that this will be a clusterfuck of bureaucracy and terribly difficult for anyone to navigate. In Canada, at least, you get the same shitty healthcare with no direct bill to the individual (except for the ambulance, the medication and the out of hospital treatments), but it will for sure affect travel insurance and treatment for foreign nationals.
Couple of thoughts: 1. This technology isn't new. MRNA research has been going on since the 1990's. A lot of medical technology needs a widespread health issue to go mainstream. It's one of the reasons so many advancements in medicine happened around wars: there was a major incentive from a government (ie, funding source) to improve something. We haven't used MRNA vaccines before, because there wasn't a concerted, trillion-dollar effort to do so. It's frustrating to realize we could solve a lot of these issues with enough money/emphasis, but there's a ton of medical research sitting on the shelf because there hasn't been a crisis making an opportunity to use it. 2. This really isn't much different from our existing vaccination system. Most people are vaccinated as children, and we forget. Also, the things we're vaccinated against aren't posing a serious threat to anything. If there's a mumps strain that's vax-resistant that breaks out somewhere, it's not a nationwide problem. We go back to public health 101: identify, isolate, contain, and test until we're sure it's contained. Once this got full FDA approval, there's not much "new" here. 3. My thoughts are more on the liability of an employer. If you as an employer require your employees to wear masks, post the right signs, and keep up with state requirements, you should have a strong case against being liable if your staff gets sick. It's why health codes exist, right? If you, as an employer, do not do those things, and ignore COVID, then you will (and should) get your balls sued off by anyone who gets sick at your business. The difficulty is proving they got sick there, but....by flouting the safety measures, you are open to that risk. If the individual sues or the insurance company sues, there's not much difference. 4. There are recourses for damages, they just don't go to the pharma companies, they go to the Federal government. Pfizer's defense would be, "hey fuck yourself, it's FDA approved. Go bother them.". Their liability ends with "we produced it correctly, legally, etc."...as long as it's not a faulty batch, that's it. It's kind of silly to say the pharma companies have no skin in the game, because if the federal government sees enough litigation from this, or if there is a change in the ratio of folks "damaged" by the vaccine, the FDA comes down like the hammer of God. We stopped using a vaccine for a whopping total of SIX (6) cases, remember? Also, once this thing is produced and approved, the pharma companies have done 95% of their job. Their "skin in the game" is already over, they've assumed almost all of the risk already and they won out. 5. To Binary's question: compare it to a bar fight. If you get your jaw broken, you go to the hospital and run up a six-figure bill. Your insurance company pays it, sure. They then will assess if they can recoup some of that money by suing a responsible party. If they find out, say in the police report, that the bar didn't have security or that it was too crowded, thus preventing security from doing their job, they will sue the balls off the bar for that money. Ie, if the bar didn't do their job to prevent this from happening, they are liable. For long haul COVID, same deal. My company didn't follow the rules, and I got COVID. I got long-haul COVID and either my insurance company is looking to sue someone to recoup that money, or I am, because I got fired and lost my insurance. I don't think your insurance company can deny claims if you're unvaccinated, but we might not be far off from that. If you refuse the vaccine and get COVID, they can now make a strong argument that they're not responsible for your claims, because you took on more risk than they covered you for. To DCC's point, that may not play out in court, but it can damn sure play out in the bank: they can't refuse you coverage, but they can jack your rates the fuck up.
re: "Vaccine Passports" They're called immunization records. We were handed them every time we got an immunization from the day I was born. I've got my kid's record, and I've got mine somewhere. Like, 28 years ago when I got my hepatitis B vaccine. I got one when I got my TB vaccine 11 years ago. This is _only_ a problem because psychopaths on the internet have found a catchy phrase, some other nutters to share their conspiracies with, and the fact that this shit is being entertained at all. We couldn't go to a resort in Mexico without an immunization record for HepA/HepB.
Someone arguing in court that being unvaccinated is a pre-existing condition would be an interesting case.
