Would you support a health tax on unvaccinated Americans?
Asked by
KNOWITALL (
29896
)
January 19th, 2022
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
88 Answers
It’s not a bad idea, but there is no way that in the US in these current times, that any legislature – state or COngress – would pass such a thing. Even if it does make sense.
There is precedent for increased fees being paid by people who are deliberately unhealthy. Life Insurance premiums are higher for smokers, for example.
Yes. I believe that there is already discussion on it amongst the provider and payor networks
Believe it or not I am opposed. What’s next, a health tax on someone who is overweight?
To me, it’s about who will be paying for their medical bills. If they want to stay home while sick, then no. If they want to get treatment at a hospital, then yes but from whatever plan is covering that cost.
No, I don’t think so. Seems like it’d be more about punishing people than effecting any kind of change.
As annoyed as I am at anti-vaxxers, this is a bad idea and a slippery slope.
We already pay additional fees based on age, which are tied to the presumed cost of providing medical care.
My health insurance premium at work went up significantly when I turned 50, and a good bit more at age 55, and a lot at age 60. I’m sure that the health insurors based those increases on the presumed additional medical costs that older people accrue.
So the precedent is there for additional costs based on health risk.
Whether this should be a tax- that’s another thing.
Tax them and their health insurance should pay only a small percentage if they end up in ICU with COVID-19.
I would expect conservatives who champion the belief that people ought to take personal responsibility for their actions and not rely on the money from other people to pay for the cost of their choices to be extremely supportive of such an effort.
I personally have mixed feelings, but I do think when hospitals are at max capacity, that the voluntarily unvaccinated be given the boot to make room for people who need care and have done what they can to mitigate the spread of the pandemic.
No. They’ll have enough problems when they catch the bug.
I wouldn’t. I agree that jobs should be able to mandate people to get vaccinated, but I am not on board with the government taxing people for not being vaccinated.
I didn’t think it would fly with Americans, which seems to be the general consensus. It surprised me to read of curfews and the other restrictions elsewhere.
I think that this idea is just to scare them into doing the right thing and get vaccinated.
I doubt that a tax would go through as think of the children of these antivaxers who could die with Covid. The law suits and public outrage would occur.
I don’t support a tax, but I think I am ok with those people paying a higher premium for insurance. Not much much higher, but an additional $25—$100 a month maybe.
In other countries where healthcare is paid for by the government, a tax is the same as a premium for private insurance in the US.
@KNOWITALL In Florida we had curfews for months in some counties when covid first hit the US, some curfews might still be going on, or put back in when cases are high and then removed again. I know Dade, Broward, Palm Beach Counties all had curfews for a while, and Dade reinstated a curfew regarding covid at least once after it had been taken off, I think it was Spring Break time. I don’t remember all of the details.
Response moderated (Writing Standards)
Nope. And it truly offends me that we have come to a point in our society where we believe the health issues of others is supposed to be public knowledge and taxed if we don’t like it. Suppose we had done that with HIV? Suppose we decided to tax women that want abortions? I have interviewed many, many people in my time. There are laws, discrimination laws, that limit what we can ask someone. Health questions are one of those. I can’t ask someone if they are married, I can’t ask if they are handicapped, I can’t ask if they have specific illnesses. But now all of the sudden we are at a point where it is not only acceptable but encouraged to ask personal details AND to discriminate based on the answers.
Can we tax people who were vaccinated but still had a breakthrough case and infected others?
I’d let health and life insurance companies bump up their rates to cover the added costs of their voluntary behavior.
I would also prioritize medical care when resources are scarce and hospitals are overflowing. I’d have a separate ward for unvaxxed individuals with Covid.
One problem that I can see with prioritizing vaccinated patients is that there are some people who are unvaxxed for a good reason (a medical reason), not a political ideology or paranoia. So there you’d have people who can’t be vaccinated yet are being treated like second class citizens.
@jca2 That happened to a friend of mine and no, it’s not okay.
I wouldn’t have a problem with insurance companies to up rates for nonvaccinated patients. They up rates for things all the time, such as smoking or whatever. I just wouldn’t be in favor of a governmental tax.
