User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Page rendered in 0.6934 seconds
48 querie(s) executed
You are here > Home > Baseball Newsstand > Discussion
Baseball Primer Newsblog
— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, August 23, 2021
Blue Jays to require proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test for fans, staff
With an eye in part to increasing capacity at Rogers Centre, the Jays are announcing Monday that proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test result will be required fans hoping to attend the final 12 games of the season.
Looking to create a safer experience for spectators — while also urging the government to bump the current limit of fans at the dome from 15,000 — the new measures will come into effect for the final two homestands of the regular season.
The measures will also apply to team and stadium staff.
Fans aged 11 and under just need to be accompanied by a parent/guardian who adheres to the policy.
“I would hope that we’re able to increase capacity as soon as it’s safe to do so,” Anuk Karunaratne, the Jays vice-president of business operations, said in an interview with the Toronto Sun. “That’s going to ultimately get determined by public health boards provincially and municipally. My hope is that it would be sooner rather than later.
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: August 23, 2021 at 10:29 AM | 107 comment(s)
Login to Bookmark
Tags: blue jays, coronavirus, covid-19, vaccines
Tags: blue jays, coronavirus, covid-19, vaccines
Login to submit news.
You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.
Hot Topics
Newsblog: 2023 NBA Playoffs Thread
(2514 - 9:41pm, Jun 01)
Last: If on a winter's night a father of a newborn baby
Newsblog: OMNICHATTER for June 2023
(21 - 9:15pm, Jun 01)
Last: Captain Joe Bivens, Pointless and Wonderful
Sox Therapy: The First Third
(16 - 9:11pm, Jun 01)
Last: Captain Joe Bivens, Pointless and Wonderful
Newsblog: Jays pitcher Anthony Bass sorry for posting video endorsing anti-LGBTQ boycotts
(77 - 8:39pm, Jun 01)
Last: Zonk Knew This Would Happen
Newsblog: 8 big All-Star voting storylines to follow
(9 - 8:21pm, Jun 01)
Last: cardsfanboy
Newsblog: Former Los Angeles Dodger Steve Garvey weighs U.S. Senate bid
(10 - 8:16pm, Jun 01)
Last: cardsfanboy
Newsblog: OT Soccer Thread - The Run In
(415 - 4:49pm, Jun 01)
Last: Infinite Yost (Voxter)
Newsblog: OMNICHATTER for May 2023
(649 - 4:09pm, Jun 01)
Last: Hombre Brotani
Newsblog: Carlos Correa Diagnosed With Plantar Fasciitis And Muscle Strain In Left Foot
(20 - 4:02pm, Jun 01)
Last: Bourbon Samurai stays in the fight
Sox Therapy: Lining Up The Minors
(28 - 12:38pm, Jun 01)
Last: Steve Balboni's Personal Trainer
Newsblog: ESPN the Magazine: Bat and Ball Games you've never heard of
(29 - 12:29pm, Jun 01)
Last: bestergonomicgamingchair.com
Newsblog: Former MLB Stars In Upstate NY, Here's How You Can Meet Them
(24 - 11:52am, Jun 01)
Last: kirstie819
Newsblog: New Top 200 Draft Prospects list: Execs rank the first five
(7 - 11:31am, Jun 01)
Last: kirstie819
Newsblog: Angels promote Ben Joyce, 2022 draft pick with triple-digit fastball velocity, to majors for MLB debut
(18 - 11:21am, Jun 01)
Last: DCA
Newsblog: Diamond Sports Group fails to pay Padres, loses broadcast rights
(13 - 11:06am, Jun 01)
Last: Stevey
(2514 - 9:41pm, Jun 01)
Last: If on a winter's night a father of a newborn baby
Newsblog: OMNICHATTER for June 2023
(21 - 9:15pm, Jun 01)
Last: Captain Joe Bivens, Pointless and Wonderful
Sox Therapy: The First Third
(16 - 9:11pm, Jun 01)
Last: Captain Joe Bivens, Pointless and Wonderful
Newsblog: Jays pitcher Anthony Bass sorry for posting video endorsing anti-LGBTQ boycotts
(77 - 8:39pm, Jun 01)
Last: Zonk Knew This Would Happen
Newsblog: 8 big All-Star voting storylines to follow
(9 - 8:21pm, Jun 01)
Last: cardsfanboy
Newsblog: Former Los Angeles Dodger Steve Garvey weighs U.S. Senate bid
(10 - 8:16pm, Jun 01)
Last: cardsfanboy
Newsblog: OT Soccer Thread - The Run In
(415 - 4:49pm, Jun 01)
Last: Infinite Yost (Voxter)
