Turns out some unions in St. Paul are f[inks]ing vile

[lakeview]

"I like unions, unless they're police unions or they challenge a requirement to take a two-years-out-of-date flu shot to keep your job. Those unions need to be extirpated."

Democrats in 2022, everybody!

[lakeview]

"I like unions, unless they're police unions or they challenge a requirement to take a two-years-out-of-date flu shot to keep your job. Those unions need to be extirpated."

Democrats in 2022, everybody!

It's not a flu shot. Covid has nothing to do with the flu, completely different types of viruses.

Wasn't my point.

But thanks for telling me that Covid isn't the flu. I've never heard that before. /s

[lakeview]

"I like unions, unless they're police unions or they challenge a requirement to take a two-years-out-of-date flu shot to keep your job. Those unions need to be extirpated."

Democrats in 2022, everybody!

It's not a flu shot. Covid has nothing to do with the flu, completely different types of viruses.

Wasn't my point.

But thanks for telling me that Covid isn't the flu. I've never heard that before. /s

You're the one who referred to it as the flu so if you knew that you're intentionally spreading misinformation.

No, I referred to the Covid shot as a "two-years-out-of-date flu shot." Which, for all intents and purposes, it is. At least five people understood my metaphor, since that's how many people have recommended my post.

If there's no reason to mandate a two-years-out-of-date flu shot, there's no reason to mandate the Covid shots, because the effect on overall health of the population is the same: practically nothing. I'm not going to argue with you on this. Mandating a shot for a form of a virus that isn't circulating anymore is lunacy. At some point, we need to start agreeing that the sky is blue.

[lakeview]

"I like unions, unless they're police unions or they challenge a requirement to take a two-years-out-of-date flu shot to keep your job. Those unions need to be extirpated."

Democrats in 2022, everybody!

It's not a flu shot. Covid has nothing to do with the flu, completely different types of viruses.

This isn't relevant. The question is whether or not we should accept employers having control over intimate healthcare decisions. I wouldn't want employers trying to mandate smoking cessation or other intrusive controls. I wouldn't want them to mandate treatments against depression either. COVID-19 is a virus so there's a negative externality if someone isn't vaccinated - someone's choice to not get vaccinated affects others. At the same time, in practice, the risk to others is pretty negligible so long as they are vaccinated so I'm not sure why we need these draconian measures.

There are other ways of encouraging vaccination, such as continuing to make vaccinations free, continued PR campaigns, and possible financial incentives, that don't involve putting a gun to the head of workers. I can see the merits of making police or firefighters getting vaccinated - they aren't any old workers - but, also, the possibility of even 1% of them deciding to quit is very, very costly.

Honestly it mostly comes down to that anti-vaxxers are all complete morons who think Joe Rogan, Alex Jones or stupid Boomer Facebook memes are valid sources of medical information and we're better off without them in public positions.

Great, thank you for confirming our prior that, for people like you, "public health" isn't much more than a pretext for rooting people out of public-sector jobs if you don't like their beliefs.

If we take that now-strengthened prior and apply it to the topic of this thread, then we see that this union's actions amount to protecting their members from a witch hunt.

Thank you again for providing clarity!

[lakeview]

"I like unions, unless they're police unions or they challenge a requirement to take a two-years-out-of-date flu shot to keep your job. Those unions need to be extirpated."

Democrats in 2022, everybody!

It's not a flu shot. Covid has nothing to do with the flu, completely different types of viruses.

This isn't relevant. The question is whether or not we should accept employers having control over intimate healthcare decisions. I wouldn't want employers trying to mandate smoking cessation or other intrusive controls. I wouldn't want them to mandate treatments against depression either. COVID-19 is a virus so there's a negative externality if someone isn't vaccinated - someone's choice to not get vaccinated affects others. At the same time, in practice, the risk to others is pretty negligible so long as they are vaccinated so I'm not sure why we need these draconian measures.

There are other ways of encouraging vaccination, such as continuing to make vaccinations free, continued PR campaigns, and possible financial incentives, that don't involve putting a gun to the head of workers. I can see the merits of making police or firefighters getting vaccinated - they aren't any old workers - but, also, the possibility of even 1% of them deciding to quit is very, very costly.

Honestly it mostly comes down to that anti-vaxxers are all complete morons who think Joe Rogan, Alex Jones or stupid Boomer Facebook memes are valid sources of medical information and we're better off without them in public positions.

Great, thank you for confirming our prior that, for people like you, "public health" isn't much more than a pretext for rooting people out of public-sector jobs if you don't like their beliefs.

If we take that now-strengthened prior and apply it to the topic of this thread, then we see that this union's actions amount to protecting their members from a witch hunt.

Thank you again for providing clarity!

Being against a safe, effective and important vaccine is not a belief - it’s a mental illness.

I'm definitely sane and I can't mentally place myself in a reality where getting a vaccine for a viral variant that isn't even circulating anymore is "important."

Make it make sense. Or consider questioning your premises.

[lakeview]

"I like unions, unless they're police unions or they challenge a requirement to take a two-years-out-of-date flu shot to keep your job. Those unions need to be extirpated."

Democrats in 2022, everybody!

It's not a flu shot. Covid has nothing to do with the flu, completely different types of viruses.

This isn't relevant. The question is whether or not we should accept employers having control over intimate healthcare decisions. I wouldn't want employers trying to mandate smoking cessation or other intrusive controls. I wouldn't want them to mandate treatments against depression either. COVID-19 is a virus so there's a negative externality if someone isn't vaccinated - someone's choice to not get vaccinated affects others. At the same time, in practice, the risk to others is pretty negligible so long as they are vaccinated so I'm not sure why we need these draconian measures.

There are other ways of encouraging vaccination, such as continuing to make vaccinations free, continued PR campaigns, and possible financial incentives, that don't involve putting a gun to the head of workers. I can see the merits of making police or firefighters getting vaccinated - they aren't any old workers - but, also, the possibility of even 1% of them deciding to quit is very, very costly.

Honestly it mostly comes down to that anti-vaxxers are all complete morons who think Joe Rogan, Alex Jones or stupid Boomer Facebook memes are valid sources of medical information and we're better off without them in public positions.

Great, thank you for confirming our prior that, for people like you, "public health" isn't much more than a pretext for rooting people out of public-sector jobs if you don't like their beliefs.

If we take that now-strengthened prior and apply it to the topic of this thread, then we see that this union's actions amount to protecting their members from a witch hunt.

Thank you again for providing clarity!

Being against a safe, effective and important vaccine is not a belief - it’s a mental illness.

I'm definitely sane

With all due respect, we have only your word for that.

(To address the rest of your post though, the viral variant is, in fact, circulating.)

The variant that the vaccine was designed for is circulating in approximately what proportion, compared to the newer variants?

[lakeview]

He vaccine while not designed for the current variant does provide some protection. If it didn't we'd see hospitals filling up and infection surging. That's not happening because even if people vaccinated catch it because the antibodies aren't effective, the T-cells are and it's basically just a cold. So this it's not a big threat to the healthcare system. But that's only true because so many people are vaccinated.

This is a specific logical fallacy called affirming the consequent. You are saying "If the vaccines were working, the hospitals would not be overwhelmed. The hospitals are not overwhelmed, so the vaccines are working."

The hospitals could be in a not-busy state for many other reasons. Milder variant (almost certainly true), and summer season (seems true, since Summer 2020 was also quiet, before vaccines were available), to name two.

The all-time peak of Covid hospitalizations in both the U.S. and Canada came after the vaccines were administered, not before. So no, I don't buy that they're the only thing standing between us and a collapsed healthcare system. Not at all, actually.