I'm in deep waters here, but my understanding is that, while the research has been going on forever, actual execution of a functioning vaccine was always illusive because parts of the technology were unstable. You are correct, though, that throwing money and effort at the problem while removing the red tape acted like greased lightening. Imagine what other things we could solve - and quickly - if we all pulled in the same direction. The concept of mandatory vaccinations isn't new, of course. But surely we can all agree that there's a difference between asking your mom whatever happened to your MMR card, and having to download a federal government app and have it scanned for the privilege of leaving your house? If we were treating this administratively the way we treat measles or the flu, I wouldn't have objections. I have severe concerns about the society we're signing up for right now, especially if (as I'm suspecting) this virus never goes away. My thoughts are that employers will do the minimum required to avoid liability, whatever that is. Posting signs and updating the manual are great; what policies get enacted at the ground level? WSIB won't care one damn bit about your signs or procedures if an employee can show that no one at work ever really pays attention to them and that there's no repercussions for disobeying. So is the government asking business to be their enforcers? What if, a year into this, we find out that only minimum wage workers in disposable jobs are being fired or reprimanded? Or that the punishments are disproportionately affecting people of colour? I'm not saying all this to be a Debbie Downer; just that the policies that get written can often have unintended consequences, and I'm not sure where this stands legally right now. Prior to Covid, if you caught the flu at work I don't believe I ever heard of a case where the WSIB or employer was liable. Is Covid going to be treated like the flu? Or like an occupational hazard? I can envision these kinds of questions yielding a system in 5-10 years that is bureaucratic stupidity, even if it was well-intentioned from the start. I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I just...can't bring myself to fully trust big Pharma when there's this much profit and all liability removed. Watch television at night on a network and see all the ads for class action lawsuits regarding Drug X that has turned out to cause great harm. Again, not suggesting that whatever risk of vaccination isn't bourne out when you look at the stats. Just that, prior to Covid, if I had suggested on this board that we give Pfizer a blank cheque and remove all their liability and ask them to come up with a drug...would anyone have trusted it then? I think it might even be treated like a car accident. They'll cover you, but if it turns out you were drinking and driving, you're on your own. And you'll never get insurance through anyone again. If I'm the insurance companies looking at the bills this thing generates when it's a severe case, I'm going to demand everyone take every precaution offered or I won't cover them.
It's not a drug, it's a vaccine. Pfizer in this case acted more like a movie company than a research one: they found the "production company" that made the film they wanted to distribute. They had (and will continue to have) a TON of liability. Most of the risk was front-loaded in the development of the vaccine, thus the "movie production company" analogy. Pfizer's risk and liability rests in the distribution and production, which noting the wild temperatures required for storing, isn't minor. And yeah, the blank check is exactly what's supposed to happen when you have a body count higher than 100 years of war combined. So, if Pfizer drops the ball and lets a batch get too warm, and someone is harmed from that, they will be able to sue for damages. That hasn't happened that we know of. No one is pretending Pfizer is free from liability. Their part of the liability is narrowed. If the FDA approves a vaccine that causes a malady in .00001% of the population that receives it, they let the docs know to make an exemption where vaccination is counter-indicated, and let the folks sue the feds for those damages. That also hasn't happened that we know of. The 6 cases of blood clots are the most poignant example, and it's really difficult to prove that wasn't completely random coincidence. The difference between a drug and a vaccine is immense. I don't trust a multinational company beyond what they are incentivized and regulated to do, no. I trust the hundreds of thousands of researchers, doctors, and professionals to save lives, and the government to regulate. These systems are in place, and certainly in "steady-state" get corrupted and perverted to some degree, nothing is perfect. In the emergency we found ourselves in, I'd say they performed incredibly well: researchers getting a vaccine to work, arguably faster and at a better rate than any other innoculation in history. The doctors and medical professionals testing treatments, and emphasizing the need for a vaccine, as well as informing their patients of the risks, pros and cons of each treatment, the public health officials doing their best to analyze, strategize and communicate how to beat this, and the government officials accepting their role as the assurance of public safety and well-being to ensure that this works as advertised. The idea that this vaccine has some dark, secret impact that's being hidden from the public is kind of absurd in the simple recognition that literally thousands of credentialled professionals with millions of hours of training, education and experience are trying to consume any information they can on this that will allow them to make better decisions in the care of their patients. They have no incentive to lie, and substantial incentives not to lie. If there's even a tiny chance of a negative impact, they need to know it, prepare for it, and communicate it, otherwise they make their own lives more difficult: their patients would get worse, while in their own care. No one wants this, and no doctor does this. 99% of hospitalizations for COVID are unvaccinated. The majority of those are children. The vaccine works. Millions of people, thousands of doctors and literal global health crisis addressed by the vaccine are all better off for it. Sure, there are side effects, and most of those are well documented, and publicized....and fucking minor. There are no long-term implications for this, because that's not how vaccines work. There might be if you had to get dozens of them, or if it was true gene therapy. But you get exposed to more random genetic noise swallowing after a blowjob, and no one has ever found a linkage between cock-sucking and genetic deformities outside of the non-scientific, anecdotal research done on Ballsack's mom. Pfizer is like Disney: you may love or hate the brand, but all they are doing is giving infrastructure to the actual creatives making this stuff work. They have tremendous incentives to not fail in their end of the bargain. I trust them with every other molecule of medicine they've put in my body, and I trust them with this. The profit isn't a sign of misaligned incentives, it's a by-product. The liability isn't gone, it's exactly where it's supposed to be.
