Mask of the beast (aka tinfoil hat time Part II)

As one Facebook meme put it, you need papers to go out for dinner but not to cross the border. It's a strange world.

 

Voting ID is racist too, don't forget.

 

I need a vaccine password to order a taco in but not to vote.

 

Yes, the Poor Brown Ones apparently can't get an ID even given four years notice and a government with a vested interest in getting them IDs. But it's OK if the same Poor Brown Ones aren't allowed to go out to dinner. Apparently people are allowed to exclude them from society, just not from voting. Maybe we could give them some sticks to bang together or something, as long as we reminded them to put them away when they went out to vote.

I wonder if there's any scope in setting up stations to produce photo IDs in the vaccine clinics. You know, verify who someone is, print them a nice government ID and then stick a needle in them. Or do it the other way around, just in case side effects make them turn green or something.

 

To steal another meme, it's interesting how "my body, my choice" only applies some of the time.

 

All bodies are created equal. Some bodies are more equal than others.

With apologies, to you, know, the guy.

 

I read an article that suggested some establishments are requiring customers to be vaccinated but not staff. I can imagine that could lead to some interesting discussions at the door.

I suppose a related question would be whether people who are allergic to something in the vaccine will be progressively excluded from more and more of society, and what happens if you lose your vaccination card (e.g. if you are out ready to proudly flaunt it at the restaurant only to find your wallet got stolen). It seems there's already a growing market in faked cards, and the call to not laminate the cards (presumably because booster shots are going to be expected, because the immunity offered by the vaccine is so good) means they will inevitably get worn and fade over time.

Cue door staff trying to figure out just what this faded dog-eared piece of card actually says, and whether they can figure out whether the person holding the card is the same person who got stuck with a needle. It reminds me of a comment made by one of the female Asian comedians in England some years ago about how the women in her family love the burqa because six of them can share a bus pass.

 

I'm pretty sure exemptions are available for people with allergies.
It looks like most vaccine certificates will be set up for phones which are pretty ubiquitous, although we do have paper copies. My wife recently set up something with our provincial healthcare system which shows vaccines, previous doctor appointments, etc.

 

Phones are all well and good but where I live there's almost no phone service, unless you're willing to pay for Verizon. A surprising number of people have the "burner" phones that wouldn't be useful to display a certificate. And of course the paper copies are prone to being lost, damaged etc. I've often considered getting a "dumb phone" for the times I don't feel like cooperating with some official body or other that insists I use their app.

In theory exemptions could be made for people with allergies but it's hard to see how the person at the door on a restaurant is going to have enough medical knowledge to figure if the person has an exemption due to allergy or simply exercised a free choice to not get a vaccine, and even that assumes the person at the restaurant is willing to discuss it with an unknown person on the door. So far I'm not seeing anything useful regarding people who have allergies to ingredients in the vaccine. Of course the next question is religious exemption - it's easy to see how obscure religions could suddenly become popular if religious exemptions are available, and if they aren't it's easy to see how "mark of the beast" talk would start.

ETA: Since common sense has long since left the building and much of the talk of mandates seems to be driven more by people howling about not feeling safe than anything else it's hard to see why places like restaurants would want to deal with it at all. It's easier for them to just say "vaccine good, no vaccine bad". I refer to common sense having left the building after a most curious incident at my local hospital when I tried to pay a bill. They wouldn't let me in with a bandana tied around my face that reached well below my chin "because it's open at the bottom". I can't wear a regular mask because I find it hard to breathe after a short time, so they gave me a clear face shield to wear. The face shield had more space around it than the bandana they said was unacceptable. But, you know, whatever. I had to take my sunglasses off to fit the shield in place so was tempted to walk into something to make the point this wasn't necessarily a workable option, but couldn't be bothered with it.

 

I identify as vaccinated.

And masked.

 

I've been identifying as vaccinated for some time now.

There was an interesting article on National Review about those who hate the unvaccinated and how, curiously, they only hate white people who aren't vaccinated. Apparently black people who aren't vaccinated are only unvaccinated because of a lack of accessibility. Because, you know, it's quite hard to find a place that offers the vaccine and it's very expensive.

 

Isn't that part of the problem right there?

 

The problems relating to variants is one of the reasons I'm more inclined to trust natural immunity from exposure to the virus than artificial immunity. It seems to me that if my body has encountered the entirety of the virus and successfully fought it off that should be better than tricking my body into producing something that looks like the spikes and it learning to fight off anything with the spikes.

