Coronavirus

[mamselle]

The "Don't mask, don't tell" bunch are the ones that have worried me most.

I'm now thinking I was right not to resume tours this summer.

For a bit, I was second-guessing myself for being too cautious.

But now I don't think so, sorry to have to say.

M.

[spork]

Are there any countries in the world, or parts of any countries, that are actually requiring citizens to vax, excepting those who would have a medical reason not to do so?

Yes, Russia. Moscow Oblast is imposing some pretty serious fines for those in certain categories that don't vaccinate (and years behind bars for using forged vaccine certificates), and certain categories, like some retail workers, can be fired for not being vaccinated. This was done after bribery (paying people to be immunized) failed. I'm no fan of people's alleged right to make others sick, so to me this (after purely voluntary vaccination and bribery both failed) seems to me like a no-nonsense approach.

This actually ties in with something that I find deeply worrying - the overall (including both initial containment and immunization) best Covid response on the planet was surely that of Singapore, which had pretty good containment via social distancing, contact tracing, travel restrictions etc, and a rather rapid immunization program. Authoritarian Singapore beat basically every democracy on the planet. Chinese propagandists are probably having a field day portraying democracies as choosing to have dead voters instead of inconvenienced voters, particularly as immunization stalls in some democracies and given India's catastrophic second wave.
The EU in particular has been a spectacular failure, both at a central EU level and in the performance of quite a few member states. Initial containment in several member states was among the worst in the world, and far behind authoritarian developing countries like China and Vietnam (also worse than democracies like Taiwan, to be fair). Scenes of the Dutch setting testing centers on fire may be the epitome of the failure, but hardly the only symptom. Then immunization got off to a disastrously slow start, soon lagging behind Chile and Serbia, while a feudal state, the UAE, rolled out the second-fastest vaccination program in the world. Finally, and perhaps most surprising, there's the vaccine-development failure. The US, Germany, India (well, allegedly democratic) and the UK are the only democracies that have developed their own vaccines - and those are all rich (UK, Germany), huge (India) or both (the US). Except for Germany, every singly EU country lags in vaccine development behind India, Russia, China and Cuba. The case of Cuba is particularly dramatic, as a single-party state island too poor to provide its citizens with flour beat the entire Western Hemisphere save for the US alone in vaccine development. In contrast, plenty of wealthy democracies, like Japan, Switzerland, Australia or South Korea are MIA in vaccine development. The case has sometimes been made that in the long run R&D requires democracy to fluorish,  but covid vaccine development stands as a pretty strong counterexample, while giving Russia its biggest soft power victory since Yuri Gagarin. Given democracy was already under assault or already rolled back in quite a few places before the pandemic, none of this bodes well for democracy around the world.

I don't think ordinary people around the world, whether in democracies or non-democracies, have fond feelings for Russia's kleptocracy, despite the existence of a Russia-produced vaccine.

Vietnam took the wise step of rapidly sealing its borders, instituting contact tracing, movement restrictions, etc. when the PRC was downplaying the seriousness of SARS-CoV-2 early in the pandemic. Vietnamese leaders knew not to believe early claims by the CCP given the previous SARS outbreak.

In Singapore, a small island, it is even easier to impose quarantine measures. Although the state is moderately or lightly (depending on one's definition) authoritarian, it has a decades-long reputation for effective, non-corrupt government.

Vietnam, Singapore, Cuba, etc. have public health systems that in normal conditions are far more effective and efficient than the system in the USA. Generally speaking these countries' pandemic responses were not hobbled  by feckless, narcissistic political leadership at the very top, as was the case with the USA. While the USA brought to market one vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 via a collaboration between Moderna and NAIAD, it was BioNTech (German) that developed the other; Pfizer did the clinical trials and manufacturing.

Regarding China's two main vaccines, Sinvac and Sinopharm, their efficacy is noticeably lower than that for other vaccines. And, per an acquaintance who works for an international public health agency, China provides a country with one or two million free vaccine doses, then charges prices for additional doses that are higher than the market prices for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. The problem these countries face is not being able to access supplies of the latter, while China is quite happy to export what its pharmaceutical factories are producing.

[Caracal]

The "Don't mask, don't tell" bunch are the ones that have worried me most.

I'm now thinking I was right not to resume tours this summer.

