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Austria first country to make Covid vaccine mandatory

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Foxi4

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Him not being a doctor was kind of the point, it probably would've been better for the president to not use words like that in any such context regardless of what he was thinking at the time. His poor choice of wording also resulted in a bit of a fuckup on another occasion, although I would stop short of saying incited. Based on that outcome, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume some people did indeed end up drinking disinfectant.
I can’t think of one confirmed instance, and it would’ve been plastered all over the news if it did happen, although I am open to the idea that someone did because people are stupid. Stupid people do stupid things for a billion stupid reasons, I don’t concern myself with that. It’s the same deal with HCQ, where there was one confirmed instance of someone using it, but as it turns out, it was a homicide according to the police (woman killing husband and pretending she did it “because Trump” when caught, I’ll take Nice Attempt for $500, Alex). But yes, he was a great shit talker, and had a penchant to speak on subjects he knew nothing about with confidence. Hilarious, God bless that man.
 

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Greece going in for daily fines for the over 60s without it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59474808?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Now the temptation is to say "oh Greece" and to be fair over 60s have some of the lowest GDP as a group anyway so broke as you like Greece probably wants them to pay their way, however end result is still government force and not even in a manner that will likely bother the jet set class.
 

Xzi

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But yes, he was a great shit talker, and had a penchant to speak on subjects he knew nothing about with confidence. Hilarious, God bless that man.
Awfully nice way of saying he was a narcissistic sociopath willing to sacrifice any number of his cult members in any number of ways so long as he thought it would let him retain power. And his worst-in-the-world pandemic response unfortunately spread suffering and death to nearly everybody in the US, not just those who supported him. Just goes to show a coked-out circus clown will always be a coked-out circus clown, no matter how much responsibility you heap on his shoulders. The role was too big for him.
 
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KingVamp

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We have a very different recollection of the events, except only one of those is backed up by actual sources. I remember pretty distinctly that “sources”, including the WHO, dismissed the virus to the point that even human-to-human transmission was questioned, until it was too late.


The people most concerned about the virus, back when it was still called “spontaneous pneumonia”, were exclusively on the “conspiracy theorist” side of the Internet, and the sole reason why they were concerned was because the Chinese government was welding people’s doors shut and at the same time, the WHO was informing the world that “there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission” and we should all chill. The containment actions taken by the Chinese government that people saw with their own eyes thanks to whistleblowers online did not match what we were being told, so doubt was a rather natural reaction. The overwhelming sentiment among the right was “they know something that they’re not telling us”, and this sentiment turned out to be correct.
Not seeing the evidence that they were already welding doors shut while WHO was investigating at the time nor am I sure that's even enough evidence for WHO to make the the call that it was human transmissible.

Besides, I doubt that the people that was concern when it was “spontaneous pneumonia” are the same people "here", that can't even be bothered to put a mask on.

Here’s Axios kindly reminding readers that if they’re panicking about the coronavirus, they should be more concerned about the flu:

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-i...tes-64311582-2031-40af-8ec3-9ff68341d4f3.html

The Daily Beast coming at you with a similar brain dead take, although they seem to have “updated” it later, by which I mean “wiping egg off their face”:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/flu-not-coronavirus-is-the-virus-killing-us-kids-like-luca-calanni

A lot of the articles from more mainstream publications were straight up deleted, but I’m sure pesky little users archived them accordingly. The comparisons to the flu didn’t start with Trump, they were started by the press, and the Internet never forgets.
I admit I was commenting halfheartedly, but was thinking of the layman. Articles like that made even after being declared "Global Emergency" were dumb and don't excuse the people that still call it "just the flu" until this day.

As for your quip regarding medical quackery, I’m not entirely sure why you ascribe it specifically to right-wingers considering it’s historically the left that subscribes to all sorts of alternative medicine, from “healing crystals” all the way to homeopathy. Not five minutes ago in historical terms the most wealthy and densely liberal areas of America had the lowest rates of vaccination against small pox etc., comparable to South Sudan - those people are not rabid Trump supporters, they’re as blue as the open sea.

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/380252/
Not going to pretend to know how much alternative medicine was used by the two wings before, but that clearly isn't the case now dealing with this pandemic.

You completely sidestep the question of where the middle ground is between vaccines and bioweapons.


