SB 107-10: Medical Freedom Act (Passed)

[Joseph Cao]

According to Lumine:

Around 70% of the population is fully vaccinated and another 10% has received at least a single dosage, but reducing the remaining 20% of unvaccinated Atlasians has proven most difficult, even with the measures of the Immunization Act.

I've made my thoughts on the mandate clear previously. Removing Section 2 isn't going to suddenly cause people to become unvaccinated. On the other hand, keeping it isn't doing anything appreciable to raise vaccination rates among the unvaccinated at this stage, as they are clearly finding ways around it. The falsification mentioned in the GM report is obviously only one such case, so finding and stopping those loopholes seems like a more efficient way to raise vaccination rates than keeping the current state of affairs. I'm not on board with repealing Sections 3 and 4 as they are clearly justified, though, so I'm not willing to go so far as to repeal the entire thing. Expect an amendment on that.

Edit: I see the President has weighed in on Section 3 as well, and I fully agree with what he said.

[Joseph Cao]

I think, at the very least, Sections 3 and 4 should be kept.

Objecting so I have a chance to get the requisite amendment up.

[Joseph Cao]

Withdrawing my unanimous consent request.

In that case consider my objection withdrawn as well.

Amendment (I'm not working the sunset clause in for now as we can probably still discuss that):

AN ACT
To end the overreaching vaccine mandates

Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled,

Section 1. Title

1. This act may be cited as the Medical Freedom Act.

Section 2. Repeal and Return

1. Effective immediately, all sections Section 2 of the Immunization Act of 2021 are is hereby repealed in their its entirety.

[Joseph Cao]

NAY, this is clearly meant to sugarcoat the bill to try to delude enough people into feeling good about passing a bill that will cause people to die.

The twenty percent of Atlasians who are finding ways around this regulation are already doing their best to die without anyone else's help, S019. I want as many of them to get vaccinated as possible, and I want to focus on them using a different method without a bill that has done its job for the remaining eighty percent getting in the way, so rest assured that nobody is going to suddenly become unvaccinated, or contract respiratory problems, or in any way die because of this bill.

And I quite definitely did not convince multiple friends and family to suck it up and get that dreaded China vaccine only to come here and be called an anti-vaxxer, just so everyone knows that.

[Joseph Cao]

Let’s see what the Senate thinks.

AN ACT
To end the overreaching vaccine mandates

Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled,

Section 1. Title

1. This act may be cited as the Medical Freedom Act.

Section 2. Repeal and Return

1. Effective immediately January 1, 2023, Section 2 of the Immunization Act of 2021 is hereby repealed in its entirety.

[Joseph Cao]

Aye.

I like the idea but objecting because I'd prefer it to be March 2023, to make sure the winter wave passes without too many deaths and stress on the healthcare system.

That's a fair consideration, I'll change the sunset date to March if this passes.

[Joseph Cao]

And serve…

AN ACT
To end the overreaching vaccine mandates

Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled,

Section 1. Title

1. This act may be cited as the Medical Freedom Act.

Section 2. Repeal and Return

1. Effective January March 1, 2023, Section 2 of the Immunization Act of 2021 is hereby repealed in its entirety.

As Peri mentioned this is to make sure we get past the winter surge in cases and keep other restrictions from being imposed during that time.

[Joseph Cao]

Can I withdraw my objection? I was a little inebriated.

Unfortunately not, although I believe I shall have to mark this important occasion of Senatorial VWI down in case the parliamentarian wants to know about it.

Aye on the vote.

[Joseph Cao]

Anyways this would allow for prevention of the (ill-advised) vaccine mandate phaseout, if needed. COVID may require yearly vaccinations as it may become endemic, and if that happens, it would be utter idiocy to set a hard deadline of when vaccine mandates shall be lifted.

I strongly encourage S019 (and others, if necessary) to read the original bill and observe that it talks only about immunization. People who are immunized, are immunized. Boosters are not mentioned and as a medical and legislative matter are entirely separate from what the bill implemented, and they should be treated in a separate bill – which I am sure he will be happy to hear is being written as we speak to address the gaps in the original bill.

On another note, I am not going to neuter this bill in this fashion by outsourcing to others our responsibility to decide when the laws we wrote here in Congress are enforced. Objecting to the amendment.

[Joseph Cao]

Nay.

Perhaps in some high risk settings at least where vaccination is required, to effectively reduce transmission given the changing nature of the virus it would now need to be three doses instead of two?

Would be a point of medical debate as well if it’s ever raised, although (surprisingly to me) we haven’t had any discussion about booster efficacy ITTL from the GM or anywhere else. In any case it probably would need to be a separate bill too, partially for those reasons.

[Joseph Cao]

I motion for a final vote.

[Joseph Cao]

Aye.

[Joseph Cao]

Aye.

That said, this vote needs to be extended (and I've mentioned before about holding votes to coincide with the election period).