Excellent points. I increasingly encounter people online who, when asked what it would take for them to agree it was time to rescind all Covid-related mandates, including private mask mandates, refuse to answer. Essentially they want it to go on forever.
"What is the science behind the unvaccinated Irving sitting in the stands to watch unvaccinated players from the 76ers or Heat shoot baskets while he’s barred from play? Well, there is none."
Yeah there is science behind it and you address it a few paragraphs down. Penalties work in pandemics. Mandates work in pandemics. Irving is being punished.
It is very easy to criticize the decisions made in a dynamic and complex environment such as the Covid outbreak. There are always going to be situations that aren't optimal or good optics like Irving sitting on the sidelines.
Could you have done any better managing the crisis here? The answer is "no" because literally no one on Earth had all the right answers for Covid.
Google a picture of someone with smallpox and you'll get an idea why prevailing science is to be rather conservative with preventing transmission in pandemics. We got lucky with Covid. The pundits don't have hatred towards people who want to argue about mandates - they are horrified and scared because those of you quibble like this is some academic debate just do not seem to get how serious this all is.*
And the Republicans and others who took a small percentage of Americans who fought vaccines and have turned it in half the country have guaranteed probably the worst crisis in this nation the next time we get hit with a more serious virus. And it will happen, sooner rather later.
*I actually think you do take this quite seriously and that you don't believe a lot of what you write here. I just think you found a good contrary position in the flood of media coverage.
Tying pandemic restrictions to “metrics” is often a political dodge for those somewhat more responsible politicians who also want the hassles to be over.
We may want to say that “restrictions should not go on forever,” but the nature of COVID is that the urgency will ebb and flow for some foreseeable period. Vaccine mandates can certainly be questioned for various reasons, but the “metrics” argument is weak. Even NYC and other higher vaccinated areas are still too low. Unless the metric is 98% vaccination rate (or similar), it is silly to turn a vaccine mandate on or off based on COVID activity.
When COVID returns to the US (BA2, maybe, we’ll see), it would make no sense to have dropped and then reinstate vaccine mandates. Those should stay around until we get to a much higher level of protection.
As Ross pointed out, the vaccination rate is probably as high as it can reasonably go in New York City. It is extremely high by any standard and compares well with anywhere in the world. And that is without factoring in our levels of natural immunity, which are also substantial at this point.
You may not want to say, “restrictions should not go on forever,” but they should not, cannot and will not.
That’s the interesting thing about metrics related to vaccination - it’s true at this point that it’s hard to get it much higher anywhere. My response is - the mandate is still a good idea, still gets more people vaccinated at some level (non-trivial numbers), and for the time being should continue to be an expectation.
Because NYC is right about it, and just because almost all others decided not to fight that battle, doesn’t mean it’s still not the responsible policy. You have had vaccination mandates in schools because it’s the responsible policy. It’s still the responsible policy for COVID.
Fair - the definition of “time being” is key. If the severity of COVID will be radically reduced going forward, that’s great. If BA2 ends up causing similar chaos as BA1, that is a big deal. I don’t think we know at the moment.
If it’s near the BA1 level, that is clearly a problem. There are past COVID spikes of different variety, so I don't know exactly how I would specify a level. My point is that we are two plus months from our biggest spike of cases, and we have had consistent-ish spikes over the last 2 years, so I would like more confidence that we are through with larger spikes.
I think it makes sense to ramp up and down other protective measures, but I like the idea of pushing vaccines however we can. Still so many people unboosted, so many not even with 2 shots.
Excellent points. I increasingly encounter people online who, when asked what it would take for them to agree it was time to rescind all Covid-related mandates, including private mask mandates, refuse to answer. Essentially they want it to go on forever.
"What is the science behind the unvaccinated Irving sitting in the stands to watch unvaccinated players from the 76ers or Heat shoot baskets while he’s barred from play? Well, there is none."
Yeah there is science behind it and you address it a few paragraphs down. Penalties work in pandemics. Mandates work in pandemics. Irving is being punished.
It is very easy to criticize the decisions made in a dynamic and complex environment such as the Covid outbreak. There are always going to be situations that aren't optimal or good optics like Irving sitting on the sidelines.
Could you have done any better managing the crisis here? The answer is "no" because literally no one on Earth had all the right answers for Covid.
Google a picture of someone with smallpox and you'll get an idea why prevailing science is to be rather conservative with preventing transmission in pandemics. We got lucky with Covid. The pundits don't have hatred towards people who want to argue about mandates - they are horrified and scared because those of you quibble like this is some academic debate just do not seem to get how serious this all is.*
And the Republicans and others who took a small percentage of Americans who fought vaccines and have turned it in half the country have guaranteed probably the worst crisis in this nation the next time we get hit with a more serious virus. And it will happen, sooner rather later.
*I actually think you do take this quite seriously and that you don't believe a lot of what you write here. I just think you found a good contrary position in the flood of media coverage.
Tying pandemic restrictions to “metrics” is often a political dodge for those somewhat more responsible politicians who also want the hassles to be over.
We may want to say that “restrictions should not go on forever,” but the nature of COVID is that the urgency will ebb and flow for some foreseeable period. Vaccine mandates can certainly be questioned for various reasons, but the “metrics” argument is weak. Even NYC and other higher vaccinated areas are still too low. Unless the metric is 98% vaccination rate (or similar), it is silly to turn a vaccine mandate on or off based on COVID activity.
When COVID returns to the US (BA2, maybe, we’ll see), it would make no sense to have dropped and then reinstate vaccine mandates. Those should stay around until we get to a much higher level of protection.
As Ross pointed out, the vaccination rate is probably as high as it can reasonably go in New York City. It is extremely high by any standard and compares well with anywhere in the world. And that is without factoring in our levels of natural immunity, which are also substantial at this point.
You may not want to say, “restrictions should not go on forever,” but they should not, cannot and will not.
That’s the interesting thing about metrics related to vaccination - it’s true at this point that it’s hard to get it much higher anywhere. My response is - the mandate is still a good idea, still gets more people vaccinated at some level (non-trivial numbers), and for the time being should continue to be an expectation.
Because NYC is right about it, and just because almost all others decided not to fight that battle, doesn’t mean it’s still not the responsible policy. You have had vaccination mandates in schools because it’s the responsible policy. It’s still the responsible policy for COVID.
It's not clear that it does get more people vaccinated at non-trivial numbers at this point. And "for the time being" is doing a lot of work there.
Fair - the definition of “time being” is key. If the severity of COVID will be radically reduced going forward, that’s great. If BA2 ends up causing similar chaos as BA1, that is a big deal. I don’t think we know at the moment.
So, you would like to see BA2 come and go without exceeding what level? Anything less than peak BA1 is ok?
If it’s near the BA1 level, that is clearly a problem. There are past COVID spikes of different variety, so I don't know exactly how I would specify a level. My point is that we are two plus months from our biggest spike of cases, and we have had consistent-ish spikes over the last 2 years, so I would like more confidence that we are through with larger spikes.
I think it makes sense to ramp up and down other protective measures, but I like the idea of pushing vaccines however we can. Still so many people unboosted, so many not even with 2 shots.