All those entering at the southern border (and not all 200k contacts actually enter) are offered covid vaccines as well as other vaccinations like MMR or DTap within days of being processed.
The Afghan flights had to stop today because of a measles outbreak (I heard only 4 cases, and I think it was in Qatar). They’ll get them vaccinated and the evacuations will restart. All those in the process are being offered covid vaccines too if they are eligible. I’m sure most are accepting them. People going through immigration don’t like to rock the boat. They take the shots offered.
When my daughter immigrated to the US, I had to swear (aloud and by signing) that I’d vaccinate her. Earlier (like 1997-98) they required that the children receive the polio and other vaccines before they could get a visa to enter the US, but so many kids were getting sick from getting vaccinations just before boarding a plane that they changed the law so they could be vaccinated after arriving in the US (changed the law after parents petitioned).
Of course there were parents who didn’t get their children vaccinated. The penalty was that they couldn’t adopt another child and I do know one family who paid that penalty (applied and were denied).
Yes, it did start in another country. Most new diseases start in A Place. And then spread everywhere, by foreigners and by citizens returning to each country.
So the question should not be: how come THEY brought it here, but how come this country has demonstrably been the worst in the world in controlling it? And I will venture that demonizing a tiny group in comparison to the damaging attitudes perpetuated by various sources which have spread as anti-vax, anti-mask, and anti-social contract behavior among tens of millions of citizens, is really misguided.
Doesn’t have to be either/or. If we had 100% vax compliance would that make people feel better/safer about allowing unvaccinated people into the country?
My prediction is we’d be requiring all people entering legally or illegally to be vaccinated. As of now the US isn’t requiring visitors or legal immigrants to be vaccinated for Covid. But visitors must provide a negative Covid test. As usual the government is a mess without clear consistent requirements.
It doesn’t have to be either/or, but at the same time, it is such an unbalanced comparison that intimating that there is any sort of equivalence is a kind of whattaboutism. One is a huge, major problem, one is essentially a footnote to it.
Sorry, I genuinely wasn’t trying to be mean. Let me if I can explain better…if my pediatrician gave me a script for animal med for my kids I would be in total shock, like “what?! are you kidding me?”
And yes, some pets take people meds in smaller doses. And yes, ivermectin can be prescribed for humans. But humans taking livestock meds, literally out of their barns or from a farm supply place and taking it. I just don’t understand the thought process.
This is a public health issue. It is about protecting our families, our friends, our communities, about being a good global citizen. It is about protecting those that cannot get vaccinated.
We’ve had 2 administrations involved - the first got the vaccine research ball rolling, throwing gazillions of dollars at it. Yay and kudos! The second got the vaccine roll out rolling, throwing gazillions of dollars at it. Yay and kudos!
The former pres got vaccinated - yay and kudos! The current pres got vaccinated - yay and kudos!
I believe every member of Congress (both parties) got vaccinated - yay and kudos.
Both administrations sound pro-vaccine to me, so what’s the problem America?
Fact check: Viral post on vaccinated politicians, doctors a little off indicates that 81% of members of Congress have reported getting vaccinated. At least two US Senators and one US Representative have been reported as stating that they will not get vaccinated. Many others have refused to state whether they have gotten vaccinated.
I found this interesting. I hope data like this encourages the CDC to roll out boosters sooner rather than later. There’s been too much flip-flopping on timelines lately,
Numbers put out by the Health Ministry Friday showed that of those under 60, those without a third dose of the vaccine were nearly three times as likely to wind up seriously ill, and those without any vaccination were around 10 times as likely. For those over 60, having a booster made you ten times less likely than a vaccinated person to be in serious condition, and 40 times less likely than an unvaccinated person.
There is the family from the start of this thread that allegedly lied and used money/influence to take a hospital bed/rare machine in another state away from someone else.
There are the folks who are lying about getting the vaccine who I’m sure would say that lying is immoral.
There are the folks who are lying about underlying conditions to get a booster who would also say that lying is immoral.
There are the folks who say that the government should not tell me what to do with my body but are happy to pass extremely restrictive abortion laws telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. [There is also the converse: folks who oppose abortion laws based upon the women’s right to choose what happens to their bodies who favor vaccine mandates, although I think their position is a lot stronger because the vaccine mandate has to do with stopping the exponential spread of the vaccines, but there is certainly some irony in their argumentation].
There are the states that have vaccine mandates for school children and hospitals that require proof of vaccination for doctors and nurses (and maybe all hospital workers) whose governors are passing laws or issuing executive orders that say schools and private businesses cannot have a vaccine mandate (or even a mask mandate). These same folks often rail against government regulation of private business but are happy to take away a private business’s desire to protect its workers or customers when it suits their political purposes.
There are folks saying “Follow the science” who are jumping the gun on the US process regarding boosters [although the international data suggests that boosters make sense, the US needs to follow its own process.]
There are the folks who say the vaccines don’t work because there are breakthrough infections or that vaccinated folks want everyone to get vaccinated and wear masks.
