You've had the errors pointed out to you in the last thread in which you made this same appeal, there's no point in doing it again.

refute my logic — Roger Gregoire

To be fair the pickings are slim here.

The virus doesn't live long outside a host.

It's telling how readily 'expert' opinion is wielded and dropped depending on it's correlation with current social group ideology. Experts from public health tell you to mask and vaccinate - anyone who doesn't is an idiot. Experts from public health tell you that blaming the people themselves has no part in a public health response - fuck 'em, they don't know what they're talking about. — Isaac

So let's keep this philosophical. This explanation is a classic example of the psychology fallacy. https://effectiviology.com/psychologists-fallacy/

You are suggesting that you are immune from the tribal mentality of the groups you describe and that you have figured out why I'm believing as I am. You have no way of observing me objectively if our psychology (yours included) dictates our positions.

It's also obvious that those in favor of the vaccinations will have certain group characteristics in statistically higher percentages than those opposed to vaccines, but it is illogical to assume that any particular member of the group holds to any particular ideology. To do so is the flaw of stereotyping and is the definition of prejudging (i.e. prejudice in the non-prerogative sense). It might interest you to know that if a meeting is divided into an area with maskers and non-maskers, I'd most certainly be in the non-mask section. I also voted 100% Republican last election, except for the presidential race, which I abstained from. This is just to say that your psychoanalysis is incorrect, your grouping theory is incorrect as it relates to individuals, you are doing nothing but stereotyping, and you have no way of removing yourself from the rigid groups you've created in order to declare yourself objective.

I've also not suggested telling people they're idiots will help the situation, but I also don't think it will hurt. I don't live under the illusion I'm being listened to in any meaningful way. If I were a public health administrator, I'd probably talk to my marketing department and arrive at the best way to get my message across.

Even if it were true that masking protected the unvaccinated (which it isn't - masking protects the vaccinated too, some 15-35% of whom will not be adequately protected by the vaccine they took), are we to similarly resent protection for other lifestyle choices? Should we rail against treating the ailments of smokers, the overweight, those who don't exercise enough, those whole eat too much bacon...? — Isaac

This strikes me as an extreme conflation of categories. When did vaccinations participation become a "lifestyle choice"? I take lifestyle choices to be things like what we eat, our forms of recreation, and things that meaningfully affect our day to day lives. If you want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet to feel the wind through your hair and you ride to live and live to ride, that could be characterized as a lifestyle choice, even if it's extremely risky. Whether to spend 5 minutes getting a vaccine isn't a lifestyle choice. I'd call that "getting a vaccination."

At any rate, my question back to you is why do you single out the Covid vaccination as the single vaccine we can avoid and proclaim it's off limits, but as to measles and whooping cough you allow that we can impose these on our children? Why can't I proclaim those vaccines as "lifestyle choices" so that I can take those too outside the purview of societal control?

Precisely why I'm against vaccine passports. People make shit choices all the time. I have a stressful job and exercise too little. I'm even aware I should be doing more about the latter but don't give it priority. It's relatively stupid but it's not as if it makes me Satan. — Benkei

A couple of things to this. The first is as noted above that vaccine choices are not akin to choices not to exercise and to eat poorly. I think a more apt analogy is my requirement you wear a seatbelt when you drive. We can't create a slippery slope where we must declare every simple act of social responsibility a violation of individual rights such that we can ask nothing of our citizens. My question is why can the measles vaccine be required, but not Covid. Are you willing to do away with all vaccine requirements?

Second, I think your argument is a steelman, and if fails for the same reason as would a strawman. Both are hypothetical arguments that your opponent would never submit. As in the case of the strawman, it's an argument so weak it would never be made. In the case of the steelman, it's a contrived argument and would never be suggested. That is, the anti-Covid vaccine folks are not arguing that they have the right to be stupid. That might be the case with those who go hang gliding, ride motorcycles without helmets, or who rock climb, but not so with anti-vaxxers. So, perhaps if (and this is a very big if) the anti-vaxxers argued they knew they were idiots and they had the right to be, just like the guy filling his belly with donuts, I would respond as I did that the analogy is not apt. But that's not what they're arguing. They're arguing that the vaccines are dangerous, they don't work, and they are part of a government conspiracy to control a gullible public, etc. It's the difference between arguing that I have a right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet because it's my life to live as I see fit versus arguing I have a right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet because helmets are dangerous and cause brain injury.