For a bit, I was second-guessing myself for being too cautious.

But now I don't think so, sorry to have to say.

M.

The tricky part now is that caution has become much more of a personal judgement call, at least for the vaccinated. It can't just be "don't travel on planes." Now it has to be about weighing your enjoyment of things against the risk. It's a hard thing to knowI definitely know people who are weighing risks in ways that strike me as irrationally over-cautious. But, perhaps that's unfair and they just value things differently than I do. There's also an element

[apl68]

Are there any countries in the world, or parts of any countries, that are actually requiring citizens to vax, excepting those who would have a medical reason not to do so?

Yes, Russia. Moscow Oblast is imposing some pretty serious fines for those in certain categories that don't vaccinate (and years behind bars for using forged vaccine certificates), and certain categories, like some retail workers, can be fired for not being vaccinated.

Well that ought to make it easier for advocates of mandatory vaccination policies in the U.S. to sell the idea here!

[apl68]

Are there any countries in the world, or parts of any countries, that are actually requiring citizens to vax, excepting those who would have a medical reason not to do so?

Yes, Russia. Moscow Oblast is imposing some pretty serious fines for those in certain categories that don't vaccinate (and years behind bars for using forged vaccine certificates), and certain categories, like some retail workers, can be fired for not being vaccinated. This was done after bribery (paying people to be immunized) failed. I'm no fan of people's alleged right to make others sick, so to me this (after purely voluntary vaccination and bribery both failed) seems to me like a no-nonsense approach.

This actually ties in with something that I find deeply worrying - the overall (including both initial containment and immunization) best Covid response on the planet was surely that of Singapore, which had pretty good containment via social distancing, contact tracing, travel restrictions etc, and a rather rapid immunization program. Authoritarian Singapore beat basically every democracy on the planet. Chinese propagandists are probably having a field day portraying democracies as choosing to have dead voters instead of inconvenienced voters, particularly as immunization stalls in some democracies and given India's catastrophic second wave.
The EU in particular has been a spectacular failure, both at a central EU level and in the performance of quite a few member states. Initial containment in several member states was among the worst in the world, and far behind authoritarian developing countries like China and Vietnam (also worse than democracies like Taiwan, to be fair). Scenes of the Dutch setting testing centers on fire may be the epitome of the failure, but hardly the only symptom. Then immunization got off to a disastrously slow start, soon lagging behind Chile and Serbia, while a feudal state, the UAE, rolled out the second-fastest vaccination program in the world. Finally, and perhaps most surprising, there's the vaccine-development failure. The US, Germany, India (well, allegedly democratic) and the UK are the only democracies that have developed their own vaccines - and those are all rich (UK, Germany), huge (India) or both (the US). Except for Germany, every singly EU country lags in vaccine development behind India, Russia, China and Cuba. The case of Cuba is particularly dramatic, as a single-party state island too poor to provide its citizens with flour beat the entire Western Hemisphere save for the US alone in vaccine development. In contrast, plenty of wealthy democracies, like Japan, Switzerland, Australia or South Korea are MIA in vaccine development. The case has sometimes been made that in the long run R&D requires democracy to fluorish,  but covid vaccine development stands as a pretty strong counterexample, while giving Russia its biggest soft power victory since Yuri Gagarin. Given democracy was already under assault or already rolled back in quite a few places before the pandemic, none of this bodes well for democracy around the world.

I don't think ordinary people around the world, whether in democracies or non-democracies, have fond feelings for Russia's kleptocracy, despite the existence of a Russia-produced vaccine.

Vietnam took the wise step of rapidly sealing its borders, instituting contact tracing, movement restrictions, etc. when the PRC was downplaying the seriousness of SARS-CoV-2 early in the pandemic. Vietnamese leaders knew not to believe early claims by the CCP given the previous SARS outbreak.

In Singapore, a small island, it is even easier to impose quarantine measures. Although the state is moderately or lightly (depending on one's definition) authoritarian, it has a decades-long reputation for effective, non-corrupt government.

Vietnam, Singapore, Cuba, etc. have public health systems that in normal conditions are far more effective and efficient than the system in the USA. Generally speaking these countries' pandemic responses were not hobbled  by feckless, narcissistic political leadership at the very top, as was the case with the USA. While the USA brought to market one vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 via a collaboration between Moderna and NAIAD, it was BioNTech (German) that developed the other; Pfizer did the clinical trials and manufacturing.