Newsblog: OMNICHATTER for May 2023
(649 - 4:09pm, Jun 01)
Last: Hombre Brotani
Newsblog: Carlos Correa Diagnosed With Plantar Fasciitis And Muscle Strain In Left Foot
(20 - 4:02pm, Jun 01)
Last: Bourbon Samurai stays in the fight
Sox Therapy: Lining Up The Minors
(28 - 12:38pm, Jun 01)
Last: Steve Balboni's Personal Trainer
Newsblog: ESPN the Magazine: Bat and Ball Games you've never heard of
(29 - 12:29pm, Jun 01)
Last: bestergonomicgamingchair.com
Newsblog: Former MLB Stars In Upstate NY, Here's How You Can Meet Them
(24 - 11:52am, Jun 01)
Last: kirstie819
Newsblog: New Top 200 Draft Prospects list: Execs rank the first five
(7 - 11:31am, Jun 01)
Last: kirstie819
Newsblog: Angels promote Ben Joyce, 2022 draft pick with triple-digit fastball velocity, to majors for MLB debut
(18 - 11:21am, Jun 01)
Last: DCA
Newsblog: Diamond Sports Group fails to pay Padres, loses broadcast rights
(13 - 11:06am, Jun 01)
Last: Stevey
About Baseball Think Factory | Write for Us | Copyright © 1996-2021 Baseball Think Factory
User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
From everything I read, the vast majority of the Yankees who've tested positive were vaccinated.
That's my understanding too. Breakthrough infections are becoming more and more common, especially in circumstances where disease protection protocols were eased/lifted. Fortunately, the vaccine seems to prevent severe illness.
Every time Boone was asked whether his players had been vaccinated or not, he dodged the question. And the obvious point is that a vaccination mandate that included all employees of the organization would be the best possible way of minimizing infections. Other than the players' union's ritualistic objections, what possible reason would there be for not doing this? What's the downside?
And again, there's no downside to a mandate. 100% is obviously better than 85%.
And that's kind of okay, because I suspect that if you're pursuing a vaccination strategy that is about getting back to normal the fastest rather than getting the maximum protection, you've got a lot of people who might not get vaxxed at all otherwise, things could be much worse.
That's sort of a HUGE handwaive you're doing there. Whether you like the agreements or not, I wouldn't doubt there's language in their contracts that forbids forced vaccinations. For instance, until yesterday the US military couldn't require covid vaccinations because the vaccine was still in trial mode, maybe now that one of them is officially approved the military can change their covid policies.
That's sort of a HUGE handwaive you're doing there. Whether you like the agreements or not, I wouldn't doubt there's language in their contracts that forbids forced vaccinations.
Okay, I'll update my comment: Other than what I already said would be the reason, what possible reason would there be for not issuing a mandate?
What's the downside?
There's still no answer to that. Thousands of other private businesses have issued mandates, and many if not all MLB teams have issued either vaccination or mask mandates for their fans and / or their non-uniformed staff. It's clearly only the players' union that's the obstacle.
No, it also pisses off your fans and employees. I'm vaccinated, but I would refuse to show proof to attend a baseball game. I wouldn't wear a mask either. If they don't want my money, fine.
But how many customers or employees have businesses actually lost after requiring either vaccination proof or a mask?
And real numbers, please. Talk is cheap. No player is going to give up millions of dollars for some halfassed "freedom" principle if he's told to vaccinate or else.
All of New York City has lost me as a customer until absolutely all of this nonsense stops. I've already made plans to reside in Florida this winter.
The downside is potential adverse effects from the vaccine, which a professional athlete 100% dependent on his body for his livelihood has every right to reject if he so chooses. And you don't get to ignore that very real downside by mocking it with 'ritualistic'.