The first admits to one's own bad choices and asks to be left alone. The second is based on a lie, misinformation, gullibility, and it will likely result in others being drawn into that bad choice.

I stand by it, actually.

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Be rational. Don't adhere to the irrational game of "let the rare exceptions dictate the general rule". This only results in more harm than good. — Roger Gregoire

That this kind of bullshit is one of the reasons why serious debate is next to impossible. Laymen weighing in with a superficial understanding of the science and no references or citations to back up their outlandish claims. — Isaac

Not once in your emotional rant did you refute my logic. -- can you? -- can you find a logical flaw in my words (other than just saying they are wrong)? — Roger Gregoire

I'm with Isaac on this one. It strikes me as extremely unlikely that a significant proportion of the viral load in the atmosphere would be removed by the lungs of people not wearing masks. I looked, but couldn't find evidence either way on the web. My conclusion - the scenario described in Roger Gregoire's post is unsupported unless he can provide evidence. This isn't a matter of "logic." It's a matter of fact. As far as I can see, RG has his facts wrong.

I'm with Isaac on this one. It strikes me as extremely unlikely that a significant proportion of the viral load in the atmosphere would be removed by the lungs of people not wearing masks. I looked, but couldn't find evidence either way on the web. My conclusion - the scenario described in Roger Gregoire's post is unsupported unless he can provide evidence. This isn't a matter of "logic." It's a matter of fact. As far as I can see, RG has his facts wrong. — T Clark

The evidence for masks is lacking, but not so for the vaccines. There is no argument as far as I can see that people shouldn't vaccinate. The masks are rearing their head again because of lack of vaccinated, and if they can't mandate the best choice (vaccinations), they'll mandate the distant second (masks). Masks are easy to enforce because they're visible.

The evidence for masks is lacking, but not so for the vaccines. — Hanover

I agree. I'm not really interested in the effectiveness of wearing masks. I wear them when I'm told and don't when I'm not like all good subjects of our corporate overlords. My typical response to someone who objects to wearing masks when it is recommended by public health authorities is very logical - Just shut up and put on the mask, asshole.

@Roger Gregoire went a step further in his argument then typical mask deniers. He claims that, if vaccinated people don't wear masks, it will actually remove a significant portion of the virus from the air, thus helping protect the unprotected. That was the argument I was responding to.

You are suggesting that you are immune from the tribal mentality of the groups you describe and that you have figured out why I'm believing as I am. — Hanover

I don't see anywhere me claiming to be immune or objective. As for figuring out why you believe what you do, it wasn't my intention. The part of my post you're quoting here simply claims that you followed expert advice in one case where it tallied with a popular social identity and yet reject it in another where it does not. I haven't really gone as far as to assess why.

It might interest you to know that if a meeting is divided into an area with maskers and non-maskers, I'd most certainly be in the non-mask section. I also voted 100% Republican last election, except for the presidential race, which I abstained from. This is just to say that your psychoanalysis is incorrect, your grouping theory is incorrect — Hanover

Social groups overlap political ones.

I've also not suggested telling people they're idiots will help the situation, but I also don't think it will hurt. — Hanover

It will.

When did vaccinations participation become a "lifestyle choice"? I take lifestyle choices to be things like what we eat, our forms of recreation, and things that meaningfully affect our day to day lives. If you want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet to feel the wind through your hair and you ride to live and live to ride, that could be characterized as a lifestyle choice, even if it's extremely risky. Whether to spend 5 minutes getting a vaccine isn't a lifestyle choice. I'd call that "getting a vaccination." — Hanover

Why? It takes five minutes to get a tattoo, but doing so is a lifestyle choice, so it's not the time. Why wouldn't getting a vaccine be a lifestyle choice? Not doing so certainly seems to be something people use to define themselves certainly no less than helmetless-biker, or solo-climber. You have faith in the medical establishment, you don't see it as a threat, so to you it's nothing. To others it defines them. That's the whole point. Your 'lifestyle choice' is that it's a nothing event.