The efficacy of the shots seems to be in constant doubt at the moment, especially with the delta variant, but it still seems the vaccinated are at least mostly protected from serious consequences. The apparent reality that even the vaccinated can carry a high enough viral load to be contagious leaves the approach of requiring vaccines to enter certain places looking more like posturing and less like doing anything useful, although much of what has been done to address COVID seems to be have been more about posturing than doing anything useful so I suppose that's to be expected - from the perspective of officialdom if you can't do anything useful the next best thing is lots of posturing and talk of how We're Doing Everything We Can (which obviously means you're not doing anything useful, but that usually gets lost under the posturing).

The trouble with anything like "social policy" is that it invariably turns into a one-size-fits-all rule that totally fails to acknowledge the obvious reality that somewhere like downtown Manhatten looks very different to somewhere like rural Kentucky. Where I live I can go for a 10-mile walk with near certainty I won't come within 50 feet of anyone. I don't imagine many people living in Manhatten could walk for more than 10 yards from their front door without coming within 50 feet of someone else.

 

Is it inaccurate to point out the inconsistency in claiming white people who aren't vaccinated are reckless and selfish, while at the same time claiming black people who aren't vaccinated are poor downtrodden victims of the system that makes the vaccine too expensive and too inaccessible for them?

It seems like a fair point to me.

 

If it is actually a real issue. I trust virtually no opinion pieces about this, be they left or right, because the conclusion is already drawn. There may be people making that point, but is it significant enough to even care?

 

Whether the body is tricked into creating immunity or naturally figures it out seems pretty irrelevant. The former offers quicker protection. The latter leaves the potential for a worse sickness and long-term consequences (or worse). I've got to know a couple long-haulers and it sounds like it really sucks.

All indications are that hospitalizations are primarily unvaccinated. As the vaccinated population grows we will (and are) seeing breakthrough cases that the disingenuous out there start bleating about.

I agree with this but at some point there has to be a call made at some level of government or health services. State/province level? Sure, but then you get the problem you mentioned between low density rural and high density cities. County/regional level? Might make more sense, but then you get people traveling around and how do you enforce different regulations?

I don't envy the officials that have to make these calls. They are in no-win situation. Our provincial health officer is going grey from these last two years.

 

... except that the insistence that even people who have had COVID and survived it must take the vaccine indicates that, in the eyes of some at least, it's far from irrelevant. Sadly the "some" include senior politicians.

I'm not opposed to vaccines but am opposed to the endless bleating that the vaccine (with unknown longevity and unknown long-term side effects) must be taken by all, including those at minimal risk of the illness and including those who have already successfully fought off the illness.

There seems to be debate over whether the vaccines are losing their potency already. The growing number of "breakthrough" cases suggest it may be but many of the first to be vaccinated were the elderly who were more vulnerable anyway and as people start to travel more it's possible that the issue is simply greater exposure to the virus rather than a vaccine failing. Either way the limited data I have personally available (from people who have had the virus and survived it) is that natural immunity lasts for at least 18 months. But apparently that's not good enough.

The breakthrough cases may indicate the vaccine is less effective in the long term than previously hoped, or simply that the first people to take the vaccine are now living more normally and becoming more exposed to the virus. The indications that the vaccinated may carry a viral load sufficient to be contagious, even if that load poses minimal threat to the individual carrying it, calls into question the societal benefit of the vaccine even if not the individual benefit of it. Which goes right back to the question of making a personal choice.

Or you can limit regulations to those that are strictly necessary and let people decide for themselves. The way some people talk you'd think the lack of a requirement to wear a mask was the same as a prohibition on wearing masks. If you are in a higher risk group, or you are naturally more concerned about illness, or you live with people who are vulnerable, take whatever precautions you deem necessary. If you're in a low-risk group and don't mix with vulnerable people you can take fewer precautions. A lot of the problem is the insistence that everybody else has to do what I think is necessary to maintain safety, whether it's the ones typically on the political left who demand that everybody take more and more precautions or those on the right who ridicule those who choose to take more precautions.

Hence the question of whether regulating everything in sight is a useful approach at all. When we're told regulations are based on the science but the science apparently varies depending on where you live (e.g. the US demanding 3-year-olds cover their faces while the EU doesn't require it of anyone under 11), and regulations appear based more on random guesswork or politics than anything useful (e.g. PA's governor talking of raising the minimum wage as part of the reopening process, or the governors of PA and NY and maybe others demanding that food must be ordered with alcohol) it doesn't make it easy to take them seriously.

ETA: I can't help thinking that recommendations would make more sense than regulations. It would provide official advice, reduce or remove requirements to enforce regulations (especially in remote areas where enforcement is all but impossible anyway and everybody knows it) and provide a sense of relative risk. It can't be that hard to recommend people who are, or live with someone who is, vulnerable take extra precautions without requiring that everybody take all the extra precautions just in case.