We are agreed on this. Again, so my message isn't lost: I personally agree that the vaccines are safe and effective. I think it's wise that everyone who can get one, does get one. Well, yes, there is an incentive to lie: the profit that stands to be made on this, especially since it seems like something that will need boosters indefinitely. That being said, I'm with you that the stats all bear out that this vaccine is safe with minor side effects and only rarely serious ones. I just have empathy for people who don't make distinctions between drugs and vaccines and ultimately don't trust either Pharma or the government enough to take their word for it. The irony, though, that those same people will consent to almost any intervention whatsoever when they get a severe case is not lost on me. It's a big cognitive dissonance. This is just me being nitpicky, but friendly reminder that - at least in Canada - the number of Covid deaths didn't increase the overall death count per year in 2020 any higher than what would reasonably be expected (source:https://www.statista.com/statistics/443061/number-of-deaths-in-canada/). Deaths increased about what they did between '16-'17, and less than they did between '14-15. Superficially, it appears that most of the Covid deaths were people who were statistically likely to die that year already. Serious question, not meant at all to sound snarky...are the stats different for the US? Up here, about 1,500 people under the age of 19 have been hospitalized (total) and only 15 have died. (source:https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html) That's around 2% of the total of hospitalizations and less than 1% of all deaths. I think all the children who did die had significant comorbidities. The articles coming out right now that illustrate the overcrowded ERs - which are admittedly anecdotal - all mention that patients in the ICUs tend to be over 40 and most of them obese. Are you saying children are catching it - but not too bothered by it - or that they're dying in great numbers? Again, we are agreed.
Think critically about the "profit is incentive to lie" part. Think about all the attention this is getting, to the point where any side effect is getting White House attention. A half dozen people with blood clots got a nationwide effort to screech to a halt, with the fucking President looking over our shoulder to make sure that happened. Look at what just happened to the Sackler family. Think about all the false claims, from the Russian vaccine to a host of "cures". The company would be cruficied if they got caught misrepresenting any of this. It simply can't happen, not to mention the plausibility of thousands of people keeping the secret. Pfizer made their money when they picked the winner, and secured rights to distribute. They will likely be playing with house money for the next half dozen MRNA vaccines that undergo the FDA process. If anything came out that was falsified or fucked with, there would be massive consequences. It simply isn't worth it. The biggest risk of that happening was in the research stage of the vaccine....and it didn't. Pfizer can fill billions of prescriptions every day without a hitch, they can damned sure deliver some cold jars and needles for a year or two. Again, it's not a drug. They likely planned and budgeted for their financial success with this vaccine for the first year or two it was out, and then it goes to the back burner. It's remarkable how Big Pharma is a boogie man, yet we consume billions of prescriptions all day every day without a moment's pause. To put it a different way: most people objecting to the vaccine can't identify more than 3 ingredients in the sausage they eat every morning. I don't buy the argument their bodies are such pristine temples and that old evil Big Pharma, which fills them full of drugs, is somehow out to get them with a new vaccine.
Yet we have people who deny the moon landing, the holocaust, Bin Laden is dead, the earth is round, and so on, and so on...
Like I've said...I believe the data shows that the vaccines are presently safe. I will say, though, that using the Sackler family is a bad analogy. Sure, they ultimately got smacked with a lawsuit. It took +30 years, ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more deaths and a full-on unending opioid crisis that likely won't ever go away, oh and by the way they chose the bankruptcy court and state they wanted, managed a sweet deal where all the settlements were wrapped up into one case (forever and ever, amen) and before it kicked in they managed to pull all the assets out of what was left of the shell company that was bankrupted. So, I don't hold that situation up as a bastion of how well the system works. The industry, the doctors and the government knew for YEARS what they were doing, but the money was flowing and no one complained until the mortality rate got so high even white people couldn't ignore it. But that's a sidetrack to a whole 'nother discussion. I think this right here is a GREAT point. Something else is going on besides nervousness about a new shot. If the answer to this was well understood, it would go a long way towards bringing the vaccine reluctant around to getting a shot. One that doesn't also mean stripping all their rights as citizens and forcing them to get a vaccine they don't want. Equate could come out with a new ibuprofen and no one would ever question buying it and using it. They use beaks and assholes in sausage and everyone eats hotdogs. In an acute crisis - car accident, heart attack, serious Covid - people will consent to any treatment. Yet this particular circumstance there's a not insignificant number who are completely inconsistent with the rest of their beliefs. I think it's too easy and simplistic to say, "They're all retarded," or "Thank you Donald Trump." It's something else that borders on the religious. There's a deeply irrational quality about it that takes otherwise sane and normal people and makes them picket in front of hospitals. I'm not talking about the part of this that's pushing back on the mandates or the masks. It's the people who have all the data that you could want and ignore it based on their gut reactions. I, personally, am really mistrustful of the government and large bureaucracies. That being said, my own research points to Covid really sucking and the vaccines being safe, so I took them. Other people see the same research and refuse, even though they would trust that same doctor to shoot them full of god knows what during an accident. It would be a great research subject for a thesis.