Coronavirus and You - Page 534

On December 07 2021 01:07 ggrrg wrote:


This argument would be a whole lot stronger if there weren't already tons of travel restrictions... Ever heard of borders and visas? Sure that's not much of an issue if you are from Japan, or Singapore or most Western countries, but good luck just traveling wherever you want if you are from Pakistan, or Palestine, or Kosovo, etc + Show Spoiler +. Not to mention that even with visa free travel you still have restrictions on how long you can stay.
And sure, it's generally not your own government that restrics travel abroad but the government at your desired destination (is this even any different with the vaccine passports?) but for all practical purposes that's irrelevant. The "hassle" of getting a vaccine and the document alongside it amounted to two one hour trips to the doctor. In comparison getting a US visa for an extended trip some 15 years ago required calling the embassy at a bargain price of 2,99€/min to schedule an appointment, traveling 600km to said embassy for a meeting, and waiting months for approval... Don't even start me on getting a simple visa from Bulgaria to Germany 25 years ago, which included days spent at various institutions and the embassy, as well as months upon months of waiting (which is still the reality for most of the world's population).
Sure, nowadays, if you are from a somewhat priviliged country and just want to spend a week at an all-inclusive resort abroad, it is not much of a hassle, but for anything beyond that you'll be facing various restrictions much more severe than requiring a proof of vaccination.



Whenever I hear somebody complaining about the "government monitoring" or "government control" that arises from Covid related actions, I wonder in what kind of utopia that person must be living. I have trouble seeing how "the monitoring" has increased beyond what is already required. I have to have a valid ID card that I must be able to present at any given moment if stopped by the police, I have to provide my current address and my income statement within narrow time frames or face fines, and so much more. Not to mention that in Germany there is something called "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" which forces all internet, phone, and mobile service providers to save all my transmitted data for 2 years, so the government can access it if they want. The government can literally know the location of my phone at any given moment in the past 2 years, as well as any website I have visited and probably much more beyond that. The US has it NSA, which also has limitless insight on anyone on US soil (and often enough abroad). Pretty sure many other countries have similar digital monitoring on their citizens. These things seem much more worrying than "the government" knowing if I am vaccinated or not...




In what practical way does the required vaccine passport differ from a regular passport when traveling? Good luck crossing a border without a valid ID.

On December 07 2021 15:12 xM(Z wrote:
so your whole point is: we're already fucked so another deep jabbing thrust means nothing.
what kind of argument is that?.

On December 07 2021 01:07 ggrrg wrote:


This argument would be a whole lot stronger if there weren't already tons of travel restrictions... Ever heard of borders and visas? Sure that's not much of an issue if you are from Japan, or Singapore or most Western countries, but good luck just traveling wherever you want if you are from Pakistan, or Palestine, or Kosovo, etc + Show Spoiler +. Not to mention that even with visa free travel you still have restrictions on how long you can stay.
And sure, it's generally not your own government that restrics travel abroad but the government at your desired destination (is this even any different with the vaccine passports?) but for all practical purposes that's irrelevant. The "hassle" of getting a vaccine and the document alongside it amounted to two one hour trips to the doctor. In comparison getting a US visa for an extended trip some 15 years ago required calling the embassy at a bargain price of 2,99€/min to schedule an appointment, traveling 600km to said embassy for a meeting, and waiting months for approval... Don't even start me on getting a simple visa from Bulgaria to Germany 25 years ago, which included days spent at various institutions and the embassy, as well as months upon months of waiting (which is still the reality for most of the world's population).
Sure, nowadays, if you are from a somewhat priviliged country and just want to spend a week at an all-inclusive resort abroad, it is not much of a hassle, but for anything beyond that you'll be facing various restrictions much more severe than requiring a proof of vaccination.



Whenever I hear somebody complaining about the "government monitoring" or "government control" that arises from Covid related actions, I wonder in what kind of utopia that person must be living. I have trouble seeing how "the monitoring" has increased beyond what is already required. I have to have a valid ID card that I must be able to present at any given moment if stopped by the police, I have to provide my current address and my income statement within narrow time frames or face fines, and so much more. Not to mention that in Germany there is something called "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" which forces all internet, phone, and mobile service providers to save all my transmitted data for 2 years, so the government can access it if they want. The government can literally know the location of my phone at any given moment in the past 2 years, as well as any website I have visited and probably much more beyond that. The US has it NSA, which also has limitless insight on anyone on US soil (and often enough abroad). Pretty sure many other countries have similar digital monitoring on their citizens. These things seem much more worrying than "the government" knowing if I am vaccinated or not...