The most direct financial impact will be to insurance companies, so they would be justified to raise rates.
@Caravanfan You are loved. You and I can write almost the exact same things (happens quite a bit) and you get 8 or 10 likes and I get 1 or 2. Lol.
Another problem with this thought is that it makes the assumption that the vaccines fully protect you. that is not the case. There have been almost a million adverse reactions to the vaccines. almost 25,000 of these were severe and over 21,000 of those resulted in death. There were more than 115,000 hospitalizations due solely to the vaccines. These numbers come from the VAERS database.
Meanwhile, the vaccines do not keep you from getting Covid. They do not keep you from spreading it. They have shown that the vaccines are almost useless for the latest variant. So what is really being suggested is that healthcare costs should go up or there should be a tax put on people that did not get vaccinated, yet the vaccine is showing itself to be less and less effective. And NOWHERE in this discussion or in any discussion from the government talking points is the topic of natural immunities. The CDC snuck this one out showing that natural immunity is better than vaccines for the Delta Variant. But conversations like this one don’t go into that at all. So the segregation is purely whimsical at best. It is another effort by the Democrats to make 2nd class citizens…give everyone someone to focus on for hatred.
@JLeslie I pay literally no attention to the “great answer” thing. You can have all of mine.
@seawulf575 is correct in that the vaccine does not protect you 100% against catching or spreading Omicron. It does, however, protect you from getting severely ill. All of our critically ill patients are unvaccinated. Everybody who is vaccinated who is admitted has relatively mild disease.
@JLeslie Almost very jelly did not agree with a tax. Yet the question is out there. How many times do we ask questions that seem unreasonable and then find them to become truth? I remember asking what people thought about “Defund the Police”. Almost every jelly thought it was an insane idea. But then we started seeing it all the time on the news and suddenly it became a reasonable idea on these pages.
My point with my answers is not as to whether the vaccines are good or not or whether people should be getting the vaccine or anything like that. My answers are making the point that the question is out there if we should treat one section of the population significantly different because of their vaccination status regardless of anything else. It is discrimination, plain and simply. And it makes no sense in this case. The vaccines do not keep you from getting the disease so you can’t say the discrimination is because unvaccinated people get sick and vaccinated people don’t. The vaccines do not keep you from spreading the disease so you can’t say the discrimination is to protect others.
I have brought up Israel as an example of how the vaccines really don’t do much. I have had the response several times that it is due to Palestinians intermingling with their population that is the problem But when you compare side by side data you see the death rate by population is identical, you see actually there is a higher infection rate with the vaccinated. Yet Israel is almost 78% fully vaccinated and Palestine is closer to 30%.
This all shows that picking vaccination status as a discrimination is illogical and just political. Trying to push extra penalties on unvaccinated in the form of higher health insurance rates is likewise illogical and political. The science does not support that conclusion. So even having these discussions makes no sense other than it is pushing a narrative.
@Caravanfan I often don’t pay attention either, but lately a few jellies have been pointing it out to me. So now, when your answer more or less repeats my answer I notice the likes sometimes.
Random jellies often agree with each other on a thread, that’s not so unusual.
Anyway, my comment to you was more about the jellies who are “liking” answers than about you. You don’t control who is liking your answers.
@seawulf575 Defund the police became more of a “real” thing among conservatives than liberals. From the start prominent Democratic leaders, many of whom are Black leaders, were saying in interviews that defund was a terrible word and not accurate.
Sure jellies and other people out there in real life were trying to defend the word, I never did I thought it was horrible marketing, but people who really work in and with the police immediately said the word is bad and inaccurate. You just don’t know it because of the news you watch. Even some liberals don’t know it because of the news they watch, and they just parrot what they hear. Many “news” outlets want people to be exasperated.
As far as covid, more and more cases will matter less and hospitalizations and deaths will be the focus. All year every year the CDC, WHO, NIAID, PHS, FDA watch viruses travel around the world and through populations. They ring alarm bells when people get very sick or are dying. Either a virus that has a crazy high death rate, some are over 30%, or a virus that is maybe only a 1% death rate, but so contagious that it results in lots of deaths.
