94 thoughts on “The Unvaccinated: Nothing Happens in A Vacuum”

  1. we’re also gonna see mass retirements of doctors, nurses, public-health folks, teachers….and on and on. People are burned out, people like me who took steps early on to ‘flatten the curve’ or whatever, who masked in public, who lined up for vaccines. I’ve said “miss me with asking me to help in ‘rebuilding’ after this is over; I stayed home for a year and a half, that was my contribution.” The actions of my fellows has destroyed much of my remaining civic spirit. I despair of ever again seeing a stage play in person, or eating indoors in a restaurant, or feeling comfortable going out shopping. I don’t think this will ever be “over” in the sense we thought it would be at the beginning of the pandemic. I am in mourning for my former life.

    I am STILL masking in class – pretty much the only place I go any more – and *I* had a minor scare last week when a student came to class infected and unvaccinated. I have 10 students isolating, only one is symptomatic, but because we’re telling the vaccinated they need not isolate if asymptomatic…that tells me none of them were vaccinated. These are all college students, all over 18, so it’s not like they CAN’T be vaccinated; they are CHOOSING not to. All I can do is beg people to wear masks and get vaccinated; we are forbidden by law from compelling either. If people believe TikTok and FB randos more than they believe their medical professionals, we’re lost.Report

  2. All three of my younger kids tested positive for Covid on Friday. The 12 year old is vaccinated, the other two are not. My wife and I are vaccinated as is my grown daughter who is living here. We still mask up. The kids mask at school as best they can.

    So far all three appear to have mild cases.

    But down here in the deep red south we are definitely not all in this together. And so we are home, quarantined for ten day. Watching and hoping none of the kids turn.

    Tell me oh boisterous conservatives – what freedoms were protected by letting Covid run so rampant that my three kids all caught it? What is so all important that people don’t need to mask up or get the shot so they could stay healthy? And why should I bother trying to understand or empathize with any of you when can’t bother to help me protect my children?

    Party of family values? Not any more. Pro life? Hardly. Whinning selfish brats – so it would seem.Report

    1. “We’re all in this together” was such a dirty lie and my buying into it and then seeing what resulted it is what destroyed my remaining sense of “yeah I owe something to the random citizens out there.” Please. They’d throw me under a bus if it made their lives even infinitesimally easier.

      At this point, the steps I take are to protect me, my friends, my relatives. Everyone else can go pound sand.Report

      1. Many of them have thrown you and me under the bus. It’s how and why we are where we are.

        I pity them. I loathe them. And I’m sure as hell never voting for them.Report

          2. Thanks. So far they are doing well – no one is really better after the weekend, but no one has gotten worse. The twelve year old is back to zoom school. The other two will have their work sent home later today.

            I need more coffee.Report

            1. Glad to hear it.

              I was listening to an interview last week from a woman whose whole family got Covid. No one was vaccinated because they were all healthy and young and figured (wrongly) that if they got it, it would just be a bad cold or flu.

              Mom and one of the kids wound up in the ICU, and the other kid was hospitalized (but not ICU).

              Whole family got the shot now.

              Although I’m still baffled by people who avoid a vaccine because they figure the disease won’t be “so bad”.Report

              3. It’s code for “people are bad at math”.

                Odds of vaccine side effects are low but if I take the vaccine I’m 100% running that risk. In return I might be somewhat protected by something I might not get anyway.

                So it’s an extremely small risk times 100% vs. two other small risks times each other.Report

              5. If you take the vaccine you’re running the risk of vaccine side effects plus still running the risk of getting covid.

                If you don’t then all you need to worry about is covid.

                Now the BIG twist that delta brings here is it increases the odds of getting covid. Probably everyone who isn’t vaccinated will get it as things are going.Report

  3. One of the many things that’re so sick about this current wave of derangement is the common thread running through all those unvaxxed stories: as soon as their covid infection starts getting at all serious they plaintively ask for the vaccine.

    And yeah, this covid thing has been just awful on the libertarians (and also the technocrats of all stripes*).

    *Excepting vaccine development technocrats. They’re covered in glory but they also work for filthy lucre so they must be evil.Report

  4. A Pigovian tax seems appropriate here. If people don’t want to get vaccinated, that’s fine, as long as they want to opt out badly enough to pay for the negative externalities.Report

    1. Unvaccinated covid patients are straining hospitals like mine, where I had to turn a cancer patient away

      The unvaccinated are killing people in ways they probably never imagined. As the delta variant spreads, hospitals in Florida, Alabama and other states have been filling with covid patients, almost all of them people who chose not to get vaccinated. As daily infections break records, intensive-care unit beds are scarce or nonexistent.