Regarding China's two main vaccines, Sinvac and Sinopharm, their efficacy is noticeably lower than that for other vaccines. And, per an acquaintance who works for an international public health agency, China provides a country with one or two million free vaccine doses, then charges prices for additional doses that are higher than the market prices for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. The problem these countries face is not being able to access supplies of the latter, while China is quite happy to export what its pharmaceutical factories are producing.

Singapore, and Cuba also have the advantage of being rather small countries.  Vietnam has a much larger population than the other two, but it's still smaller than, say, Brazil and India, and it doesn't spread across a large land area.

[mamselle]

Also, the cultural memory of SARS grounds several of those populations with a shared experiential narrative that they are less likely to mythologize or try to magically think away.

That's the serious downside to U.S. exceptionalism. Those who buy it, and think they're being cute and rad by flaunting real possibilities, don't realize how absurd they seem to those in other places that have dealt with such issues in the recent past and have an institutional awareness of the consequences.

M. 

[secundem_artem]

In global health circles, the tail is often told that smallpox in the wild was extirpated after the remaining group of Somalis were vaccinated.  The story goes that they were vaccinated at gunpoint.  Maybe that's apocryphal, maybe it's not. 

There were examples of an outbreak in the US in 1901 in which NYC police held people down so they could be vaccinated.

I would not half mind trying that approach here with all the MAGA hat wearing mouth breathers forever whinging about their freeeeeeeeeeeee-dumbs.

You cannot drive drunk.  You cannot purchase hand grenades. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater.  There are already government imposed requirements for vaccines to enter school, join the military etc.  You cannot knowingly pass on HIV to an uninformed sexual partner.  There is no shortage of things you cannot do in order to protect the greater public good.

You lot that are thicker than 2 short planks can take your free-dumbs and your "rights" and shove them straight up your hosepipe.  The vaccines are safe, they are effective, and your right to worship of an orange sociopath does not trump my right to stay alive.

[mamselle]

As my dad used to say, "Your right to swing your fist stops where the other guy's nose begins."

M.

[Caracal]

In global health circles, the tail is often told that smallpox in the wild was extirpated after the remaining group of Somalis were vaccinated.  The story goes that they were vaccinated at gunpoint.  Maybe that's apocryphal, maybe it's not. 

There were examples of an outbreak in the US in 1901 in which NYC police held people down so they could be vaccinated.

I would not half mind trying that approach here with all the MAGA hat wearing mouth breathers forever whinging about their freeeeeeeeeeeee-dumbs.

You cannot drive drunk.  You cannot purchase hand grenades. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater.  There are already government imposed requirements for vaccines to enter school, join the military etc.  You cannot knowingly pass on HIV to an uninformed sexual partner.  There is no shortage of things you cannot do in order to protect the greater public good.

You lot that are thicker than 2 short planks can take your free-dumbs and your "rights" and shove them straight up your hosepipe.  The vaccines are safe, they are effective, and your right to worship of an orange sociopath does not trump my right to stay alive.

You probably know this, but it would just be a really bad idea. The level of coercion and force required would be impossible to muster, and morally repugnant if you could. Workplace and school requirements for vaccination are a much more reasonable and effective approach.

[apl68]

In global health circles, the tail is often told that smallpox in the wild was extirpated after the remaining group of Somalis were vaccinated.  The story goes that they were vaccinated at gunpoint.  Maybe that's apocryphal, maybe it's not. 

There were examples of an outbreak in the US in 1901 in which NYC police held people down so they could be vaccinated.

I would not half mind trying that approach here with all the MAGA hat wearing mouth breathers forever whinging about their freeeeeeeeeeeee-dumbs.

You cannot drive drunk.  You cannot purchase hand grenades. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater.  There are already government imposed requirements for vaccines to enter school, join the military etc.  You cannot knowingly pass on HIV to an uninformed sexual partner.  There is no shortage of things you cannot do in order to protect the greater public good.

You lot that are thicker than 2 short planks can take your free-dumbs and your "rights" and shove them straight up your hosepipe.  The vaccines are safe, they are effective, and your right to worship of an orange sociopath does not trump my right to stay alive.