my question back to you is why do you single out the Covid vaccination as the single vaccine we can avoid and proclaim it's off limits, but as to measles and whooping cough you allow that we can impose these on our children? Why can't I proclaim those vaccines as "lifestyle choices" so that I can take those too outside the purview of societal control? — Hanover

You can. As I said in my response to @Benkei above, the great thing about vaccinations as a public health response is exactly that we don't need everyone to take them for it to work. With measles is high (95%), with polio only 80%, with Covid it might be two thirds of the population to get the R0 to less than 1. Making a lifestyle choice to not have a vaccine is fine. If the number of people making that choice ever breaches the thresholds, then there would need to be a public policy change, but until then a few people not taking it is fine. Beyond that, not all vaccines are the same. The flu vaccine, for example, is still not widely regarded as necessary and there's arguments about what groups should and should not have it. The MMR vaccine, by contrast is almost universally agreed on. The covid vaccine is not even out of its testing period yet, so the approval of it's use for all cohorts is moot. (note, this is not the same as the decision that it's the best strategy to deal with the crisis, which is a different decision, on which there is widespread agreement).

If only the helmetless rider were insulated such that the consequences of his riding were his alone. Then he could cogently argue his "freedom." As to dangers, whatever danger the vaccine presents - and I am unaware of any danger the vaccine itself presents - it is less than miniscule against the real hazard of Covid and its ability to mutate and spread. — tim wood

It's like talking to a brick wall here. Do you understand the very simple concept of other people not believing the things you believe. Is that just too complicated for you? Other people do not believe the danger of the vaccine is less than miniscule against the real hazard of Covid. Why would you expect them to make decisions based on what you believe and not on what they believe?

Furthermore, you're simply conflating prevalence with risk (something of a bugbear of mine). The prevalence of side-effects of the vaccine is lower (by miles) than the prevalence of harms from covid. This only informs the risk, it does not constitute the risk as anyone with above a secondary school education should know.

The effect on other people. — tim wood

We've just got though discussing the effect on other people. If you have some data to share on the ability of the vaccine to reduce transmission rates to lower than those of healthy, asymptomatic carriers, then I'd be very interested to read it because I've not seen anything to date. Absent of this data, I don't see any justification for suggesting taking the vaccine is a public benefit if you're fit and healthy and live in a relatively isolated area. As things stand, there's a very low chance you'll get a develop a more severe viral load than a vaccinated person, especially in the nasal mucosa which are hardly affected by the vaccine and yet are a primary site for transmission. Social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing are, however, effective barriers to transmission. From Dr Paul Offit (one of Americas' most strident pro-vaccine advocates, by the way)...

if I wear a mask and stand 6 feet away from you, and you wear a mask and stand 6 feet away from me, the chances that I'm going to get the virus from you or you from me is about zero. You have two things going for you. One, you have a mask, which is going to prohibit the virus' small droplets from travelling very far. And two, even if I didn't wear a mask and stand 6 feet away, the odds are also that you wouldn't get it.

Now tell me how the vaccine is a public duty for someone committed to a strategy that one of the country's leading immunologists suggests provides a virtually zero chance of transmission, whilst to date there's no evidence at all that the vaccine even reduces transmission lower than a healthy immune response would.

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Review our posting history on this topic (a topic of science primarily). Who do you think would exceed whom in a count of the number of scientific papers cited and experts quoted per post? If you deal in facts (but I only beliefs) then you should have no trouble in citing them.

We'll start with your evidence that in every single case "any danger the vaccine itself presents... is less than miniscule against the real hazard of Covid and its ability to mutate and spread". Not just on average - that would be the prevalence rate sensibly used to determine public policy - but in every single case - which is what's required for your sycophantic moralising about each and every person who does not want to take the vaccine.

Then we'll have your evidence of the relative transmission rates of viral loads from the vaccinated vs. the healthy asymptomatic carrier across all variants.

Then we'll have your evidence for vaccination exceeding non-pharmaceutical interventions in reducing transmission.

I presume, from your dogmatic level of certainty, that you simply have this data to hand, yes?

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https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11514/mask-vaccination-and-the-delta-variant/p1

With the corona virus making a comeback with the Delta variant and the struggle with misinformation.

Should we mandate mask wearing to the same degree as at least wearing a seat belt? And be fine if caught not wearing one. As well as make the corona vaccine mandatory for everyone?

