The Coronavirus thread

Quote: Mission146

I don't think there are currently any religions/sects in this country (which was a surprise to me when I last looked) that outright forbid vaccinations or consider vaccinations to specifically be a sin of any kind. The only one that did, at one point, were the Jehovah Witnesses...so friendly people might want to stop answering their doors for them.

I'm kidding, and the church would abandon that official stance at some point in the 1950's, though I forget the precise year. I want to say that some of the adherents to the faith (and, perhaps, even entire congregations) may well still believe that vaccinations are a sin. They probably just haven't received the memo yet.

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Do vaccine mandates violate civil liberties? Some who have refused vaccination claim as much.

We disagree.

At the ACLU, we are not shy about defending civil liberties, even when they are very unpopular. But we see no civil liberties problem with requiring Covid-19 vaccines in most circumstances.

While the permissibility of requiring vaccines for particular diseases depends on several factors, when it comes to Covid-19, all considerations point in the same direction. The disease is highly transmissible, serious and often lethal; the vaccines are safe and effective; and crucially there is no equally effective alternative available to protect public health.

In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated and communities of color hit hard by the disease.

Vaccine requirements also safeguard those whose work involves regular exposure to the public, like teachers, doctors and nurses, bus drivers and grocery store employees. And by inoculating people from the disease’s worst effects, the vaccines offer the promise of restoring to all of us our most basic liberties, eventually allowing us to return safely to life as we knew it, in schools and at houses of worship and political meetings, not to mention at restaurants, bars, and gatherings with family and friends.

Here’s why civil liberties objections to Covid vaccine mandates are generally unfounded.

Vaccines are a justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity. That may sound ominous, because we all have the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions. But these rights are not absolute. They do not include the right to inflict harm on others.

While vaccine mandates are not always permissible, they rarely run afoul of civil liberties when they involve highly infectious and devastating diseases like Covid-19. Although this disease is novel, vaccine mandates are not. Schools, health care facilities, the U.S. military and many other institutions have long required vaccination for contagious diseases like mumps and measles that pose far less risk than the coronavirus does today.

In the United States alone, more than 39 million people have been infected with Covid-19 and more than 600,000 people have died. People with intellectual and physical disabilities are more likely to contract Covid-19, and they have much higher rates of hospitalization and death. Children’s hospitals in Georgia, Louisiana and other states are reporting high admissions of infected patients, and many are running out of beds.

Even though the F.D.A. and independent medical experts have found Covid-19 vaccines to be extremely safe and highly effective, a sizable portion of the eligible population has chosen not to be vaccinated. In this context, Covid-19 vaccine mandates — much like mask mandates — are public health measures necessary to protect people from severe illness and death. They are therefore permissible in many settings where the unvaccinated pose a risk to others, including schools and universities, hospitals, restaurants and bars, workplaces and businesses open to the public.

Quote: rxwine

I was just now curious what the ACLU position was.

Quote: Mission146

(Quote clipped, relevance)

Well, that makes one of us.

ADDED: No offense meant. My point is more along the lines of that there is only one thing that their position even could be.

Quote: rxwine

Quote: Mission146

(Quote clipped, relevance)

Well, that makes one of us.

ADDED: No offense meant. My point is more along the lines of that there is only one thing that their position even could be.

It was questionably related to your post in the first place, but I just suddenly realized I had never looked at what their position was. Maybe I was reminded that they have taken some very unpopular positions in the past.

Quote: Mission146

(Quote clipped, relevance) Well, that makes one of us. ADDED: No offense meant. My point is more along the lines of that there is only one thing that their position even could be.

Quote: missedhervee

Quote: Mission146

(Quote clipped, relevance) Well, that makes one of us. ADDED: No offense meant. My point is more along the lines of that there is only one thing that their position even could be.

They could have come out on the side of the anti-vaxxers.

Glad they didn't: one less lawsuit challenging vaccines to worry about.

Quote: Evenbob

Anybody see Joe Rogan destroy Sanjay Gupta on his show? Rogan had covid and he was prescribed by his doctor to take Ivermectin. As have billions of other people around the world. He only had covid for a day or two and he recovered. All the Talking Heads on CNN said he was taking horse tranquilizer.

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Rogan added that his treatments also included monoclonal antibodies, Z-pack antibiotics and a vitamin drip for "three days in a row."

Quote: Evenbob

Anybody see Joe Rogan destroy Sanjay Gupta on his show? Rogan had covid and he was prescribed by his doctor to take Ivermectin. As have billions of other people around the world. He only had covid for a day or two and he recovered. All the Talking Heads on CNN said he was taking horse tranquilizer. They flat-out lied on purpose over and over and over. I can put up montage of all of them doing it so it was a conspiracy to lie. He was not prescribed horse tranquilizer he was prescribed Ivermectin made for humans by his doctor. A pretty funny video cuz he nails Sanjay Gupta to the wall.