Rhinovirus colds and flu spread through the population in HUGE waves, but the governments don’t do too much to warn us or change behaviors (I wish the US did more) except for the flu shot being recommended, because the severe illness rate is extremely low, hospitals can handle it, and most hospital workers are vaccinated for flu, or required to use very protective PPE.
I only care about covid statistics since vaccinations were available. Cumulative means nothing. Cities hit first during the pandemic were blindsided and treatment was not as good as now in many cases.
@seawulf575 I must live in a bubble because I swear I have not heard that there were over a million adverse reactions to the vaccine and over 21,000 deaths and 115,000 hospitalizations!
I am now going to try to find information on that. If you already have a source, please supply it.
@seawulf575: And if you do provide a link, please provide one from a legitimate source (not one with “patriot” in the name or anything like that).
There will be mealy-mouth excuses and inventions to try and justify that number.
When I had the short, my arm ached for a day and I was tired. (which was normal and expected – that happens with the annual flu vaccine too.)
Does that count as an adverse reaction? I would say no, but remember it is easy to lie with statistics, especially if you’re trying to bamboozle people.
Good point, @elbanditoroso. If I had a headache for the second shot, or chills, does that mean it counts? To me, that’s not significant. If someone ends up in the hospital due to adverse reactions, to me, that’s significant.
VAERS shows reported statistics.
Technically, doctors are supposed to report ALL serious adverse reactions that happen within a certain time frame of getting a vaccine that is under emergency use. It is not for the doctor to determine if he or she believes the reaction or death is vaccine related. The FDA investigates deaths and looks for trends. Additionally, anyone can self report. For covid vaccines serious incidents should all be reported.
https://vaers.hhs.gov/faq.html
@JLeslie: I looked at their site but the info must be buried in there. I was trying to find what @seawulf575 was talking about, since he said it’s from there. Even though I argue with him, I’m all for giving him the benefit of the doubt, since this should all be google-able.
@jca2 I didn’t research his data. Maybe I’ll look later. I have no idea if those numbers are right or wrong. What I do know is most people think there is only a reaction reported if it’s for sure related to the vaccine. That’s not the case.
Same when you look up original phase studies from drugs, the participants are reporting everything. If they feel nauseas they report it, it could be from something totally unrelated.
@JLeslie: I’m more concerned about death statistics and hospitalizations and severe reactions (such as someone getting Guillain Barre Syndrome) from it. To me, if he’s referring to headaches or chills, even though technically they count as “adverse reactions” they’re not worth discussing and definitely wouldn’t be worth not getting vaccinated over. Heck, when babies and children get vaccinated with other vaccines such as MMR and stuff like that, they will often have reactions within 24 hours but nobody denies their children those vaccines due to those reactions.
@jca2 Absolutely. The type of reaction matters.
Too late to edit. My point is if someone dies of a stroke in a long term health facility a week after a covid shot it will be reported, but that person probably was going to have a stroke without the shot. They would look for trends and multiple reports of similar problems to determine if it’s related.
So, depending on the statistics being looked at VAERS “reporting” could just be incidences reported following the vaccine in a time frame and not necessarily connected to the shot.
GBS would be a serious side effect I’m sure they must have an eye out for.
Didn’t a jelly recently post about a horrible reaction? From what I recall, she is seriously debilitated.
Scary.
@jca2 I understood where you were coming from too. We are on the same page, I should have directed the comment to the group.
Later today I’ll try to research where those numbers are coming from. They might real numbers (I have no idea) and crappy or manipulated interpretations of the data.
@JLeslie: It would be nice if @seawulf575 comes back and lets us know where he got his data from (specifically where, not just “that it’s from the VAERS”).
@KNOWITALL I don’t remember that, but I hope that person has recovered.
Cupcake has been doing very poorly following her booster. She’s not sure it was the booster, but she is following up with medicinal doctors and I gave her the link to report to VAERS if her doctor has not already done it.
Here’s the mealy mouth avoidance for trying to justify my numbers. My source would be
https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D8
I suggest you all do your own searches.
This is the CDC’s WONDER program. This is the program that searches vaccine adverse reactions. So let’s walk through one for a moment.