Or should the public have the right to choose to wear a mask and vaccinate or not. Regardless of the risk of public safety?

Which should come first safety or freedom of choice?

At what point should we wait till we decide that safety takes precedence over freedom of choice?
12 hours ago

People without the virus won’t spread the virus. So why would we force them to wear masks? Why would we force them to do anything? Because we are ignorant and scared, two frames of mind that should never set policy.

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Consider a madman with a gun shooting up a neighborhood. What are your individual chances of being harmed? — tim wood

Depends entirely on where you're standing, what protection you're wearing, how good you are at seeking cover, your chances of disarming said gunman... On average, poor. A fully armoured and trained Special Forces operative, pretty good. That's the whole point of differentiating between prevalence and risk.

And of what value that? If both good, then both. — tim wood

As public policy, yes. As a moral requirement, why? If one is sufficient then one has absolved one's moral responsibility to others by adopting it.

Is it an exercise of freedom to increase rather then decrease the chances of that? Or is that again just stupidity? — tim wood

Again, you've cited no evidence at all that avoiding vaccination in all cases will either make me sick or make others around me sick. It is only true on average as a matter of public policy.

I shall take a lesson from published reports of people, sick with Covid or recovered from it, who wish to God they had gotten vaccinated. — tim wood

Why on earth would you do that? I mean, disregarding your inability to tell the difference between prevalence and risk, this doesn't even make sense from either. You have around a 1:100 chance of getting to that point even if you catch covid, and that's assuming you're of exactly average health.

Do you run? Do you smoke, drink, eat red meat? Do you work a stressful job? Spend a lot of time sitting down? Do you eat plentiful fruit and vegetables? Do you live in a city? - What do you think people who are suffering from preventable cancers and heart disease 'wish to God' they'd done about these entirely demonstrable factors? Do you "take a lesson from published reports" on these conditions too?

Now just wtf is your point? — tim wood

That prevalence is relevant for public policy, but it is risk that's relevant for carrying out one's own moral duty.

Absolutely. No one should be vaccinated, ever! After all, they're not sick. Right?

That’s not what I said.

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It strikes me as extremely unlikely that a significant proportion of the viral load in the atmosphere would be removed by the lungs of people not wearing masks. — T Clark

Hi T Clark, to help better understand the profound effect (safety) that this would create, imagine a fixed number of viral particles floating around in a given environment. Further imagine Person A (who is a vulnerable non-vaccinated person; i.e. an elderly person who is too vulnerable to receive the vaccine). She is at great risk here in this environment, wouldn't you agree?

Now imagine a healthy vaccinated 'unmasked' Person B walks into the same room/environment as this poor lady.

Q. Is she now 'less safe' or 'safer'?
A. She is now at least 'twice' (if not much more) safer! Not only is the viral load (within this room) shared by another person, this other person is actually removing viral particles from the environment.

So, now imagine 5 healthy vaccinated 'unmasked' people (C, D, E, F, G) walk into the room. Can you now see the protective effects on our vulnerable population by unmasking our healthy vaccinated population?

Can you now see the protective effects on our vulnerable population by unmasking our healthy vaccinated population? — Roger Gregoire

The mechanism you describe seems very, very unlikely to me. I certainly won't accept it without evidence.

How exactly do you suppose that prevalence is kept low? — tim wood

Hopefully the successful enaction of said policy among exactly the number of people the policymakers are relying on. Policymakers make policies which apply to the average (or sometimes broad categories). The success of those policies depends on whether they're right about the science, obviously, but also in whether they're right about the average. None of this has any bearing on whether the success of the policy in in any way dependant on the compliance of the non-average. That is a factor that can only be determined on a case-by-case basis. It's not unreasonable even, in some cases, to assume that the compliance of the non-average with a broad policy actually hampers the objective. Policy-makers will, for example, often not specify each and every at-risk group, but will instead rely on those groups knowing who they are and seeking advice accordingly.

Those responsible for public health policy are mostly united in saying that one of the main lessons learnt from the response to covid is to separate promotion of current policy from the discussion of future policy. Moralising the following of current policy in all cases is damaging to the need for dynamic, responsive and data informed response management.