      But the surge has also affected non-covid patients, such as the Texas shooting victim who had to wait more than a week for surgery. Louisiana stroke victims who can’t get admitted to hospitals. And the cancer patient I recently had to turn away.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/s/opinions/2021/08/21/how-unvaccinated-pandemic-threaten-everyones-health/Report

      1. Sympathy for the unvaccinated is lagging so badly I would not be surprised to see the medical establishment start turning them away if they come in with so much as a sniffle.Report

        2. Unfortunately, “the unvaccinated” appear to include some Medical Professionals.

          Yeah, it sounds crazy to me too.

          And, personally, I’d be fine with a pivot away from carrots toward more uses of the stick.

          But part of the use of the stick is the whole “the person using it has the authority to use it” thing and I’m not sure that the people scrambling for the stick have their self-evident authority recognized by others. (Even by some of the people who agree with them about the efficacy of vaccines.)Report

    2. Well clearly they don’t. Since hospitals in big and small cities and the deeply rural places are all clogged up with Covid patients expecting to be healed. Granted a good many of them will end up with enormous medical bills they won’t be able to pay – which was before the pandemic a leading cause of bankruptcy in our upside down economy.

      No good is coming of this.Report

      1. Well clearly they don’t.

        Well, yes. That’s how policy proposals work. They’re suggestions that we do something different from the status quo.Report

      2. A tax is immediate, you are required to pay it or face definite consequences.

        Being unvaccinated is a a crapshoot. Maybe you get sick, maybe you need to be hospitalized and rack up big bills.

        But that’s a lot of maybe, and we all know folks suck at probability.Report

      3. DeSantis and Abbot are pimping Regeneron.

        Why push for a 20 dollar vaccine when you can push for a 1500-per-treatment (you’ll need more than one) “cure” that won’t actually generate any immunity for you in the end?

        It’s the sort of thing we’d reject in a TV show as “too cartonnishly evil”Report

    3. Vaccine uptake is lowest among the poor. I suppose you can tax them, but may not be effective without imprisonment.

      Added: Though most private insurance is no longer waiving co-pays for COVID-19 treatment.Report

      1. If they’re sufficiently poor, there might be some welfare benefits or refundable tax credits that could be withheld. If not, there’s always tax withholding.

        If you can’t afford to pay the tax, you can’t afford not to get vaccinated.Report

      2. Vaccine uptake is lowest among the poor.

        You’re gonna need to gift us with a citation there PD. Around me, the most ardent vaccine avoiders are middle to upper class conservative whites.Report

          1. Blacks aren’t necessarily equal to “Vaccine uptake is lowest among the poor.” There are, as one might expect, more poor white people then poor black people in the US.

            But way to conflate race and poverty dude.Report

            1. You’re the one who brought race into it:

              PD: “Vaccine uptake is lowest among the poor.”

              Philip H: “You’re gonna need to gift us with a citation there PD. Around me, the most ardent vaccine avoiders are middle to upper class conservative whites.”

              I await an apology.Report

              1. Around here – meaning around me in southern Mississippi – those are the most ardent vaccine avoiders. Never said they were the only ones, or even the majority. Just pointing out what I observed. And asking for citations – which Dark provided. You made assumptions, ran with them, and got caught in your priors. I don’t need to apologize for that.Report

              2. You should apologize for accusing me of conflating race and poverty. Granted, DensityDuck brought up color earlier, but you brought it into this subthread and accused me of having done that in a reply to you.Report

              3. I asked PD for a citation on his statement that poor people were the most vaccine hesitant. Dark responded appropriately, with a citation that deal with ALL poor people. You responded with a citation focused specifically on one racial minority.

                You don’t get a pass for that.Report

              5. PD – “Vaccine uptake is lowest among the poor. ”

                Me – “You’re gonna need to gift us with a citation there PD.”

                You – “Kaiser reports blacks lagging behind whites in vaccination in 47 states”

                In that order.Report

              6. You left out the sentence where you mentioned race first. And it’s just one page-up from here. Everyone can see it. You said, “Around me, the most ardent vaccine avoiders are middle to upper class conservative whites.” You want to be race-obsessed, you can be race-obsessed, no one here can stop you. But you can’t make race-obsessed comments then pretend you didn’t and expect to get away with it.Report

              3. According to the Brookings Institute, counties where Biden won total 197.9 million population, where Trump won 130.3 million. 2019 population estimates. Call it a 60-40 split.