In what practical way does the required vaccine passport differ from a regular passport when traveling? Good luck crossing a border without a valid ID.

On December 07 2021 22:49 GoTuNk! wrote:


I'm just too tired to adress all your points, but showing your ID at airports and on extremely rare police encounters (which are not even logged if you don't get a ticket) is def not the same as showing a digital ID passport everytime you walk into closed space or get into a bus.
Specially when showing said ID is just a formality rather than tracking your multiple vaccine status. It's written in the wall the next step will be adding certain "bad behaviours" to restrict travelling, like unpaid fines to the government or maybe missing child support payments, inching us closer to the chinese credit score system.

On December 07 2021 23:24 Acrofales wrote:

Why? Seeing as these measures are very explicitly emergency measures to combat Covid, what makes you think it will go beyond that?

And no, the patriot act cannot be referred to, because huge leeway was given in defining "terrorism", whereas the anti-covid measures are narrowly defined to combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. You can argue that the measures taken are draconian and unnecessary to combat the disease, but slippery slope reasoning about how measures against Covid will be used to "sneak" in other measures that have nothing to do with Covid in western democracies is ridiculous. Could someone like Erdogan or Putin latch onto curbing freedoms for Covid to curb freedoms in general? I guess. But Erdogan and Putin have a rather dismal record of curtailing peoples' freedoms anyway. You can see a clear pattern of intent in their actions to increasingly restrict their populations' freedoms. That same cannot be said for western Democracies (although I guess GH could probably make a case against this statement in the specific case of minorities in the USA).

On December 08 2021 00:16 GoTuNk! wrote:


Well for starters, the fact that covid won't go away anytime soon, given it's a respiratory disease. They are not passing "laws" in most countries (as in votes by the parliament), it's the state dictating what measures will be taking and you are not allowed to question or resist them. Vaccines, masks and therapeutics are widely available for months now, there is nothing that justifies compulsory restrictions.

Many western democracies are far more tyranical than both Putin and Erdogan on this regard, I wish that would raise at least some caution on more people.

To put it another way. When does the emergency end and who gets to decide when it ends? Or are we just supposed to accept this will go on as long as covid exists (ie forever)

On December 08 2021 01:29 Erasme wrote:

When idiots finally get their vaccines and our hospitals arent at risk of overflowing every couples of weeks.
'Ive been fighting the gov everyday for the past 2 years, havent followed any recommandations, when will it finally end!!?'
Id be willing to quarantine any non vaccinated individual so the rest of us can enjoy our life tho.

On December 08 2021 01:29 Erasme wrote:

When idiots finally get their vaccines and our hospitals arent at risk of overflowing every couples of weeks.
'Ive been fighting the gov everyday for the past 2 years, havent followed any recommandations, when will it finally end!!?'
Id be willing to quarantine any non vaccinated individual so the rest of us can enjoy our life tho.

On December 08 2021 01:59 GoTuNk! wrote:


Yes, complying with tyranny is how tyranny ends. That's exactly how it works.
Have you considered being angry at the people *actually doing the opression* instead of the scape goat "unvaccinated"? The vast majority of "unvaccinated" do not support any cohersion being applied to you.
Are you aware of the existence of countries, or states in the US, where people have not been coerced for almost a year now?

Morever: are you aware the vaccines won't end covid ?

On December 07 2021 22:49 GoTuNk! wrote:


I'm just too tired to adress all your points, but showing your ID at airports and on extremely rare police encounters (which are not even logged if you don't get a ticket) is def not the same as showing a digital ID passport everytime you walk into closed space or get into a bus.
Specially when showing said ID is just a formality rather than tracking your multiple vaccine status. It's written in the wall the next step will be adding certain "bad behaviours" to restrict travelling, like unpaid fines to the government or maybe missing child support payments, inching us closer to the chinese credit score system.

On December 08 2021 00:16 GoTuNk! wrote:


Well for starters, the fact that covid won't go away anytime soon, given it's a respiratory disease. They are not passing "laws" in most countries (as in votes by the parliament), it's the state dictating what measures will be taking and you are not allowed to question or resist them. Vaccines, masks and therapeutics are widely available for months now, there is nothing that justifies compulsory restrictions.

Many western democracies are far more tyranical than both Putin and Erdogan on this regard, I wish that would raise at least some caution on more people.

To put it another way. When does the emergency end and who gets to decide when it ends? Or are we just supposed to accept this will go on as long as covid exists (ie forever)

On December 08 2021 08:50 maybenexttime wrote:
I'm pretty sure the limiting factor when it comes to ICUs is the lack of staff, not the lack of beds themselves. I don't think two years is nearly enough time to train more people, but I may be wrong.