Vaccine Mandates a Slippery Slope towards the Surveillance State and Mark of the Beast

[Ken]

I don’t need the federal government’s help to keep track of vaccines. I still have my yellow WHO card from my childhood vaccinations.

If we do have to be tracked like cattle (or like chickens being inoculated for Marek’s disease), records can be kept at the county level - just like birth certificates, car titles, and so on.

Good for you. However there are tens of millions of people for whom that isn’t the case. Including for example, about a half million kids in foster care across the US who don’t have parents who are keeping careful paper health records for them.

You are free to remove yourself from your state’s vaccine database if the very notion of it chafes you. Here is the form. Took me all of 5 seconds to find:

https://www.ohiopublichealthreporting.i ... equest.pdf

[Josh]

I don’t need the federal government’s help to keep track of vaccines. I still have my yellow WHO card from my childhood vaccinations.

If we do have to be tracked like cattle (or like chickens being inoculated for Marek’s disease), records can be kept at the county level - just like birth certificates, car titles, and so on.

Good for you. However there are tens of millions of people for whom that isn’t the case. Including for example, about a half million kids in foster care across the US who don’t have parents who are keeping careful paper health records for them.

You are free to remove yourself from your state’s vaccine database if the very notion of it chafes you. Here is the form. Took me all of 5 seconds to find:

https://www.ohiopublichealthreporting.i ... equest.pdf

Except such systems tend to become mandatory and you can’t get a job or buy/sell without participating in them.

The patriot act is a good example of this kind of thing.

[nett]

Yes, given human behavior they are probably the best way. Not the only way. We could completely end the pandemic in 2 weeks if everyone just acted responsibly, isolated and didn’t spread the disease to anyone else. It would completely die out that fast. But since that isn’t happening vaccines are the next best solution.

I never thought they were 100% effective and neither did anyone else. Back in 2020 when they were still under development scientists were hoping or 60-70% effectiveness. Most of the vaccines have exceeded original expectations.

My whole family is vaccinated and we are all out working in jobs with lots of contact with the public. None of us have caught Covid. So it seems to be working for us. If they end up needing to make a new booster for omicron variant or any additional variants I’ll happily take that too. It is a trivial hassle. I’ve taken dozens of different vaccines since I was an infant in the 1960s. That is just a part of life in the modern world. There are probably a thousand different things in my life that are a bigger hassle than the possibility of having to get an occasional vaccine or booster.

Ok, so I think you mentioned 80% as a target at which vaccination really makes a difference.

What do you think countries like Denmark are doing wrong? They are highly vaccinated but are yet again dealing with COVID in a serious way, with cases at an all time high, and deaths and hospitalization on the rise. And we have no idea what omicron will look like there.

Knowing that it is not logistically possible to get to 100% vaccination, Why are we still seeing these outbreaks?

[Ken]

Yes, given human behavior they are probably the best way. Not the only way. We could completely end the pandemic in 2 weeks if everyone just acted responsibly, isolated and didn’t spread the disease to anyone else. It would completely die out that fast. But since that isn’t happening vaccines are the next best solution.

I never thought they were 100% effective and neither did anyone else. Back in 2020 when they were still under development scientists were hoping or 60-70% effectiveness. Most of the vaccines have exceeded original expectations.

My whole family is vaccinated and we are all out working in jobs with lots of contact with the public. None of us have caught Covid. So it seems to be working for us. If they end up needing to make a new booster for omicron variant or any additional variants I’ll happily take that too. It is a trivial hassle. I’ve taken dozens of different vaccines since I was an infant in the 1960s. That is just a part of life in the modern world. There are probably a thousand different things in my life that are a bigger hassle than the possibility of having to get an occasional vaccine or booster.

Ok, so I think you mentioned 80% as a target at which vaccination really makes a difference.

What do you think countries like Denmark are doing wrong? They are highly vaccinated but are yet again dealing with COVID in a serious way, with cases at an all time high, and deaths and hospitalization on the rise. And we have no idea what omicron will look like there.

Knowing that it is not logistically possible to get to 100% vaccination, Why are we still seeing these outbreaks?

Honestly, when I’m not on here I don’t really follow this stuff at all. So I have no idea what is happening at any moment in any random country like Denmark. I sometimes keep an eye on Covid stats for the county in which we live, and for the counties where I have lots of family. But that is about it.

One point I would make is that vaccinations are not uniform anywhere. Not in Denmark or anywhere else. They are very patchy. So they might be 90% in one sub population and 25% in another sub population. So even in highly vaccinated locations there are probably still plenty of subgroups and sub populations with low vaccination rates who are vulnerable and where outbreaks can take hold. So without doing a deep dive on Denmark, which I’m not going to bother to do, I would suspect that is the likely phenomenon you are seeing.