1. “I AGREE” with the disclaimer at the bottom. This will enable the search.
2. Click VAERS SEARCH
3. on the first option, on GROUP RESULTS BY, select VACCINE
4. on the third option, scroll down and select +COVID19 (COVID19 VACCINE) and then click on open
5. on the 4th option, leave it as STATE/TERRITORY as ALL LOCATIONS, AGE as ALL AGES, and SEX as ALL GENDERS.
6. on the 5th option, under EVENT CATEGORY, choose DEATH. Leave everything else as it is.
7. On the right hand side of the 5th option header is the SEND button. Click that.
After it processes your request (takes a few seconds), you will see a box with the following information:
Messages:
Message VAERS data in CDC WONDER are updated every Friday. Hence, results for the same query can change from week to week.
Message These results are for 22,193 total events.
Vaccine
Results are sorted in by-variable order
Move this column one place to the right Events Reported Click to sort by Events Reported ascending Click to sort by Events Reported descending
Move this column one place to the left Percent (of 22,193) Click to sort by Percent (of 22,193) ascending Click to sort by Percent (of 22,193) descending
COVID19 (COVID19 (JANSSEN)) (1203) 1,991 8.97%
COVID19 (COVID19 (MODERNA)) (1201) 6,104 27.50%
COVID19 (COVID19 (PFIZER-BIONTECH)) (1200) 15,790 71.15%
COVID19 (COVID19 (UNKNOWN)) (1202) 93 0.42%
Total 23,978 108.04%
Note: Submitting a report to VAERS does not mean that healthcare personnel or the vaccine caused or contributed to the adverse event (possible side effect).
@elbanditoroso was that mealy mouthed enough for you?
And, BTW, I mentioned in my posting where I gave the numbers that they came from the VAERS database. The fact that no one wants to, or knows how to, actually research these things does not mean I am making them up.
Can you not provide us directly with the source instead of this “do your own research” crap? It undermines your credibility.
Question though, why hasn’t @Caravanfan shown you all how to find the data?
@Dutchess_III I just gave you the link to the data base. I just showed you how to use it. I just showed you that the death number I cited was correct. If you cannot figure it out from there then giving you some canned “news” site that has the numbers isn’t going to be any better.
23,000 deaths after vaccination / 250,000 vaccinations = about 0.01 % death rate
861,000 deaths from COVID-19 / 695,000,000 cases of COVID-19 = 1.2 % death rate from COVID-19
So you’re 120 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than vaccination.
@seawulf575 I said I hadn’t looked at the VAERS data yet, and I take your word on the number, I never said it was an impossible number, I said it’s just reports of side effects or deaths, which is what you just wrote now about the deaths. Not that it is definitely caused by the vaccine. Unless, I misunderstood what you just wrote. Not every death that happens after the vaccine is caused by the vaccine. All deaths within a certain time frame are supposed to be reported. The doctor is not supposed to use their judgment.
I’m not sure what the percentages are after each vaccine? Is it percentage of what should be a total of 100%. Like Pfizer was 71.15% of the deaths reported? Even though it says 108%?? That makes sense with my thought that Pfizer was used a lot to vaccinate long term care patients, because it was the first released, but I’m not sure if that’s actually the case.
I’m on my phone, looking at VAERS isn’t convenient for me until I’m home.
@JLeslie I would say that not every death reported in VAERS is actually a death due to the vaccine. But there are some other thought that go with that.
The first is that VAERS grossly under reports the adverse effects. It requires actual participation by the medical professionals we, by their own admission, happens nowhere near as often as it is supposed to. The amount is under reports is a matter of speculation. Even the CDC admits this in their disclaimers. So where it says there were 22,000 deaths, it might be much higher. I have seen reports that the URF (Under Reporting Factor) is somewhere around 40. That means the actual number might be 880,000 deaths. But I have not done enough research into their calculations to say this is valid or not.
The next is that not every death attributed to Covid 19 is actually due to the disease. We have seen that reported out several times. Walensky (CDC Director) admitted that 40% of the covid hospitalizations are not there because of covid. They might go in with a broken leg but test positive for Covid so they suddenly get counted as a covid hospitalization even though they might be asymptomatic and that was not why they were there. Likewise the deaths were inflated. Someone might have 4 comorbidities that they have been struggling with for years. And one of them kills them. But they had Covid so it is automatically called a covid death.
