Six months ago, I was routinely told that my fears of vaccine passports were "conspiracy theory", and the same arguments about the slippery slope were invoked.
At some point, you just have to look down and notice that the slope of the ground is negative, and everything is greasy.
Other people have covered that in many comments throughout this thread. I personally don't want to live in a world where I am asked to show my papers -- whatever those papers may be -- to participate in daily life.
> Do you think unvaccinated people should be allowed to travel internationally?
I think so, but it's certainly within the rights of any nation to choose the rules by which foreigners may enter their country. I care less about this than I do about having to show a "passport" to get food.
> Isn’t that really dangerous?
In a highly vaccinated population? No. That's the point of vaccines. Once the threat of (involuntary) serious and illness and death has been abrogated, SARS-CoV2 takes its place amongst the pantheon of other respiratory viruses that we have lived with for centuries.
You have to show your ID to go to a bar. Similarly to go to a stadium, or to fly. The latter is security theatre specifically done for the protection of others. The security theatre is nearly completely useless, but it's commonplace.
I don't want to be around people who can make me sick. If I go to a restaurant and I'm vaccinated, and everyone else is as well, it's very unlikely I will make others sick or that they'll make me sick. If you go, you may make vaccinated or unvaccinated people sick, and they may make you sick.
You're the one that's intruding on other people's freedoms here.
> You have to show your ID to go to a bar. Similarly to go to a stadium, or to fly. The latter is security theatre specifically done for the protection of others. The security theatre is nearly completely useless, but it's commonplace.
Well, first...I'm not sure why you think I support those other things? If your argument is that I'm a hypocrite, you might be disappointed to find out that I'm not. If your argument is that because we do those other things, we should do this thing...well, my goodness. That is a slippery slope, isn't it?
But perhaps more importantly, there's an obvious, bright-line difference between drinking alcohol in a bar or flying on a plane, and having to show papers to do 99% of the things I do on a daily basis.
I also don't want to live in a world where I have to show my papers to participate in daily life. You know what I even want less? To live in a world where daily life is implicitly restricted because there is a constant danger for me and others to get severely sick.
And most western countries are still far to far from being highly vaccinated. If they were, we wouldn't need to ask for their vaccination status.
Yes, long term we either manage to actually erradicate SARS-Cov-2 or at least reduce it to the group of all the other dangerous viruses we can deal with. If the vaccination rate is high enough. Think measels. They didn't ever go away, but for many years, they were not a problem. They are back due to too many people who think they can skip the vaccinations.
And if you ever tried to go onto international, especially intercontinental travel, many countries require proof of vaccination against a variety of diseases.
> And most western countries are still far to far from being highly vaccinated. If they were, we wouldn't need to ask for their vaccination status.
We're not talking about "most western countries"...we're talking about New York City, where 72% of the adult population has had at least one dose, and about 0.2% get another dose, every day:
The relevant number unfortunately is the percentage of the total population which got two shots. One shot is unfortunately no longer good enough against the delta variant. And for transmission, the whole population has to be counted in. And then the numbers might be 60% or less, which isn't quite enought to be a robust blocker against the delta variant.
Without the variants, especially the delta one, the battle against SARS-Cov-2 might already be won, but the virus shifted the goalpost, so to say.
Which clearly says that just 55% of the population got two shots. That matches well with what I said in my previous post. 45% of the population did not get two shots yet and can spread the virus unblocked. As the quickly climbing incidence numbers show.
That is equally right as irrelevant. For the transmission of the disease the total population counts. The virus doesn't distinguish between humans who can get vaccinated as by FDA decision and who not.
> I personally don't want to live in a world where I am asked to show my papers -- whatever those papers may be -- to participate in daily life.
Has that participation ever involved travel to another country? Standard passports exist for very good reasons... otherwise, there wouldn't be 100% of nations who depend on them (are there even any nations that don't ask for one?)
In slovenia, you need a vaccine passport (or a <48h old test) to drink coffee outside, infront of the cafe, in fresh air... yes, we're sliding deep and fast.
This was actually why I got vaccinated. I would hope that other countries (including ours) doesn't require vaccinations as an entry requirement. But I don't have much of a say over what another countries laws are.
At some point, you just have to look down and notice that the slope of the ground is negative, and everything is greasy.