For example, here in Clark County WA we had several measles outbreaks a few years ago even though the measles vaccination rate was very high. That was because we had sub populations of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants who had very low vaccination rates and since they were tight knit communities attending the same schools, churches, and frequenting the same shops and restaurants the outbreak spread even though the general population was highly vaccinated. The same thing happened a couple years ago in tightly knit Hasidic Jewish communities with low vaccination rates.

I expect the same thing is happening to some extent in countries like Israel that have relatively high vaccination rates but still get outbreaks. Israel has a very patchy population that is not at all uniform. It is actually many many sub populations that live their lives more or less in separate bubbles.

[ohio jones]

Honestly, when I’m not on here I don’t really follow this stuff at all.

Just for the record, a third of your posts on MN are coronavirus-related; in raw numbers, roughly 10x the posts of your closest competitor. It's obviously a subject of great interest to you, even if you only engage it here.

[Ken]

Honestly, when I’m not on here I don’t really follow this stuff at all.

Just for the record, a third of your posts on MN are coronavirus-related; in raw numbers, roughly 10x the posts of your closest competitor. It's obviously a subject of great interest to you, even if you only engage it here.

By “this stuff” I meant world epidemiological data. I could not really tell you in which countries Covid is currently increasing or decreasing. I follow the politics of it which I find interesting. Because more than anything else, Covid has affected and controlled my life and job and that of my wife and kids over the past 2 years. So, for example, I am aware that the Republicans are planning to base their attempt to shut down the government tomorrow on opposition to Biden’s vaccine and testing mandates. That seems to be the political battle that they are gearing up for. And I know what is going on in my state and county.

But I don’t really track all the various data sites to where I would have a pre-existing opinion, for example, about what might be happening with the epidemiological data in say Denmark this week. Which was Nett’s exact question. I honestly pay no attention to what is happening in Denmark or any other country except Chile where we have much family and the few places here where we have friends and family.

[Falco Underhill]

I don't know how they are using QR codes for Covid tracking, what data is encoded in the QR, what data is captured. Does anyone know where to find good information on this?

This article seems pretty informative. Interestingly, talks about how the QR Codes were first used - and continue to be used - in China for Covid tracking (why am I not surprised?), how they are used for that and what data is being collected, etc.

https://lexatlas-c19.org/the-use-of-qr- ... interests/

Oh, and by the way, I think cash and even credit cards now are pretty useless in China as just about all purchases are now done by scanning QR codes.

(Coming soon to a theater near you?)

[MaxPC]

I don’t need the federal government’s help to keep track of vaccines. I still have my yellow WHO card from my childhood vaccinations.

If we do have to be tracked like cattle (or like chickens being inoculated for Marek’s disease), records can be kept at the county level - just like birth certificates, car titles, and so on.

I agree. It certainly would make the data less attractive for a breach by not keeping a "mother-lode" of information in one location.

I have to wonder if such mandate is in line with the HIPAA Act. I daresay they would simply get rid of said act or go round it yet I do feel privacy is being breached in a '1984 Orwellian' manner.

[Ken]

I don’t need the federal government’s help to keep track of vaccines. I still have my yellow WHO card from my childhood vaccinations.

If we do have to be tracked like cattle (or like chickens being inoculated for Marek’s disease), records can be kept at the county level - just like birth certificates, car titles, and so on.

I agree. It certainly would make the data less attractive for a breach by not keeping a "mother-lode" of information in one location.

I have to wonder if such mandate is in line with the HIPAA Act. I daresay they would simply get rid of said act or go round it yet I do feel privacy is being breached in a '1984 Orwellian' manner.

HIPPA already doesn't apply to sharing of information for public health reasons, in public health emergencies, or what the government determines are "essential government functions" such as, for example, determining whether someone is eligible for a government benefit or service like SSI. https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/publications/topic/hipaa.html

[Josh]

I don’t need the federal government’s help to keep track of vaccines. I still have my yellow WHO card from my childhood vaccinations.

If we do have to be tracked like cattle (or like chickens being inoculated for Marek’s disease), records can be kept at the county level - just like birth certificates, car titles, and so on.

I agree. It certainly would make the data less attractive for a breach by not keeping a "mother-lode" of information in one location.

I have to wonder if such mandate is in line with the HIPAA Act. I daresay they would simply get rid of said act or go round it yet I do feel privacy is being breached in a '1984 Orwellian' manner.

HIPPA already doesn't apply to sharing of information for public health reasons, in public health emergencies, or what the government determines are "essential government functions" such as, for example, determining whether someone is eligible for a government benefit or service like SSI. https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/publications/topic/hipaa.html

Is this a good thing?

Is health privacy a good thing, or should the government just run roughshod over the privacy of the people?