But all this is really off topic. The point is that NONE of this is considered when someone suggests taxing the unvaccinated or calling for higher healthcare costs for unvaccinated people. And because we aren’t being honest about ALL the facts, the entire conversation is reduced to prejudice and discrimination.
By the logic being applied, we ought to demand that everyone put in writing that they will never have unprotected sex. We have to have them broadcast to the world whether they have it or not and carry a piece of paper showing their status. Because there were 68 million infections in 2018 at a cost of $16B. And let’s not even get into the cost of unwanted pregnancies. So they threaten society with their irresponsible behaviors and they take healthcare personnel away from dealing with real issues to deal with their problems. And if someone has unprotected sex there ought to be a fine or a tax. And we won’t differentiate between monogamous relationships and non-monogamous ones.
Or hey, let’s consider that gay men have higher incidents of depression, alcoholism, cigarette use and HIV than their heterosexual counterparts so we ought to have them all have to carry cards showing their status of being homosexual. And we ought to tax them extra or charge them extra for healthcare.
You see how silly it is. All of these are completely over the top and two of them would be called discrimination and noneofyourbusiness. But it seems okay to make the third as discriminating as you like.
@seawulf575 I am the first to say that VAERS stats are usually very under-reported, but with the Covid vaccine I would say that is much less likely the case. People who never ever heard of VAERS are now aware that they can self report. I was handed the website on a paper at Walmart when I got my shot and the pharmacist told me to report any side effects.
As far as deaths that would be up to doctors, coroners, or family members. I would never say all medical professionals are doing the reporting that they are supposed to, but I think it’s much better with covid than usual. I also think many of those deaths are not due to the shot, but sure I freely say some might be or partly contributed to a death. Maybe those people had a particular reason or something in common.
I was looking at the NYT’s maps of deaths per capita over time and recent data, and the main county where The Village is, Sumter County, has a horrible deaths per capita cumulative number. We are not a big metro area, we don’t have buildings full of people, we have mostly single family homes, but the county has a huge percentage of people over 55. We are just going through a big wave of covid cases now, and deaths have been very low. I have to credit the vaccine, because we are super vaccinated and we do not have a lot of immunity from prior infection. The majority of people in The Villages were incredibly cautious up until the vaccines were rolled out.
Here is the page with the map. Scroll down and you can click on cases per capita and deaths per capita.
I really think a journalist should look into the statistics here since so much of the country sees The Villages as the Republican capital of the country. It might help sway some more reluctant people and might also help some Democrats realize many Republicans are indeed getting vaccinated.
Another consideration that everyone avoids in conversations like this: healthcare. When Obama was trying to push Obamacare, one of the issues the left cried about is high cost healthcare and how it should support everything, not just the things some people wanted. Suddenly that argument is out the window. It’s now okay to use healthcare as a coercive force. It’s now okay to consider that if you don’t like someone else’s life choices you should charge them more for those choices.
Pretty hypocritical really.
trump had 4 years to change Obamacare.
As long as there was Vermont Maple Syrup involved
@seawulf575 Insurance is about making money regarding RISK, or if it is a non-profit then breaking even based on the risk. It is commonplace for more risk to mean higher premiums. It is true with young drivers for care insurance, and houses near the coastline in hurricane areas, and even regarding health insurance. I have a hard time with the topic, because some of us are born with more genetic risks for health problems, so I am not so sure I want that being picked apart, but that would be the rationale behind higher premiums for smokers for instance. That’s how capitalism works, private companies, including insurance companies, can do what is best for their business, unless there is GOVERNMENT regulations stopping them. If we want everyone to be equal and all of us be willing to pay for everyone no matter their choices, then that would be more like socialism in a way, or at minimum the government having a hand in private business.
@JLeslie Yet there are many high risk groups that were covered at the lower rate because we had to have affordable insurance for all. Even those that pre-existing conditions that were known to be there meant the insurance companies couldn’t refuse to give you coverage or charge you more for it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing it was wrong, but I pointing out that what was okay back then is suddenly being viewed as unacceptable…by the same people.