Regarding Trump, he took immediate action by banning travel from affected areas, he tried to prevent a national panic by downplaying the virus in speeches, but handled the situation fairly well in terms of actions taken, which is completely understandable to me. This conversation is two years out of date. You can have your own opinion on the subject, but last I checked, when banning travel, a perfectly sensible mitigation strategy, was introduced, the left responded with “that’s racist”, and with Nancy Pelosi parading across Chinatown to lick some doorknobs. I’m sorry, you might have acute amnesia, but I don’t.
Putting maskless rallies Trump aside, you actually made me look up what Nancy Pelosi was doing, when I didn't even care at the time. Apparently she was just trying to lessen the growing resentment at Chinatown and wasn't even downplaying the virus.
 
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Foxi4

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Awfully nice way of saying he was a narcissistic sociopath willing to sacrifice any number of his cult members in any number of ways so long as he thought it would let him retain power. And his worst-in-the-world pandemic response unfortunately spread suffering and death to nearly everybody in the US, not just those who supported him. Just goes to show a coked-out circus clown will always be a coked-out circus clown, no matter how much responsibility you heap on his shoulders. The role was too big for him.
The response was fine, comparatively speaking, if the numbers from John Hopkins are to be believed. The rest of your post is hearsay that you can’t possibly back up.
Not seeing the evidence that they were already welding doors shut while WHO was investigating at the time nor am I sure that's even enough evidence for WHO to make the the call that it was human transmissible.

Besides, I doubt that the people that was concern when it was “spontaneous pneumonia” are the same people "here", that can't even be bothered to put a mask on.
There was plenty of evidence available at the time, if you’re “not seeing it” then perhaps you weren’t looking considering the whistleblower posts were plastered all over Twitter and Reddit, often promptly removed because “conspiracy”. You could easily find videos of various authoritarian countermeasures from doors being welded to people being arrested and placed in forced quarantine in one of the many hastily-built wards with no doorknobs on the inside. The western press didn’t catch on with what was happening until February when everybody realised “it’s not a prank, bro”. One of those whistleblowers famously died from COVID shortly after being admonished by the government for “spreading false rumours on the Internet”. Guess they weren’t false after all. He wasn’t a “conspiracy theorist” either, he was a doctor from the Wuhan province.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang
I admit I was commenting halfheartedly, but was thinking of the layman. Articles like that made even after being declared "Global Emergency" were dumb and don't excuse the people that still call it "just the flu" until this day.
I never said that it was an excuse. It is absolutely the same group of people, they simply changed their mind based on the mortality rate, which still sits between 2 and 3% - they expected the virus to be significantly more deadly than that. That’s not to say that it *isn’t* deadly, not to mention that death isn’t the only possible outcome, but that’s precisely how the tides have turned over time.
Not going to pretend to know how much alternative medicine was used by the two wings before, but that clearly isn't the case now dealing with this pandemic.
Completely irrelevant answer. People who are stupid exist on either side of the aisle, idiocy has no political affiliation.
You completely sidestep the question of where the middle ground is between vaccines and bioweapons.
I didn’t sidestep anything - I simply ignored it because I’m not easily baited into responding to hyperbolic nonsense. The obvious middle ground I meant was “okay, we’re dealing with a highly contagious virus, let’s make an effort to not spread it around, but at the same time let’s not panic like it’s the end of the world because we’ve narrowed down what makes a person exceptionally at risk - old age and pre-existing conditions. If we work together, maybe we can beat it *and* continue living in conditions about as close to normalcy as possible”. Unfortunately we’re kind of past that point as we approach year 2 of 2 weeks to stop the spread, so the next possible solution is accepting the new normal.
Putting maskless rallies Trump aside, you actually made me look up what Nancy Pelosi was doing, when I didn't even care at the time. Apparently she was just trying to lessen the growing resentment at Chinatown and wasn't even downplaying the virus.
Of course she did, it wasn’t at all a publicity stunt, just like that time when Kamala Harris explicitly stated that she will not get vaccinated if “Trump tells her to” because… Trump has any influence on how vaccines are manufactured? I don’t know, I didn’t understand it either. I assume we trust the science, unless a president we don’t like is in charge, in which case we don’t trust the science because Trump himself, personally, develops the vaccine in-between golf sessions.
 
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Xzi

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The response was fine, comparatively speaking, if the numbers from John Hopkins are to be believed.
The response was only "fine" if the objective was to kill as many Americans in a single year as possible. If the objective was anything else, it was an utter and complete failure of leadership on a level rarely seen throughout human history. A golden retriever as president surely would've done less damage, as the dog wouldn't have undermined medical science experts at every turn along the way, or encouraged an undercurrent of anti-vaxx nutjobs to overtake his party's official policy stance.
 
