As someone who lived in Canada, lives next to Australia, and lives in New Zealand, I wouldn't suggest any of these places are 'devolving into police states'.
Having people do stuff to protect the safety of themselves and others is part of the social contract of these countries. We wear seatbelts. We wear helmets on Motorbikes. All things that restrict our freedom to damage ourselves.
Because who incurs the cost of when you hurt yourself or others? The government! Like a lot of advanced countries we have a single payer government operated healthcare system that needs to ration care since nothing in life is infinite. So governments are motivated to protect systems that protect everyone like healthcare.
Yes, I'm ecstatic we pay a ton of taxes to have one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world. Well behind the EU and OECD averages. We've got 1/3 the doctors per capita of France FFS...
Now we get to continue to pay a ton of taxes to have a shitty healthcare system AND have business and travel restrictions. Good deal.
Know what else was part of the social contract? Things like freedom of travel, the ability to run a business without government interference... Now Canada's whole economy is a housing ponzi scheme and everyone I know is selling their businesses and/or leaving the country.
What bugs me about the "we can't overwhelm the health care system" argument is that when/if this is all over, NOTHING will be done to improve the health care system to help prevent that from happening in the future. We'll all just continue to be told to be mad at each other, and no one in charge will be held accountable.
AFAICT, Quebec was probably the only province to do the most effective thing to improve the health care system: increasing the wages of nurses. Only half-heartedly because it was a bonus not a raise, but it's a lot better than Ontario which is effectively reducing the wages of their nurses after inflation by legislatively capping raises to 1%.
Here's hoping it's a major election issue in Ontario this summer.
I hope it is, but sadly people have short memories. I worry Ford will announce an end to all restrictions come election time so people focus on that instead of all the cuts.
"There is not a single example of a country with less than 40% of the population overweight that has high death rates (over 10 per 100 000). Similarly, no country with a death rate over 100 per 100 000 had less than 50% of their population overweight.
When are we going to start banning overweight from consuming alcohol and eating fast food? They're putting tremendous pressure on our universal healthcare system!
Yes we have a social contract. Yes people take measures such as seatbelts and helmets. No, neither of those are the same as mandating individuals to take a vaccine that has limited benefit for the majority of people. Following a year long media campaign of fear, after accepting lockdowns, the only supposed solution is taking a vaccine that has been sped through clinical trials and at best serves to reduce the severity for those most at risk from Covid.
I see pure coercion. How long before access to the majority of vital services will be dependant on 'up to date' vaccination status, checked and logged in via your app whenever you travel, shop, work. How long before this turns into a social credit system?
As an Australian who was concerned enough to emigrate, i'd suggest learning about the security laws passed over the last 10 years and considering how it matches the opportunistic actions taken during the pandemic. Maybe you like the police state and it is somewhat democratic so far but that doesnt mean isn't quite literally a police state.
Less drastically, a lot of places are putting heavy restrictions on smoking, and there are heavy taxes on tobacco and alcohol (arguably those taxes contribute to paying for tobacco and alcohol related health problems.)
Seat belts and helmets do not require chemicals to be injected into your bloodstream in order to freely associate with other humans. These measures change free association by making it illegal to exist naturally around others. There is a huge difference.
Well, no, which is why we don't mandate vaccines against viruses which don't cause once-in-a-century pandemics. But that's separate from what I wanted to respond to, which was the false equivalence between seatbelts/helmets and vaccines.
The new authoritarian infrastructure that we put in place in order to "combat the pandemic" will live long after the pandemic, and negatively affect the lives of everyone going forward. Governments do not have a track record of giving up power.
Telling people to stay indoors if they're scared is much more preferable to injecting government into every aspect of our lives.
Also I'm not sure why you're mentioning false equivalence to me, since I am also highlighting the false equivalence between vaccines and seat belts.