                This is a measure that will almost certainly exaggerate margins. Consider Colorado. Overall, Biden won the two-person vote by 57% to 43%. But Biden won 9 of the 11 Front Range counties where 80% of the population lives, so (roughly, because I rode too many miles this morning and am tired) the county population totals would be on the order of a 65-35 split.Report

              4. I think looking at county maps for vaccination uptake is as superficial as looking at election results at the county level. It places on equal footing a county with a population of less than 20,000 (and a 30% vaccination rate) and a county over 5 million (and a 55% vaccination rate)

                Illinois has 102 counties; in 2014 the Republican gubernatorial candidate won 101 counties. The one county he lost currently has 41% of the population, and about 38% of the unvaccinated people in the state. They are not served by the partisan narratives.Report

    4. The negative externalities here would be things like the mask mandate, everyone who dies from covid (they wouldn’t have gotten it if we had herd immunity) and HC for everyone who is sick with covid.

      Probably get into large numbers if we’re really going to balance this. The economic impact of vaccines is very one sided.Report

  5. The vaccines like all vaccines was designed to prevent disease, not to eradicate the virus. This vaccine has been shown to reduce infections, but the news media appear to have gone to their traditional alarmist slot that the vaccines are waning against the latest variant. Unvaccinated people have no incentive to vaccinate under this negativity, and vaccinated people have nothing they can do but be angry.

    Unvaccinated people should get vaccinated to avoid disease, the long-term consequences may be life long. If someone feels safe because they think they do not have any co-morbidities: maybe, maybe not; there is only one way to learn and that may be the hard way.Report

  7. I wrote a long reply and then deleted it because it got into the weeds of Isaiah Berlin and his idea of Value Monism versus Value Pluralism. To cut to the chase a bit, Berlin considered himself a Value Pluralist, which according to him holds the “necessity of choosing between claims is an inescapable characteristic of the human condition,” and that “human goals are many, not all of them commensurable, and in perpetual rivalry with one another.”

    So, we have “absolute values,” such as Liberty, Justice, Security, and Equality- and should understand then as transhistorical truths- but as a practical matter, they will still come into conflict and we will have to make hard choices. We won’t likely rationalize a way by which all values are inherent in, say, Liberty, and so protected as long as we maintain that. Liberty will inevitably come into conflict with Justice; Equality will inevitably come into conflict with Liberty; etc. Denying there is a legitimate conflict can lead, easily, to totalitarian thinking.

    So, what we do in the real world is try to find compromises that lead to the least bad outcome. At some point, ending the virus will likely require some loss of Liberty, and it’s probably best to acknolwedge that. I willingly surrendered some liberty by quarantining myself during my time infected and then getting the vaccine when I could. But, I also understood it was not a permanent surrender. I’m not living in some totalitarian dystopia because I lived off microwave dinners in my room for two weeks.

    So, we can still hold Liberty to be an absolute value and treat the loss of Liberty inherent in safety measures as ideally limited and short-term. We make compromises, in other words, because we don’t live in a world of abstractions.Report

    2. I’m sorry but I still fail Tony seedy and how a add try measures like masks and vaccines impact liberty in any way. Not using them seems to impact liberty when it results in severe disease however.Report

      2. Well, I think it falls under the category of harm to other people, which is where we implicitly accept a necessary infringement of our liberty, defined simply as the power and ability to act as one pleases.

        Liberty is simply never an absolute and unimpeded value in society because it can’t be- we don’t have the right to murder, to take the extreme example.

        To some extent, a person IS free to do unhealthy things, but they are NOT free to take risks with my health or safety, which is where we accept necessary limitations as a inherent condition of living in civil society.

        So, it probably doesn’t impact me if my neighbor gets drunk in his basement; but, if he’s driving while drunk, I’d hope he gets arrested. He has the right to endanger himself, but not me.Report

        1. And in order to stop your neighbor driving drunk, we must ban all sale and consumption of alcohol, because otherwise we can’t guarantee that he won’t get drunk in his basement and then decide to get in his car and drive somewhere.Report

  8. “As for Libertarians…well, now you’re seeing why I no longer call myself one.”

    Although there were plenty of libertarians who wanted the vaccine that was available in February 2020, about two weeks after we’d sequenced the COVID-19 virus genome, and were told by the government “no, it is too dangerous, you cannot try the vaccine until later because reasons”. (The same government that stopped a third of all vaccinations in the country for six weeks because reasons, and now two months later there’s a huge surge in COVID-19 cases, but, hey, THUH LIBUTERIANS.)