You probably know this, but it would just be a really bad idea. The level of coercion and force required would be impossible to muster, and morally repugnant if you could. Workplace and school requirements for vaccination are a much more reasonable and effective approach.

And once again, it isn't just Trump fans who are the problem.  Vaccine hestiancy has been an issue across most of the world.

[apl68]

As my dad used to say, "Your right to swing your fist stops where the other guy's nose begins."

M.

I think I know what you're saying here, but those who are vaccine hesitant could, not unreasonably, use the same sort of argument about efforts to mandate that they put something into their bodies that they are not sure about. 

I've made it clear enough already that I am very much for vaccination, and very concerned and frustrated at the dangerous misguidedness of those who are resisting it.  But I don't feel entitled to the same smug sense of superiority that some are giving off about the issue.

[dismalist]

Yeah, with effectiveness around 95%, the vaccine, now widely available, has pretty much turned the public health problem into a private health problem.

[Stockmann]

I don't think ordinary people around the world, whether in democracies or non-democracies, have fond feelings for Russia's kleptocracy, despite the existence of a Russia-produced vaccine.

Not "fondness," but probably a new-found respect. There are plenty of kleptocracies around the world, but few are making effective vaccines. Vaccine diplomacy is a thing and the countries using Sputnik V include US allies such as Mexico.
Russian vaccine success ties into a narrative that Putin may be an unpleasant guy, but he gets things done and has made his country strong, and now not just in the battlefield, but also in R&D. For people around the world getting Sputnik V because there aren't enough Western vaccines to go around, or even because they prefer it to Astra Zeneca, it's not a trivial matter.

Regarding China's two main vaccines, Sinvac and Sinopharm, their efficacy is noticeably lower than that for other vaccines. And, per an acquaintance who works for an international public health agency, China provides a country with one or two million free vaccine doses, then charges prices for additional doses that are higher than the market prices for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. The problem these countries face is not being able to access supplies of the latter, while China is quite happy to export what its pharmaceutical factories are producing.

Yes, the Chinese vaccines are of low efficacy. But even those vaccines are more than, say, Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, etc managed to develop. Yes, many of them (and others) have a problem with access to Moderna and Pfizer, but part of the problem is their own failure to develop vaccines, and they are all wealthier and less isolated than Cuba. Switzerland is a particularly notable failure, as it was badly affected by Covid, boasts a well-regarded R&D sector and has a huge pharmaceutical sector.
Also Israel (probably the only democracy to have become stronger due to the pandemic), despite not developing vaccines, managed to set up a world-beating vaccination program, which other wealthy, small countries like Norway, Sweden or Qatar failed to do.

Singapore, and Cuba also have the advantage of being rather small countries.  Vietnam has a much larger population than the other two, but it's still smaller than, say, Brazil and India, and it doesn't spread across a large land area.

Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands are also small and fared badly. Gibraltar, San Marino and Andorra are even smaller, and fared disastrously. Assorted Scottish islands are more remote than Singapore or Cuba, yet were reached by Covid early and badly. Britain itself is an island. Unlike Vietnam, none of these places have a border with China.

Also, the cultural memory of SARS grounds several of those populations with a shared experiential narrative that they are less likely to mythologize or try to magically think away. 

But Mexico and Brazil have also had recent experience dealing with serious outbreaks of infectious diseases, yet they had presidents saying vaccines make you grow horns or that covid can be warded off by two dollar bills and Jesus stamps. in Southern Mexico, mobs burned down clinics  because reasons. So for some reason East Asia and Africa (except Tanzania, whose Covid response makes even Brazil look good) applied the lessons from past scares, and others didn't.

[spork]

Yeah, with effectiveness around 95%, the vaccine, now widely available, has pretty much turned the public health problem into a private health problem.

But as is traditional in the USA, the costs of private decisions will be socialized.

[dismalist]

Yeah, with effectiveness around 95%, the vaccine, now widely available, has pretty much turned the public health problem into a private health problem.

But as is traditional in the USA, the costs of private decisions will be socialized.

I don't think those costs will be that great from now. The 65 and over crowd who go to hospital before they die and cost extra Medicare money are already 75% fully vaccinated and 85% with at least one dose.  The younger will not be so badly affected on average and many will have private health insurance.

Look, we all see the same light. The question is whether that is the light at the end of the tunnel or the headlamp of the oncoming train!