That's said. The idea that an American has to "show their papers" to go to a ball game is bizarre. I'm the customer.
All of New York City has lost me as a customer until absolutely all of this nonsense stops. I've already made plans to reside in Florida this winter.
And for every person like you those businesses lose, they'll gain a customer who wouldn't patronize an indoor establishment that didn't require either vaccine proof or a mask. Vaccine resisters are a loud and obnoxious minority, but they're still a decided minority.
The downside is potential adverse effects from the vaccine, which a professional athlete 100% dependent on his body for his livelihood has every right to reject if he so chooses.
IOW rejecting empirical evidence for stuff he heard on Fox News or RFK Jr. Smart guy! And who cares about other people he might be more likely to infect?
And you don't get to ignore that very real downside by mocking it with 'ritualistic'.
If I had the legal authority to ignore these evidence-denying idiots and mandate a vaccine in my workplace, I sure as hell would. They're placing their "freedom" over other their community's health.
OK, I'll update my comment as well -
Whether you like the agreements or not, THEY CANNOT ISSUE A MANDATE.
So, you have no problem with more and more of our civil liberties being stripped away to counter insignificant threats? Look at what's happening in Australia. They've become a full-on police state. You call with that?
Why do businesses need to protect anyone from COVID? Vaccines are freely available. If you choose not to get vaccinated, wear a mask or don't go.
No business has ever felt the need or right to "protect" their customers from an airborne illness before.
Then why the #### are you asking why the Yankees aren't implementing a vaccine mandate???
This has nothing to do with Australia.
Over 630,000 people in the US have died from Covid and you consider that an insignificant threat?
This is just moronic. What the hell do you think sneeze guards were invented for?
This is the rationale of a toddler. What possible reason could you have for acting this way other than to be a brat?
If they can have the security theater of metal detectors and bag bans without turning off fans, then they can certainly require proof of vaccination without doing so.
Then why the #### are you asking why the Yankees aren't implementing a vaccine mandate???
Do you understand the meaning of "rhetorical question"? And haven't I explained (three times, now) that I knew the answer already?
But enough already. Your response to snapper shows that we agree on the underlying issue, which is more important than our apparent differences on linguistics.
Because that paper leads to the gas chambers! Or at least to making you swallow castor oil! You have to draw the line somewhere!
[And yes there are exceptions, my child with an auto-immune disease being one of them. Even so, my family would love vaccine mandates every place possible. We can do almost nothing right now because the ridiculous anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers make all parts of public life a very real danger to my child's life.]
It's as if a global viral outbreak that's killed five million people might change some customers' attitudes, and compel them to demand new standards from businesses. Go figure, money talks.
Come on now, you asked something that is the opposite of a rhetorical question. There is a very clear direct answer - they can't.
I am totally on the same page as you, I completely understand *why* MLB doesn't enforce vaccines, but I wish they were able to. As I mentioned upthread, I really, really hope the military changes their guidelines now that one of the vaccines is fully approved. I just don't think the Yankees should take any heat what-so-ever for their players getting COVID. As mentioned they were one of the first teams to hit 85% and most of their cases have been from vaccinated people, just unlucky that's all. And I think casting doubt on their vaccination status like post #5 and your inference that Boone was being sneaky or some #### in #6 is bullshit. At a certain point - that being the agreement signed in Feb - vaccine status can't be openly discussed with the media. Deal with it.
I wasn't trying to give them heat,** as I fully understood the reasons why they don't impose a mandate. My "heat" is more directed at the players' union for not endorsing a universal mandate among its members.
But Boone was asked about his players' vaccination status, and he did duck the question with the "choice" cliche. Not that this wasn't also understandable, given the union's resistance, and not that the other 29 managers wouldn't have also ducked a similar question, but it does make me a bit suspicious of any numbers thrown out about vaccination coverage that don't have specific names attached to them.
** EDIT: By that I mean specifically the Yankees. The Yankees are but one example of the overall problem of the players' union's stance.
Yes, I know you worship the power of private corporations just as much as the lefties worship the state. No one should have any right to compel anyone to undergo a medical procedure, or hold their failure to do so against them in any way.