    But, y’know, I get it. Just like all the rest of us, tou have a story that you need to tell yourself about how you’re better than the rest of us.Report

    1. I’m not sure I would have been first in line to test an entirely new class of vaccines, but I do think that this is ultimately a vindication of libertarian criticism of the FDA weighing harms from incorrectly approved drugs far more heavily than harms from delayed approval of good drugs. If the vaccines had been delayed by even six more months, the delta wave could have been catastrophic.Report

        1. Remember when Pfizer had submitted their data for the EUA but the FDA couldn’t review it until a couple days later because it was Thanksgiving break?

          (I’m genuinely surprised that they actually did issue a formal approval. That is a really big deal, because now they have to explain to every other drug manufacturer why they can’t all get a drug approved in sixteen months…)Report

          1. This is one of those things like the Afghanistan exit.

            It’s good that it’s being done.
            It could have been done better.

            The fact that it could have been done better is a criticism of the process.
            It is not a criticism of the goal.

            But better late than never.Report

    2. I just keep in mind that there are an awful lot of libertarians who don’t really grok the whole concept. They love the benefits, and ignore the costs (rather than acknowledging the costs and arguing that they are worth it for the benefits).

      I mean, a huge part of the libertarian ethos is making sure entities that create externalities pay for those externalities. If you get all butthurt over the mere suggestion that your exercise of liberty may involve a cost you have to pay because it impacts others, then you aren’t really a libertarian.

      Just an a$$hole.Report

      1. I have a whole essay in my head that I should get around to typing up someday about how the non-aggression principle is an intuitive approximation of the principle that externalities should be internalized. All the kludges that libertarian thinkers pile on top of the NAP to try to make it actually workable in the real world are essentially attempts to iron out the problems created by externalities.Report

        2. the biggest problem with the NAP is that people posit extremely weird scenarios to try to get a libertarian to either violate the NAP or agree to nuking the planet because of it and then they say “ha ha, the NAP is dumb, you’re dumb, libertarians are dumb”Report

          1. All ethical systems fail in some situation. It is reasonable to point to a failure, it is less reasonable to imply that failure is balanced against perfection.Report

      2. “They love the benefits, and ignore the costs (rather than acknowledging the costs and arguing that they are worth it for the benefits).”

        This is the kind of thing that someone says when they are just so frustrated that people keep doing the bad thing and assume that the cost must therefore not be high enough.Report

        1. Often, the cost is not high enough. We socialize a lot of the cost of exercising liberty. If it was scientifically possible, we should be looking for the source of every infection, and if the source was unvaccinated (&/or running around unmasked in public), they should have to pay for the losses of everyone who caught it from them.

          I mean, if someone is being careless and runs into you and causes you harm, they should have to pay those expenses, or have insurance to cover those expenses, right?

          But we don’t with disease because it’s really hard to definitively say that person X gave person(s) Y this infection. So we socialize the cost.

          So no, the cost is clearly not high enough, because people who refuse to get the shot pay ZERO penalty unless they happen to get a nasty case of Covid. And if they have good insurance, they might get away with the only cost being the suckage of having Covid.

          Given the wide availability of the vaccine, I’m surprised insurance companies haven’t started telling people that if they aren’t vaccinated (without a good reason) and they catch a case that requires hospitalization, they are on the hook for the cost.Report

          1. “If someone is being careless and runs into you and causes you harm, they should have to pay those expenses, or have insurance to cover those expenses, right?”

            Maybe? Maybe I was being careless and not looking where I was going.

            Maybe you should wear a mask instead of asking everyone else to support your i-don-wanna.

            “I’m surprised insurance companies haven’t started telling people that if they aren’t vaccinated (without a good reason) and they catch a case that requires hospitalization, they are on the hook for the cost.”

            Interesting. Tell me more about how you think black people shouldn’t be allowed to have health insurance.Report

            1. “Maybe you should wear a mask instead of asking everyone else to support your i-don-wanna.”

              Maybe you should be extra careful on the highway when I feel like pretending it’s a grand prix.

              “Tell me more about how you think black people shouldn’t be allowed to have health insurance.”

              Yeah, not buying that. They can have insurance, but if they aren’t vaccinated, they take their chances. I can have all kinds of sympathy for a demographics distrust, up to a point. After that, they can pull up their big kid pants and get the fecking shot.Report

              1. “Maybe you should be extra careful on the highway when I feel like pretending it’s a grand prix.”

                The law says I’m not allowed to respond appropriately to that.