There are the folks who are arguing that children wearing a mask in school is child abuse but giving them much greater exposure to a potentially deadly risk is just fine. (I will admit that some of these folks are not hypocritical as they somehow have talked themselves into believing this).
There are the folks who say that my choice to take or not take the vaccine does not affect you when they know that my not taking it increases the chances that other people (including you or your relatives) will be infected.
There are the folks who believe that the vaccines work but want to free ride – that is, they want everyone else to get the vaccine so that we reach herd immunity and they don’t have to be vaccinated.
… I could go on.
Facts:
The vaccines work and in fact work way better than anyone expected. But they are not perfect. Like all drugs, there are side effects. They don’t last forever. And, like all vaccines, they do not provide 100% protection.
Masks work. They are not perfect either.
Vaccine mandates are not new or un-American. Apparently George Washington insisted that all of his soldiers be inoculated against smallpox. As I mentioned, we already have vax mandates for public school students and docs/nurses and maybe other hospital workers.
There are lots of government mandates that protect people’s health that we no longer argue about. We don’t argue that obeying stop signs are an individual choice. They slow me down to getting to my destination. I find stops signs very inconvenient but we have them not only to protect ourselves but also, like vaccines, to protect others. We no longer argue about whether the government should regulate workplace health (OSHA) but undoubtedly some OSHA regulations over-reach.
To me, the biggest (because of the harm their hypocrisy causes) and most cynical (because they know the facts) hypocrites are the politicians and media personalities who frame getting a vaccination as an issue of freedom when they know the facts above. Guess what: I’m sure that almost all of them and their families are vaccinated. I suspect that some of the hypocrisy coming from these folks arises because a) it sells in this context; and b) many of them want the Biden administration to look bad or fail.
I wonder if a fair bit of the argumentation against vaccines and vaccine mandates comes from a political discomfort about the creeping reach of government generally. There is always a balance in judging a mandate between the effects on individuals (or businesses) in terms of costs (including the freedom to act) and the preventable costs. Should we require airport workers who flag in planes to wear ear protection and require the airports to purchase them for the workers? Pretty easy call (low-ish cost, high benefit to the affected population). Should we close businesses and schools to prevent the spread of the common cold? Pretty easy call (high cost, benefit of the regulation not that high).
Logically, Covid vaccination is a pretty bad case to make this kind of cost-benefit argument compared to many others areas in which one could argue against government action (e.g., some of the contents of the $3.5 T infrastructure budget bill seem pretty excessive and over-reaching). However, it may be attractive because it touches an anti-science nerve in the populace so it has currency. Thus, despite pretty compelling (possibly overwhelming) evidence that vaccines work, you will find folks picking through the data to find almost anything that undercuts the argument that everyone who can should get vaccinated (or more recently that the boosters make sense).
There is a very interesting literature on partisan perceptions in social psychology. After one forms a judgment on a particular issue, one only sees confirming data and is relatively impervious to disconfirming data. Is vaccination (and mandates) an issue that, having been defined as a battle between more communitarian and more individualistic or libertarian political philosophies has made it impossible for people to parse the data except for the arguments that back their pre-determined views?
A federal mandate on regular citizens certainly is. Absent existing laws, The Commander in Chief has broad authority over the military. But yes, states can implement mandates, and have done so for school kids. Presumably, they could do so for all state residents, but yet, as of today, I know of no state that has implemented such a mandate for private adults (not employed by the state).
And yes, private employers do have the legal authority to mandate vaccines.
The federal mandate is key for your argument (which conflates federal authority, state authority, adn private employer authority), as the legality of a federal vax mandate is not a 'fact". ("…politicians and media personalities who frame getting a vaccination as an issue of freedom when they know the facts above.) Even tho they themselves are vaccinated, adn their faimily members, many of those talking heads are questioning the legality of a federal mandate. My guess is that SCOTUS tosses the OSHA emergency rule as an over-reach.
OSHA has the power (and legislative backing) to regulate large employers to ensure safe working conditions for employees. There are already OSHA regulations in place regarding covid safety protocols.
The fire and brimstone pronouncements by various governors are more about playing to a certain element of their constituency than about setting out a coherent and plausible legal objection.
Forget the politicians, if you google for a few minutes, you’ll find plenty of legal beagles who claim that the OSHA rule is legal, and plenty who say it is not. And both lay out their case for why/why not.
Here’s one, for example, that popped up on a quick search. Note, in this story, the pro side cites a 1905 case that applied to states, not the federal government. (In fact, Jacobsen v Massachusetts is the legal decision that gives states the right to require vaccinations for school attendance.)
20 years ago we came together to fight a common enemy. What happened? If we behaved back then like we do now, Bin Laden might still be alive and countless more lives lost.
Googling for a few minutes isn’t really an effective approach to understanding how the Occupational Health and Safety (OSH) Act of 1970 has been interpreted and applied over the past half century.
Sure, in this current culture you’ll always be able to google up a talking head from a libertarian think-tank (see your Cato Institute representative in the article you cited, for example) who will argue that just about any federal government regulation should be construed as unconstitutional, but the law in this area is well-settled, and it is extremely unlikely that even this current Court would suddenly reverse course on a case that isn’t even a close call.