Sorry, you're right, and in that sense we're on the same side: I shouldn't have written "false equivalence." I meant to point out that your objection of "well, seatbelts don't require you to inject chemicals into your body, so there's a huge difference" is irrelevant precisely because there is a huge difference between the bad outcome that seatbelts prevent the bad outcome that vaccines prevent.
Australia is not a police state. Its a state with a complex federal structure which has concerns about broad-brush legislative change, but thats about boil-the-frog-slowly changes, which are being resisted in the senate.
We are not under martial law, or required to register with the police, or subject to wide-ranging arbitrary constraints.
We have temporary, government moderated, revokable restrictions under public health orders which have existed for decades. It is true that some lazy states sought to increase minister-directed powers but this didn't just slip through parliament.
Have you payed for building the roads you drive or walk on to work? The pipes that deliver your water? The fire services? Do you imagine you pay the full cost of the food you are eating? Of the irrigation systems? Garbage pick up and disposal? Management of your local community, including things like accounting for its money etc?
All those things existed before confiscatory taxes were imposed on basically all forms of economic activity. None have improved while the government has stolen 50%+ of my income. In fact they have universally gotten worse, and still more expensive.
This is just "basic infrastructure as a service", except the only service you're actually getting for your payment is not going to jail. That's called extortion.
> All those things existed before confiscatory taxes were imposed on basically all forms of economic activity.
When exactly in history do you imagine these services existed, but there were no taxes? Do you somehow imagine Kings weren't collecting taxes (the original reason for the American Revolution)?
Denmark is moving to getting rid of ALL restrictions.
We'll see. They did that in September of course, only to re-introduce them 2 months later.
Keep in mind they're only able to do this (if it ends up working) because they have the highest vaccination rate in Europe. What Quebec's rates are, I don't know.
False. Individual liberty must be protected. Denying food shopping is a special kind of cruel and unusual punishment. It’s a personal choice, full stop.
Why should it be a personal choice? Living through this pandemic without getting vaccinated is at least as dangerous to public health as driving a car without wearing a seatbelt, and that is illegal.
Even if the vaccine did nothing to stop the spread of COVID (it does much more than nothing), it is still of vital importance to keeping ICUs free, which in turn is important for everyone.
Since your choice has an outsize effect on society, and since we have ample, overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that the vaccine is safe and certainly hundreds of times safer than the disease, I see no reason why it shouldn't be considered mandatory.
I'm young, slim, healthy, unvaccinated, not tested positive for Covid once even after my housemates had it.
"There is not a single example of a country with less than 40% of the population overweight that has high death rates (over 10 per 100,000). Similarly, no country with a death rate over 100 per 100,000 had less than 50% of their population overweight"
Are we going to start banning overweight from consuming alcohol and eating fast food? They're putting tremendous pressure on our universal healthcare system, their choice to be unhealthy has an outsized effect on society; specifically the health systems that we are using as a reason to push vaccination on everyone, regardless of their risk category.
Why do you refuse to get vaccinated? There are plenty of young, slim, healthy, unvaccinated people who also died. Your "choice" is inconsiderate to others in society who may catch it from you, that it may mutate in you and cause a worse variant, to people who care about you, and to the EMS and healthcare workers who you feel entitled to lean on when they're already overworked. This isn't about self-righteous entitlement to your "rights", this is about your duties to others to be a respectable member of a functional community and society.
Sure I wear a seatbelt. It's not invasive in any way and wearing it poses no risk to my health. Not comparable to vaccination in the slightest, that has numerous risks and is still undergoing trials and studies related to safety and efficacy. Let me remind you that these therapies, have been approved for emergency use.
The young, slim, healthy unvaccinated that you're talking about are such a tiny amount of people that I do not consider myself at any real risk. Like I said, I've not tested positive once the entire pandemic and I suspect that's largely to do with having a good immune system, so will clear the virus naturally, plus taking other sensible measures like wearing masks and avoiding large indoor gatherings.