The mechanism you describe seems very, very unlikely to me. I certainly won't accept it without evidence. — T Clark

It is simple statistics and simple logic.

1. The more people that share a viral load within a given environment, the less the risk to any individual within that environment.

2. People removing the viral contamination means there is less viral contamination; less risk.

There is no rocket science implied here, just straight simple logic.

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I don't quite understand what's the argument here. I think most of us here - with some exceptions - agree that most people should get the vaccine. For the vast majority of people it is the best way to deal with this problem.

As for masks, if you're in your house or in your car or in a park with ample room between people, you should be ok, most of the time. In closed spaces with strangers, wear them. If you have breathing problems or a panic attack or something like that, I don't think taking it off at that moment will be a massive scandal.

Otherwise, this is going to last much longer than it should.

And again, vaccine availability for all countries should really be priority no.1 for almost everybody.

Right. That always works. What need of law? What need of anything compulsory — tim wood

The need for law will be part of the policy decision. Something on which 100% compliance is required and advisable might be best made law.

And of course such people know "exactly" who they are, by the numbers.

Do you yourself know such things? How do you know them? — tim wood

The claim isn't that people know exactly their personal circumstances and how they might impact a broad policy, it's that policymakers don't know this, nor assume to.

I don't quite understand what's the argument here. — Manuel

Moralising the following of current policy in all cases is damaging to the need for dynamic, responsive and data informed response management. — Isaac

Ah. Yeah. It's not always easy to keep one's cool about when people say really crazy stuff regarding vaccines and such, but moralizing is usually a bad idea.

So far as I see, however, I don't see a disagreement about the use of vaccines per se. Mask wearing can be nebulous, sure, but if you're in agreement about the important stuff then rest doesn't seem to matter as much.

I understand the frustration.

I don't see anywhere me claiming to be immune or objective. As for figuring out why you believe what you do, it wasn't my intention. The part of my post you're quoting here simply claims that you followed expert advice in one case where it tallied with a popular social identity and yet reject it in another where it does not. I haven't really gone as far as to assess why. — Isaac

My point was that my position does not correlate with my social identity, nor does the data suggest that for any particular person it must. The data set simply states that certain types of people often do certain types of things, but your attempt to directly causally link them isn't based upon any data. Ergo, your suggestion I believe as I do due to social club doesn't hold.

Why? It takes five minutes to get a tattoo, but doing so is a lifestyle choice, so it's not the time. Why wouldn't getting a vaccine be a lifestyle choice? Not doing so certainly seems to be something people use to define themselves certainly no less than helmetless-biker, or solo-climber. You have faith in the medical establishment, you don't see it as a threat, so to you it's nothing. To others it defines them. That's the whole point. Your 'lifestyle choice' is that it's a nothing event. — Isaac

You're doing some torturous disservice to the phrase "lifestyle choice" if you're now using it to describe an adherence to evidence based science. But sure, if you mean some choose to be irrational and some not, and it's all a matter of which sort of life you want to live, then use the term however you want, but at least appreciate you're just creating a euphemism that means "irrational." When you say I'm in Club Rational and that's the reason I scoff at the mumblings of Club Irrational, I can live with that.

Getting a tattoo doesn't bother me because it doesn't affect the commons. People not getting vaccines puts us on the brink of another shut down and another requirement to wear masks.

As I said in my response to Benkei above, the great thing about vaccinations as a public health response is exactly that we don't need everyone to take them for it to work. With measles is high (95%), with polio only 80%, with Covid it might be two thirds of the population to get the R0 to less than 1. Making a lifestyle choice to not have a vaccine is fine — Isaac

Sure, if 95 people are needed to put out a raging fire and there are 100 in the room, you can sit it out and wait for everyone else to throw water on it and claim you're just as good as all those who helped out.
But, if more than 5 of you happen to choose not throw water on the fire, the 6+ of you can say "watching fires, not extinguishing fires, is my lifestyle choice, so stop being so judgey."

But, if more than 5 of you happen to choose not throw water on the fire, the 6+ of you can say "watching fires, not extinguishing fires, is my lifestyle choice, so stop being so judgey." — Hanover

It's my lifestyle choice to be judgemental, (so stop being so prescriptive.) especially judgemental of people who don't help out when helping out is easy and important.