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Foxi4

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The response was only "fine" if the objective was to kill as many Americans in a single year as possible. If the objective was anything else, it was an utter and complete failure of leadership on a level rarely seen throughout human history. A golden retriever as president surely would've done less damage, as the dog wouldn't have undermined medical science experts at every turn along the way, or encouraged an undercurrent of anti-vaxx nutjobs to overtake his party's official policy stance.
Again, specify what you mean using any kind of number. By the end of Trump’s term mortality was in the same neighbourhood as in European countries - between 2 and 3%. We’ve discussed this subject *back in 2020*, and I didn’t hear a salient argument then either, besides the usual “orange man bad”. Everybody fucked up COVID mitigation - no shit, you have a certain government of an Asian superpower to thank for that. The vaccination trajectory hasn’t particularly changed under Biden either - it was slowly accelerating under Trump, and it would’ve accelerated at the same rate regardless of who won the election. As a side note, when Biden was running, I was told he had some kind of magical plan. Is the plan in motion yet? Because I don’t see any major changes - quite the opposite, as the death toll in 2021 has just surpassed that of 2020, a year that started with total confusion and no effective treatment.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/bidens-covid-death-milestone-biden-administration-trump-11637708781

Apparently he’s not doing any better than Trump, in spite of enormous medical advancements, including widespread vaccination and effective treatments. What do I know though, I just look at numbers and giggle.
 
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Xzi

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The vaccination trajectory hasn’t particularly changed under Biden either - it was slowly accelerating under Trump, and it would’ve accelerated at the same rate regardless of who won the election. As a side note, when Biden was running, I was told he had some kind of magical plan. Is the plan in motion yet? Because I don’t see any major changes - quite the opposite, as the death toll in 2021 has just surpassed that of 2020, a year that started with total confusion and no effective treatment.
Nearly 500,000 died of COVID in the US last year compared to almost 300,000 so far this year. And that's despite the fact that the anti-vaxx sentiment on the right hasn't gone away, if anything it's only become more prevalent. It's unreasonable to expect that Biden should be capable of destroying a monster that Trump created, let alone one that's grown too feral for even its master to control. We'll be dealing with the consequences of the failed response for years to come, they don't just disappear overnight.
 
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Foxi4

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Nearly 500,000 died of COVID in the US last year compared to almost 300,000 so far this year. And that's despite the fact that the anti-vaxx sentiment on the right hasn't gone away, if anything it's only become more prevalent. It's unreasonable to expect that Biden should be capable of destroying a monster that Trump created, let alone one that's grown too feral for even its master to control. We'll be dealing with the consequences of the failed response for years to come, they don't just disappear overnight.
Hilariously inaccurate. Trump has repeatedly stated that people should get vaccinated and that he himself has taken the vaccine in spite of being a COVID survivor with a degree of natural immunity. He continues to do so during his rallies, often in spite of the crowd’s disapproval. The distrust regarding the vaccine is rooted in a more general distrust of the scientific and political establishment, and the belief that their pandemic containment measures are enacted to achieve political goals instead of in the interest of public health. Not that it matters, this is Joe Biden’s term, not Trump’s. I can’t wait to read future news reports using the same scapegoat. “It is the year 2077, we are observing one of the last ice caps melting in real time. 95% of experts agree that this is Trump’s fault. Trump’s preserved head has refused to comment as it was busy golfing with Richard Nixon’s preserved head at his new golf resort located on the moon. Back to you, Alice!”
 
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Xzi

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Trump has repeatedly stated that people should get vaccinated and that he himself has taken the vaccine in spite of being a COVID survivor with a degree of natural immunity.
He got vaccinated quietly in January and didn't start advocating for vaccinations for his base until several months later, at which point he got booed and pivoted back to a wishy-washy stance. Prior to that he had already advocated for several different..."alternative" treatments, and he took over health briefings despite having exactly zero medical or scientific knowledge. If he isn't the father of anti-vaxx, "my ignorance is as good as the experts' knowledge" sentiment in the US, he's at the very least its uncle.

Not that it matters, this is Joe Biden’s term, not Trump’s.
True, and on the one hand he was called in to clean up Trump's mess, but on the other hand it's hard to look worse by comparison. Deaths will decline from year-to-year as the virus tears through the anti-vaxx population. Republicans now believe they have elections rigged enough via gerrymandering and state-level control that they can survive the voting population loss. Of course if I had my way, the Dems would put up someone more exciting in 2024 regardless, but more exciting necessitates being more progressive, and the party is practically allergic to that.
 