@Tropical_Willie Yep, that is true. However, under Obamacare, there is this little caveat:
In general you count as a smoker if you use tobacco four or more days a week for the past 6 months. If you are quitting, or smoke once in a while, or use tobacco for ceremonies, you may not qualify as a smoker.
So you could be a smoker but say you are quitting or only smoke once in a while and you are in the clear.
@seawulf575 I see what you’re saying. I guess people see the vaccine as a choice.
@JLeslie A lot of things are a choice that people are free to make every day. Apparently your medical decisions are one of them if it can be used to cause division.
This question addresses modern day racism. Not surprising since it is coming from Democrats. But think about this for a minute. Substitute the word “Black” for the word “Unvaccinated”. If the government were handing out passports that only excluded blacks from going places and doing things, would it be tolerated? What if people started saying that black people were a threat to society so we should lock them in their houses? Deny them healthcare? Would any of that sound reasonable to you? So that is the segregation being pushed with questions like this. And to get to this point the government has made your personal healthcare choices a matter of public knowledge and something that can be used against you. Does that sound reasonable to you? There are laws against discrimination that are completely being thrown out the window to get to this mentality…laws that many people fought and suffered to put into place. And the current mentality is taking us a century into the past.
^^Lol. Apples and oranges. Black people and vaccination.
You maybe can compare eating poorly and vaccines if you want to stretch it, but at least a bad diet isn’t contagious.
@JLeslie It is how society treats them. The attitude towards Blacks in the first half of the 20th century is no different than what is being put towards unvaccinated. It is the rampant discrimination and segregation. Except instead of having the unvaccinated ride in the back of the bus, the vaccinated are not allowed on the bus.
@JLeslie Let me ask: Does the vaccine keep you from getting the virus? No. Does the vaccine keep you from spreading the virus? No. Does it keep you from dying from the virus? No. So if you can get the virus, spread the virus, and die from the virus, how much different are you than an unvaccinated person? You can go into a restaurant or a store and spread the virus just the same. You can hop on an airplane and spread the virus just the same. So why is there such angst against unvaccinated people? The answer is simple: Because the Biden Administration blames unvaccinated people for everything. So one more question: if we had 100% vaccinations, do you believe things would really be any different…that the “pandemic” would end? We have already seen that after being told you needed to get fully vaccinated you would be safe, they have now said you have to have the third shot to be safe. And now a fourth shot.
^^The vaccine is thought to keep you from catching the virus. 5 times less likely to catch covid19 than the unvaccinated.
In fact, I was just listening to Gottlieb about the vaccine for children under 5 years old and the testing had disappointing results for preventing catching the virus (the dose is extremely low). They are considering a third dose. Data is being reviewed.
Anyway, my point with that is the data does show the adult dose does prevent some people from catching it and definitely shows it is keeping people out of the hospitals, but some people do still wind up severely ill.
Gottlieb also said people who get sick with Delta likely have more robust immunity against Delta than people who are vaccinated, and people should has Omicron have excellent immunity to Omicron, but that the vaccinated have better general immunity against covid19 all variants. So, as the virus mutates, having a vaccination gives better protection in that regard.
@seawulf575 – if you want to compare unvaccinated to Black people, remember that unvaccinated people can change their status any time they want while Black people cannot.
@RocketGuy Yes they can. But can those that discriminate against others they don’t like?
@JLeslie “The vaccine is thought to keep you from catching the virus. 5 times less likely to catch covid19 than the unvaccinated.” but as I posted earlier, when you compare the case rates and death rates between heavily vaccinated and lightly vaccinated groups (Israel and Palestine), you find the numbers are almost identical. In fact the vaccinated show a little worse.
@seawulf575 The statistics don’t break down by age or if they are using masks and other precautions and if it’s cumulative it’s stats that include before vaccinations. I don’t remember if it was cumulative numbers.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Sumter County (the biggest county here where I live) had the highest vaccination rate and highest death rate. I don’t know if that’s the case, but definitely wouldn’t surprise me. Our death rate was very high before the vaccines compared to the national average.
