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Vaccine Passports Won’t Work: There Is no Good Faith Left
Nearly a year ago, I wrote about “The Death of the Social Contract,” in which I argued the double standards around COVID-19 policies destroyed that unspoken set of agreements that kept society working. At the time, I noted that the “15 days to flatten the curve” turned into, in some places, a year or more with no end in sight.
We were told the vaccine was the way out (guess not). We have Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson options and Biden announced opening up the vaccine to all adults by April 19. When Trump said last year this was his goal, the media and “health experts” decried this ambitious goal as “unlikely”
Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician, vaccine expert and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN that Trump’s promise is unrealistic.
“There’s too many unknowns right now for either the President or Dr. Atlas to make those statements,” Hotez said.
“First of all, we don’t even know if any of the three Operation Warp Speed vaccines in clinical trials even work or if they are safe,” he added.
Operation Warp Speed, from the Trump administration, is the only reason we have — as of today — almost 108 million people with the first dose and over 62 million fully vaccinated. Even though the “experts” said it was a pipe dream.
About a month ago, Texas Governor Greg Abbott repealed the state’s mask mandate and lifted restrictions on business capacity. His decision was called “Neanderthal thinking” by Biden, “head-scratching” and “anti-science” by the left. Yet, cases in Texas are declining. Dr. Fauci — who is on record as lying about masks and his approach to COVID-19 — insists the big surge is still coming to Texas. The CDC director says another surge is coming and she’s terrified. Yet, we’ve been getting dire warnings of surges since last year – in September 2020, November 2020.
Just to name a few.
In Wisconsin, the State Fair expo building was converted into a remote overflow hospital for COVID patients. It opened in October 2020. At its peak, it served between 20-30 patients. It sat empty — with zero patients — from December 25 until it was closed (without much fanfare) on February 14.
Lockdowns, classifying businesses as “essential” and “non-essential,” using masks as moral virtue signals have pitted Americans against one another. Anyone who questioned the wisdom of lockdowns was a “grandma killer” who deserved to be denied medical care should they contract COVID. Never mind that now we see lockdowns have severe, long-lasting consequences for mental and physical health (as some predicted).
And now they want to require Americans — certain segments of whom, the left insists are too incapable of getting an ID to vote — carry papers proving their vaccination status for access to normal activities. The notion we, as Americans, need to show papers to access events, facilities, and live our daily lives is appalling. There is no good reason to tolerate this. It is a Chinese-esque social credit system.
Think about just how divided we’ve been. How much fear-mongering the media and politicians have engaged in. The downright lies (don’t even get me started on the smear campaign against Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who handled this pandemic better than any governor). The “15 days to flatten the curve” that turned into a year … then maybe we can see family on July 4 … oh, maybe we can’t go back to normal. There are people who are, no joke, downright terrified to have to return to their office and their fear means the rest of us must live in this quasi-free state in perpetuity.
Do you really think there will be a measured response to a “vaccine passport?”
If you do, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
There is no good faith left. It was gone last year when the same politicians who told you not to leave your house didn’t care whether or not you got unemployment for your “non-essential” job, while they dined at The French Laundry while cutting the power to other restaurants who just wanted to open their doors, while they jetted to tropical locales while you were at home helping your kids do virtual school.
There is no way vaccine passports won’t be used and abused to punish certain segments of society — we’ve seen it. Their own words have revealed their intentions: seniors shouldn’t get vaccine priority (despite being the most vulnerable group) because they have “white privilege” and live longer. You can’t protest the lockdowns (if you do, you should be denied medical care), but it’s okay to protest the death of George Floyd. Spring break in Florida is a super-spreader event, but celebrating Biden’s presidential victory is permitted. Your kids can’t go to school in person, but they’ll send their kids to private schools that are open.
It cannot be emphasized enough: vaccine passports open the door to a social credit system that the left will use and abuse to punish its political opponents. We’ve seen enough in the past to know how this plays out down the road.
There is no good faith left in American society, in our institutions, to believe we could ever allow something like this to happen.
I want the pandemic to end. Florida and Texas have proven that can be done without passports and more intrusive government policies. Passports are not — not now, not ever — the way to do this.
Published in General
Well said, Amy.
I hear that. I’m all out of … whatevers to give.
The virus, and people’s reaction to it, have made obvious while at the same time reenforcing certain personality traits. Years ago, when my kids were small, the only way I could identify these people was by how many “how to” parenting books they bought.
It seems as though these traits served a “selection” role that helped us organize long before the pandemic hit. My family and circle of friends have ignored most of the edicts from on high. The year has been weird, and I hate to see the price paid by my young still-in-school-or-college nieces and nephews. But our casual indifference to experts and their constant worrying has served us well.
I think most of the people are getting over the Covid scare. When the blues see the reds coming out in the sun maskless and not dropping dead, they will, with the exception of the true believers, put their masks away too. Not to say that a few more people might get sick and some might even die, but there will not be the terror of contagion that there once was. The Blue politicians might even soon sound the all-clear signal- the better to open the borders to unrestricted inbound traffic.
How is the question of whether or not there will be surges relevant to the question of whether there should be mandatory uniform social restrictions to try to limit covid infections and disease?
Now there’s word of a “double mutant” strain. Which of course made me think of “double secret probation”.
I think Amy was saying that there will always be a “threat” looming.
And from what I have been able to understand the vaccine does not provide lifetime immunity. So are we start going through this cattle call every year as soon as the previous one ends? Get your vaccine passport stamped every year. If masks and distancing are being recommended even if you’ve had your vaccine where does it ever end? May as well come out and say it – masks forever!
How can “progressives” want vaxports to allow interstate travel, but oppose any ID requirements for mail-in ballots in Georgia? Isn’t that inconsistent? No. It is perfectly consistent. It is all about control.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
Our overlords will be nostalgic for anytime the hysteria was at 11.
I bought a mask on the internet. Its ad was “it’s useless. Just like every other mask”.
Yes, I understand that, but my question is, ‘how is that threat relevant to the question of whether there should be mandatory uniform social restrictions to try to limit covid infections and disease?’ What is the logical argument?
Does the propriety of all such restrictions depend on whether the threat is fulfilled or not? If it doesn’t, then the threat isn’t relevant.
If it is likely that some specified limitations on social intercourse will reduce the incidence of infections or disease or mortality from some source of disease or injury, does it follow logically that it is justified in a republic for government to impose those limitations under threat of violence?
Here is the logical argument that I reject but the general public appear not even to have thought about (and still not willing to answer here):
I would accept it as conditionally true if you changed the terms “citizens of republic” to “chattel in a slave society”. But when did conservatives all start thinking like slaves? Is there something about this disease that in the mind of conservatives suddenly brought about, in the period of a few weeks last spring, the end of America as a free nation? If so, what is that something?