Your "civil liberty" to what, not show a piece of paper at the gate? Please. I'm fine with curtailing the civil liberties of people who refuse the vaccine, because they are abusing their liberty and endangering others. That's incompatible with civil society.
No one has any responsibility to protect others in this way. Let those that are worried get vaccinated. That's what I did! Now I don't fear unvaccinated people.
I'm 100% pro-vaccination, and 100% against any coercion applied to those who don't want it.
Over 630,000 people in the US have died from Covid and you consider that an insignificant threat?
Today? Yes. Given the vaccination and infection levels to date, there's no risk of a medical system or economic collapse. We can muddle through the current level of COVID indefinitely. The deaths themselves are individual tragedies, but not a threat to society.
Teams are allowed by MLB to relax their masking/distancing protocols if they achieve a self-reported vaccination threshold. For team members who want those relaxed protocols for the team, they have incentive either to get vaccinated, or to lie about not having done so.
I mean, Phil Nevin has a history of lying, for the benefit of his team, about what he's taken. That seems like a basis for doubt of Nevin, and he was one of the first "breakthrough" cases. And, like, breakthrough cases will happen among the vaccinated because the vaccines aren't 100% effective at preventing cases, so an occasional breakthrough case isn't evidence of anything. But a disproportionate cluster of breakthroughs, among a population that had incentive to lie about having been vaccinated if they chose not to be vaccinated, and the cluster having included Phil Nevin... it's enough to dispense with the notion that there isn't any basis to doubt. There's plenty of basis to doubt.
Anyway, I'm not saying with certainty that they're lying about being vaccinated. Not even close. I'm just saying there's incentive to lie, and all we know about their vaccination status is what they claim it is. Nobody should be throwing stones at them for any of this - nor any other players with reported breakthrough cases - but we should note the quality of evidence we have is far less than they "were vaccinated". As I'm sure you'll note, that's all I did above; and if you go to prior threads you'll see I've been doing this pretty consistently.
And yet a whole host of vaccines have been mandated for all sorts of travel and participation requirements stretching back decades. Where were your hate-science hysterics back then?
The real problem is that science has been so successful at prolonging lives and improving outcomes that the rubes just took it for granted and chalked it up to prayer and good luck. Then the Age of Stupids arose, and here we are, surrounded by shrill hate-science idiots who wield their ignorance as both a cudgel and a shield.
>The deaths themselves are individual tragedies, but not a threat to society.
"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Dominus vobiscum and may the odds be forever in your favor."
Except that we do. It's part of living in a society with other human beings.
Totally specious comparison between a direct act, and a failure to act. There has never been a good samaritan law.
And yet a whole host of vaccines have been mandated for all sorts of travel and participation requirements stretching back decades.
Participation rules (like public school vaccinations) always have had a religious and conscience exception. Include those, and I'm fine with a "mandate" that no one needs to follow.
No one has a right to travel internationally, so a country is free to require vaccination for non-nationals to enter.
No one has a right to attend a baseball game or a movie, either.
I've got some bad news for you.
I'd suggest we move this to the COVID thread, but every time I read that I get really, really depressed...
IANAL, but not according to this website. Several states do not have any exceptions.
States With Religious and Philosophical Exemptions From School Immunization Requirements
It is also utterly misplaced, since a private business cannot “compel” anyone to get a vaccine. We are talking about private businesses refusing to do business with those who don’t get vaccines, not private businesses compelling people to do anything. No one has any right to compel anyone to do business with someone else.
Kind of like the way that some potential draftees during the Vietnam war used to tell their draft boards that they were gay, which back then disqualified them for military service.
One major example of businesses protecting their customers is the almost universal ban on public smoking over the last 30 years or so. While controversial at the beginning, it didn't take long until it was just accepted. This was true even though the evidence about second hand smoke is far less convincing that the link between Covid and vaccines.
I'm largely libertarian within our country. Your legal rights all end at the borders of the country, which should be obvious.
It is also utterly misplaced, since a private business cannot “compel” anyone to get a vaccine. We are talking about private businesses refusing to do business with those who don’t get vaccines, not private businesses compelling people to do anything. No one has any right to compel anyone to do business with someone else.