Edit: 25th. Sumter County. Better than I expected. https://stacker.com/florida/counties-highest-covid-19-death-rate-florida
@JLeslie But that is exactly my point. It really doesn’t matter. Vaccinated people get the virus all the time. They spread it. They die from it. And they look down their noses at the unvaccinated like it is somehow all their fault. This country has taken all sorts of precautions that were supposed to help and yet, the virus runs rampant. So to suddenly start looking to punish unvaccinated is really nothing short of discrimination. It makes too many assumptions that just aren’t true to get to that sort of behavior.
If the vaccine actually stopped you from getting or spreading the virus, there might be an argument. But even then, who are the unvaccinated really hurting? Themselves. So trying to punish them is still mindless divisiveness.
@seawulf575 The vaccines definitely are preventing severe disease. The hospital admissions prove it. If you are 80 years old or if you have no immune system for some other reason, the vaccine might not work as well for you, that’s the biggest problem.
You can’t use the Israel stats, that’s cherry picked. The conditions the Israelis have compared to the Palestinian territory is drastic. Palestinians get permission to travel to Israel for medical care for many things, because they don’t have the level of care that is in Israel.
Our death rate in Sumter County has plummeted. Our case level is higher than ever and now deaths are very low. The vaccines must have something to do with it. We are probably one of the most vaccinated cities in the country. Like I wrote in the edit, Sumter is actually 25th, even with 68% of the population being over 65. Considering most people here are back to doing their activities, no mask, the vaccine must be preventing some transmission, or we would have even more cases.
@JLeslie Seems odd to use anecdotal evidence immediately after complaining about cherry picked statistics.
@JLeslie Your argument against Israel data isn’t logical. You are claiming that Palestine has to travel to get better healthcare. Yet they have a significantly lower vaccination rate, less healthcare, worse conditions….and the same hospitalization and death rates as Israel that has all the better stuff. To say that is cherry picked is disingenuous. It points out a significant point…that the vaccines don’t make that much of a difference.
As for your county, here’s something to consider: Omicron is THE variant right now. It is known to be far more infectious (more cases) but far less threatening (fewer deaths). It has nothing to do with vaccines, especially since even the vaccine makers say their vaccines don’t have any real great efficacy for Omicron.
@JLeslie Sorry…Disingenuous is probably the wrong word. Illogical is a better word.
I don’t know why you two keep arguing back and forth. Neither of you will change your way of thinking.
People will continue to get COVID-19 and die from it ===> 95% plus will be unvaccinated.
@seawulf575 I agree Omicron is less deadly. Doesn’t change that they are still seeing more hospitalizations and more deaths among the unvaccinated. A good portion of vaccinated people over 80 are similar to unvaccinated. People like you who had covid have some protection. The stats we (you and I) have been looking at aren’t taking into account previous infection I don’t think.
Honestly, I don’t really care to argue about it anymore. You know I’m not hardline about it like some jellies.
I’ve always agreed previous infection counts for something while other jellies just go on and on about get vaccinated. I do think it would behoove you to get vaccinated at least one shot since it’s been many months since you were sick, but I know you won’t. Your immunity would be amazing according to studies after vaccination and infection.
I really doubt you would get severely ill if you get sick again since you didn’t the first time, unless you actually have developed more risk factors since then, and that can happen to anyone at any time. People don’t have high BP until they do. People don’t have cancer until they do.
If the virus continues to get less deadly that would be great, that’s what I’m expecting, but anything could happen.
I don’t feel completely safe around vaccinated people because they do get sick and contagious, so I agree with you there, but I do also believe vaccinated people are less likely to get sick and less likely to be sick, so I feel statistically safer around them, and my vaccinated close friends wear masks indoors most of the time. The more immunity in the population the more walls up to prevent the spread.
I still feel at risk even boosted, because I’m high risk.
@JLeslie You have always been one of the jellies that is open to other views. We actually share many views. And I’m not trying to convince anyone not to get vaccinated or anything like that. It has to do with discriminating against others for some aspect which by all rights you shouldn’t know.
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