I take other measures to limit the spread. The vaccine is not a panacea, it helps reduce severity for the most vulnerable so let them take it. The virus can also mutate in vaccinated people, in other mammals, it is hyperbole to suggest unvaccinated are largely responsible for all the negative aspects of Covid, completely politicised. The people that care for me respect my decision and quite honestly at this point agree, the majority of vaccinated people that I know will not be getting boosters.
Regarding health workers, I have 3 cousins and an aunt that all work in healthcare (plus some friends). From a renal nurse, ICU nurse to doctors and radiologist. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but our healthcare system has been at critical levels for years prior to the pandemic. This can only be solved by improving our infrastructure. They all respect peoples right to choose what medical treatment they want to receive. If you want to talk about duty to be respectable, when you do not know me or my contributions, then perhaps you should think about your attitude and moral grandstanding?
As my previous comment highlighted, my country has 63% of adults overweight. America is 68%. Their burden on the health system is immense, far greater than the unvaccinated. Should we ostracise them and limit their access to parts of society for everyone elses benefit? If the population was <40% overweight, we would not be facing the crisis in hospitals.
So let's suppose there were an airborne, easily-transmissible hemorrhagic fever pandemic. Do you want "muh freedoms", or everyone following clear rules and not endangering the lives of others? When people aren't being reasonable enough to do what's essential for safety of others, force and consequences are needed to make them learn the lesson. Rule of law.
Not everyone is able to do that, for a number of reasons:
- not capable of using a mobile app or website for ordering
- low language proficiency
- not able to be at home to accept delivery during the day
- don’t have a means of payment compatible with online ordering
- live paycheck to paycheck and depend on going to the store “on demand” to make essential purchases (such as on payday). Often after normal delivery hours.
What does "worked" mean? Illness and risk lower, or simply people following orders? People have lost sight of the former after unrelenting emphasis on the latter.
It's time to turn critical thinking skills back on.
There were 1282 cases of measles in 2019. Around 90% were caused by anti-vaxx hermit communities who freeload off the protections of the police, military, healthcare system, and other services, but live here and put others at risk because magical beliefs makes them "special". If you reject vaccinations, then I suggest you should sign a waiver that you also reject healthcare. Can't have it both ways. "Ounce of prevention."
The UK is only doing that because the PM has been so fragile because he's screwed up covid related things for so long he needs the backbenchers. They're also super desperate because they left the European Union and that is also having a terrible effect on the economy. Copying the UK is not a clever idea.
The news coverage here seems to treat anything the government does as the wrong thing just because they've done it though. For example, healthcare workers in England will be required to be vaccinated soon unless the government changes its mind, and the whole media has been on a push against it, including the BBC making their top headline on the news front page an article about how terrible it was and uncritically regurgitating the Welsh government's claims that it's pointless and counterproductive (they have no such mandate, but required vaccinations for nightclubs when England didn't). Now, this makes no scientific sense - healthcare is basically the one place where Covid vaccination to protect others is actually justifiable, given that they're interacting with high-risk patients who can't be fully protected by vaccination. It makes perfect political sense though, and based on past form the moment the government abandons this the media will immediately flip to supporting it.
The argument is that since the vaccination rate is so high and the effect of omicron is considered mild, the outcomes are not no longer considered server enough to qualify for general restrictions.
There will still be targeted restrictions, such as in the elder care. Time will tell if that will be enough and if the health care system will manage.
> Although it no longer believes Covid-19 should be classed a critical threat to society, some measures to limit transmission are still beneficial, it said.
Is quote I found while looking into this. It seems like they're not opening up completely, they're just removing a bunch of rules. There is still talk of large events possibly needing proof of vacination.
This information is super new and what actually happens and how they actually do it is yet to be fully confirmed as far as I can tell.
Edit: Also important they have 77 people in ICU in the entire country. Where as Berlin alone has 186.
Edit - forgot some other countries. Netherlands, Ireland also ditching restrictions...