Nonsense. The Gov't compels people to do business with other all the time. Why should vaccine status be the only exception to public accomodation laws? A public facing business has virtually no rights to deny anyone service based on personal characteristics.
Also, the number of people with genuine religious objections to vaccination can fit in a phone booth except there aren’t any phone booths anymore.
More nonsense. All the vaccines were tested on cell lines derived from abortion. Anyone with a sincere objection to abortion has a genuine religious objection. If the Jehovas Witnesses can refuse blood tranfusions, I don't see why someone can't refuse vaccine.
Skin color and sexual orientation aren't choices. Vaccine refusal is.
All the vaccines were tested on cell lines derived from abortion. Anyone with a sincere objection to abortion has a genuine religious objection. If the Jehovas Witnesses can refuse blood tranfusions, I don't see why someone can't refuse vaccine.
Refusing a blood transfusion endangers nobody but the person refusing it. That's hardly the case with a person who refuses to be vaccinated in a workplace or in a crowded public setting, especially indoors in an area without high vaccination coverage. If that abortion-hating person wishes to remain unvaccinated, then let that person stay at home (or at least stay outdoors) and not endanger anyone else.
And yet you got vaccinated? How did you reconcile that with your sincere objection to abortion?
It shouldn't! (And it isn't!)I mean, you are completely wrong as a descriptive matter. Businesses have virtually total legal rights to deny service to people; the only exceptions are for membership in protected classes, almost all outside those people's control. Again: no shirt, no shoes, no vax, no service: all legitimate. There's nothing except your petulance to distinguish between those. (Well, that's not quite true; "no shirt" is really about puritanism, while "no vax" is about public health.)
No. If they were conducting abortions to develop these vaccines, that would be one thing, but they're not. There's no connection between an abortion that happened 50 years ago and these vaccines. There is no principle of Catholicism that requires one to reject something because 50 years ago someone made an immoral decision, and then later people unconnected with that decision indirectly benefited from it — that would be as illogical as refusing an organ transplant from a murder victim, just because the murder was (of course) immoral. Of course, one doesn't have to accept my analysis of the situation. But there's this guy named the Pope who agrees with me. (And apparently you do too, since you said above that you were vaccinated.)
(Of course, the moral difference between rejecting a blood transfusion and rejecting a vaccine is that doing the former is merely risking one's own life, rather than the lives of the community. But if your question is how the former claim could be a sincere religious one and the latter one can't be, JW's cite an actual provision of scripture for their position, while there is no provision of scripture that anyone cites against vaccines.)
I used to love going to the US and was happy when I moved to London Ontario as it is a 2 hour drive from Detroit and 2 hours from Buffalo so I figured I'd go to both to see games, then COVID hit. Watching how idiotically a very big portion of the population is acting (but my rights! I can do anything and screw everyone else) I now have zero interest in going down there again in the near future, and probably long term too (as the self centered stupid virus seems to have taken hold of 40%+ of your population).
Partially true, but there were a lot of businesses who did non-smoking prior to the first laws. I am allergic to cigarette smoke, so I was following the anti-smoking movement very closely. I knew which businesses I could patronize and those I had to stay away from. Restaurants with no smoking sections were golden and bars were uniformly out of bounds.
With unnecessarily divisive and vitriolic hot takes like this one, I'm really glad that you weren't elected when you ran for public office way back when.
Huh? Basically, no one in this thread is telling Canada how things should be done. The article talked about Canada, but the main discussion fairly quickly devolved into a US centric discussion and/or a general discussion regarding mandates. A quick scan of the thread revealed no comments telling Canada what to do.
You could argue people in the US have to make everything about them and so are terrible I guess.
ErMaGeRd! SoCiAlIsM!
Heck, there are so many different and contradictory goals in play that there is no one best possible strategy. There are a million factors in play and huge numbers of unknowns.
That is why when something is totally clear when it is an unambiguously known good, then it is infuriating when governments screw it up.
Still overall, ignoring the insane anti-vax movement, I think the worldwide response has been pretty good in total. Of course, ignoring the anti-vax movement is hard because those folks are screwing it up for everyone else.