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Trump is a fucking lying sack of shit too

he never had COVID , and he never got the vaccine either

at least not the same one he is trying to sell you

anyone who actually believes Trump and Barron had COVID and recovered in like 3 days has a single digit I.Q.



same goes for anyone who actually believes that they are getting the same vax as the ruling class

you really have to have few extra chromosomes to believe there is one vax for everyone

and that they didn't already have their version back in September before they released the virus
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1932366,00.html




Trump and everyone else on BOTH sides of the isle ALL had the REAL vax back in September of 2019

same of the media and big pharma and the rest of the corporate class

imagine letting the same people who released the bioweapon on you after immunizing themselves with their own special version before hand inject you with something


LOL ,





 
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Xzi

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he never had COVID , and he never got the vaccine either

at least not the same one he is trying to sell you

anyone who actually believes Trump and Barron had COVID and recovered in like 3 days has a single digit I.Q.
He was the president at the time, of course he had all the best treatments and doctors available to him (and his family). Monoclonal antibody treatments speed the recovery of a lot of COVID-19 patients, but IIRC they're over $10,000 if you're uninsured. Besides, my symptoms also lasted only about three days when I got infected with COVID-19. It varies.
 
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Not to keep the off topic Trump stuff going but I do remember he wanted to close down travel from China and was met with a lot of "that's racist" opposition. The only reason I remember is because my wife was one of those people and I was trying to convince her it was a good idea to shutdown international travel before the numbers exploded.
 
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I'm okay with vaccine mandates as long as they're sensible. For example disallowing nation wide access to public services that put a lot of strangers into tight spaces (public transit, publicly accessible institutions, libraries, schools, etc) unless the person is vaccinated. Then add fines if they try to access those things in person without being vaccinated. Exceptions would need to exist for people that can't get vaccinated, of course. But otherwise just fuck those people, if they can't be arsed to do what they can to protect other people around them no reason to allow them to participate in what society provides to them via taxes from everyone. If they don't want the shot they can just stay at home or in the woods and have their food delivered to them, that's their personal freedom right there.
The social contract would fail under your logic. What would happen would be nobody would bother with rule of law. No drivers licenses or insurance. People would do whatever the hell they wanted when they wanted it. If your precious vaccine worked you wouldn't need to be bothered or worried by other people and what they do with their bodies.

What you should be asking is how come holistic and alternative treatments have been shunned. How come you can't sue the manufacturer if you get sick or die taking their crap. Or why they want to wait 55 years to tell us what's in it? Play russian roulette out of fear. My mother took a flu shot in 2019 and it gave her 2 strokes. No way in hell and I messing with this crap.
 

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I do keep myself heavily informed, although not exclusively through the news of one country, so I do believe I have a pretty good understanding of the situation in at least Europe and the US where I currently live. Even since Covid started the latter tends to get a repeat of what Europe suffered from a few weeks prior, so we'll see how it works this time.
Regardless whether it can be fully eradicated or not, non vaccinated people are factually more likely to create a cluster, therefore endangering people.

Like you said, there's a balance, Europe chose to confine heavily during the first few phases of the pandemic, and while you will never be able to prove that it saved lives, let's just reasonably assume that not all scientists of the planet and not every single person in a government is corrupt and that the numbers are right, and it did save lives.
The balance is there like you said, and it's entirely politics. This is where the debate is.

But twisting the debate into a simple "this is a violation of human rights" when yourself just admitted it's a question of balance seems disingenuous. If It's a question of balance, it can and should be debated.

And yep, I tend to trust my government more than the average American does, maybe also because unlike them (and assuming you're from the US) I got to experience what a government can do to place safety nets around people. I consider the freedom of education, work safety and healthcare to trump the freedom the anti vax claim they're losing over doing their part during a global pandemic, interventionism be damned.
If you trust the United States government to give a shit about you, I highly recommend you read Medical Apartheid by Dr. Harriet Washington, who was fired as head of John Hopkins for putting this book out. Also do yourself a solid and research the Tuskeegee Experiment.

The United states government is NEVER to be trusted. As long as they can manipulate fear into the population thru "isms" (racism, sexism, etc) fear will rule the roost and the greater majority will commit societal suicide to get their point of political views across than listen and compromise with dissenting opinions.

The US just loves the smell of bickering in the morning.
 
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tabzer

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I certainly don't want to live in a world full of those retards.
We can all help prevent suicide. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States.

1-800-273-8255
 
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