                “They can have insurance, but if they aren’t vaccinated, they take their chances.”

                So, yeah, black people can’t have insurance if they don’t follow a white guy’s rules? Cool! Thanks for playing.Report

              5. I’m off the opinion that anyone who engages in behavior that is knowingly harmful should bear the cost of that behavior*. Obviously it’s not that straightforward of a thing, but I think some pretty bright lines could be drawn.

                And I’ll be honest, my own father started smoking when he was 10, and only quit when the doctors wouldn’t give him an oxygen tank until he did. It took him another decade to die, and I shudder to think about how much money was spent keeping him in oxygen and drugs, etc. to keep his lungs working until his heart failed. He knew that the smoking was destroying his lungs, he just didn’t care enough to stop.

                And I don’t imagine that people who engage in such self destructive behavior will suddenly not do so when faced with the prospect of paying for the cost. I just don’t think the rest of us should have to consume resources to keep them alive.

                *The only exception is obesity, because it’s not necessarily linked to a knowingly harmful behavior the way smoking, drug or alcohol usage, being unvaccinated, or not using a helmet/seat belt is.Report

              6. We can triage, but that will result in awkward outcomes. The unvaccinated are healthier than the vaccinated.

                The unvaccinated get hit harder by Covid but the hospitals being slammed will result in less medical resources for the sick-for-whatever-but-vaccinated.

                What to do about people making stupid choices is a problem. I’m not sure how Vaccination is different from having children out of wedlock, smoking, or some others.Report

              7. “The unvaccinated are healthier than the vaccinated.”

                Citation needed. You could say that the unvaccinated ‘think’ they are healthier than the unvaccinated, but you need proof to claim that they are. As we’ve both said, people are really bad at assessing person risk.

                Being unvaccinated is no different from people smoking or drinking.Report

              8. To be clear I’m talking about “without Covid”, the unvaccinated are healthier.

                This is the flip side of the older and sicker being more willing to get vaccinated. People with health problems have been more willing to get vaccinated for obvious reasons.

                My previous link which addresses race also addresses age. That tracks well with health.Report

              9. Let me rephrase that for you:

                People who believe themselves to be healthy are less inclined to get vaccinated.

                This is borne out by evidence. Unfortunately for those people, being healthy is not a guarantee of getting a mild case. A healthy person can have an underlying risk factor they aren’t aware of.

                Being vaccinated does have a strong correlation with getting a mild case.

                Saying “the unvaccinated are healthier” implies that vaccines have a causal link towards unhealthy.Report

              10. Being vaccinated does have a strong correlation with getting a mild case.

                Correlation does not imply causation so you should say “has a strong causation”.

                Saying “the unvaccinated are healthier” implies that vaccines have a causal link towards unhealthy.

                In terms of raw logic, it doesn’t. The causal relationship works the other way, being unhealthy means you don’t want to run stupid risks with your health.

                This doesn’t imply running stupid risks is a good thing for anyone. Nor does it imply the cure for cancer causes cancer because only people with cancer take it.Report

      1. I got my first shot three days after my age group became eligible, and it only took that long because that was the first day I could find an open appointment. I haven’t really seen any data on vaccination among libertarians in general, though.Report

  10. For those following my saga – I tested positive yesterday. My symptoms were not as mild as the kids, but definitely manageable and way better then likely had I not been vaccinated. I went and got the monoclonal antibody treatment today so expect to make a full recovery.

    Mississippi has 38% of adults fully vaccinated. These things are definitely related.

    Get the damn shot.

    Wear your mask.

    Social distance.

    The life you save might be mine.Report

Comments are closed.

Related Stories

Saturday Morning Gaming: Are you ready for Wrestlemania?

Jaybird April 19, 2025
Canadian Leaders Debate

Canadian Leaders Debate Amongst Themselves

Andrew Donaldson April 18, 2025 4
webb-STScI-01JR92AWMGEQPXGRBKDS6Q941D-2K

Throughput: Telling Women They’re Womening Wrong, But In Space

Michael Siegel April 18, 2025 6

You may have missed

wm41

Saturday Morning Gaming: Are you ready for Wrestlemania?

Jaybird April 19, 2025
2025-04-18 TDoRS C5111 (04.22.17)

Good Use of an Old Barn

Clare Briggs April 18, 2025
Canadian Leaders Debate

Canadian Leaders Debate Amongst Themselves

Andrew Donaldson April 18, 2025 4
4th Circuit Court on Abrego Garcia

4th Circuit Court on Abrego Garcia: Read It For Yourself

OT Editors April 18, 2025 3