Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 28th, 2021, 5:01 pm
BobS wrote: ↑June 28th, 2021, 3:24 pm
If you're really asking for evidence that not being vaccinated doesn't increase the risk that the virus will otherwise continue to circulate more extensively and longer than whatever may be the unknown amount of time that it will take immunity to lessen in those who were intelligent and responsible enough to be vaccinated, and that it doesn't increase the risk of new variants developing, variants that may pose additional risks to those who were intelligent and responsible enough to be vaccinated, I'd say that your request is a bit excessive.
To say the least.
How do you propose that such evidence be collected? . . .
Then don't make empirical claims about it. Empirical claims require empirical evidence.
What a dodgy response.
The part of my message that you didn't quote listed some of the widely known evidence. Why you thought it convenient to ignore that part is not explained.
The part of my message that you did quote was addressed to the possibility that what you required as evidence was stuff that was way over-the-top. Quoting only that part of my message, and glibly concluding that I shouldn't make empirical claims, hardly is to the point, especially since I started out merely responding to your earlier message, which said...
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 28th, 2021, 11:32 am
Let's see evidence of this in this situation first.
So you were the one who asked for evidence. I responded by asking what sort of evidence you required. And now you reply "don't make empirical claims about it."
Why engage in a discussion if you're simply going to dodge the issue in that manner?
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 28th, 2021, 5:01 pm
I'm not saying, by the way, that there's no increased risk with people choosing to not be vaccinated. I'm saying that there's no good evidence that the additional risk would be significant, ...
As mentioned, in quoting my earlier message, you left out part of what I said.
BobS wrote: ↑June 28th, 2021, 3:24 pm
Googling quickly told me that less than 91% of the world's population has been fully vaccinated [sic; a typo; 91% have
not been fully vaccinated]. In the U.S. it's less than 47%.
. . .
What we know is beyond dispute is that the virus is highly contagious, that those who have not been vaccinated pose a much higher threat of spreading the virus than those who have been vaccinated, that multiple deadly and even more contagious variants have already arisen, etc., etc., etc. What common sense tells us is that there is no way to know that a new variant will not threat the health of even those were were intelligent and responsible enough to be vaccinated.
I'd say that's pretty significant evidence. Saying that there's "no good evidence" doesn't make it so. Ignoring what I said doesn't make it go away.
I asked what sort of evidence you do require in anticipation of your rejecting the widely-known stuff that I mentioned. Since you persist in your claim that there's "no good evidence," I have to ask:
Do we need to get a mutation that is so virulent that it starts killing at an even greater clip, and infects even the people who have been vaccinated, as well as the Typhoid Mary wannabes? How many such deaths would need to pile up before you'd be satisfied that there was more than "no good evidence"?
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 28th, 2021, 11:32 am
Not that I'd agree that people are morally obligated to make risk as low as possible for others, by the way.
The issue isn't one of making the risk "as low as possible," as though the risk were already quite low, and vaccinations merely served to make it slightly lower. From the beginning it's been made known that they are about 90% effective. On the one hand, that tells us that if everyone was vaccinated, the number of infections would be
dramatically reduced. On the other had, simple arithmetic tells us that the vaccines are about 10%
ineffective. Translated: even ignoring any variants that may develop, people who have been vaccinated are still at risk, mostly because of the knuckleheads who refuse to be vaccinated.
And again, the evidence is that deadly variants do continue to arise. Common sense tells us that if unvaccinated people are far more likely than vaccinated people to be infected, then unvaccinated people are the principle breeding ground for mutations. That's a risk to everyone.
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 28th, 2021, 11:32 am
I'm not in favor of moralizing or legislating in a manner oriented toward maximally minimizing risks at the expense of
allowing people to make whatever choices they'd like to make. [Emphasis added.]
"Maximally minimizing risks" is essentially an arm-waving generality that doesn't apply. It's established that the vaccines are effective, that they significantly reduce the risk of infection and death, and that mutations continue to arise, which potentially affects us all. With that being the evidence, whether you intend it or not, what you've
said so far essentially translates to this: seriously reducing the continuing death toll is not a worthy goal, not if it means infringing the freedom of all the Typhoid Mary wannabes to do what they want.
I beg to differ.