From a "foreigner" perspective, there are some bizarrely asinine stuff elsewhere in this thread.
Paging smitty*. Smitty*, please report to the thread.
This is good news. Florida is getting the delta surge over with before everyone else, just like they did with the original surge last fall. Covid and delta are coming everywhere, nobody is special. Everyone is getting Covid eventually, lockdowns or not, masks or not, vaccines or not, passports or not. If sixteen months of that nonsense hasn't stopped it, it's never going to. There is nothing left to wait for but for it to run its course. As long as deaths and hospitalizations are low, it really doesn't matter what else happens.
You'll mock me now, and by next April you'll see that this happened.
1 to 10 - where do you think COVID ranks among the leading causes of death in the US?
This is actually a fear of mine. The southern states fared much worse last year during the months that they would typically stay inside more, while the northern states got hit hard when they would be heading inside more. I hope that trend does not continue this year.
Aren't you the whining crybaby who threw a goddamned fit last year because social distancing meant you could no longer invite your fellow pathetic losers to your apartment to play goddamned board games, which apparently constitutes your only allegedly meaningful activity in this world? It's impossible not to mock you, then, now or later.
AP
<insert applause emoji here like this site joined the 21st century>
I ####### **hate** needles and shots; it's one of the few things I know I'm irrational about.
tl;dr it involves Malaysian bees and being chased around and through a hospital by nurses when I was 6.
But the Pfizer shots were SO innocuous, even *I* was looking forward to my second jab ...
In his defense, this was a big deal for me, too. That's a large part of the social interaction I get on a regular basis. So while I'm sympathetic that the vast majority of people have it much worse than I do, the inability to have my good friends over for board games or D&D was a hit to my social health.
And I vaxxed, insisted anyone coming to my house be vaxxed, and will be masking the whole time at GenCon (fortunately I have a separate room to run my games in, I just wish I could make sure my players were vaxxed).
Today I went to the store to grab bread. I masked up and it annoyed me. I thought I was done with that BS, but nope, time to mask up again. But that is what grownups do. They suck it up and do the adult thing.
Just discarding literally centuries of medical knowledge and thousands of person-years of education and knowledge based on ... whatever the heck is up with the anti-vax crowd is nuts. I don't want the freedom to catch Covid, and if i have to get a jab, wear a mask inpublic, and maintain some social distancing, well life is not fair. Too damn bad.
There's a difference between missing social activities (99.9% of people advocating for mask mandates and social distancing missed them) and what Karl was doing last year, which was trying to get us all to say, "You're an exception, go ahead and hang out with your friends despite the restrictions."
I got super into D&D last year because of the pandemic, and so did many others. D&D had its most profitable year ever.
It is not as much fun, but it beats a poke in the eye with a stick.
Put it this way, I'm a 65 year old type two diabetic who could stand to lose 20 pounds. I'm probably the second lowest risk in the league. Face to face just wasn't a sensible option for most of the guys in the league until they were double vacced.
And my other point was that nobody gets to destroy my hobby by scoffing at it as trivial or silly. I decide what's important in my life, not you. My gaming groups are as essential to my life as your daughters and family are to you.
What? No, I was trying to get people to wake up and realize that the restrictions are permanent bullsh*t, that aren't going away ever if you don't oppose them now. And a year later I was right about that. We went right past the vaccines and we're still doing all the masking garbage. There is no further endpoint, there's nothing left to wait for, everything you sheep buckled under to is now every bit as permanent as the post-9/11 security nonsense.
Vax mandates are deplorable because there's no way they're going to be temporary or limited. This is making a permanent fixture of treating every human face as a disease vector rather than as a person. And it's only going to escalate into more government medical control of your life. If that's what you want, well I guess I can't stop anyone from enjoying the flavor of Big Brother's boot.
If you are still arguing for masks or vax mandates, tell me when they end. "When Covid goes away" is not an answer, because it's never going away any more than any cold ever did.
As for hospital capacity, what percentage of those beds are occupied by obese people? It's been running somewhere around 80% for all of Covid. Why don't we preserve hospital capacity by gating access to society by obesity passports?
Um, what? New York, Chicago, California, etc. all revoked mask mandates until the numbers got bad again, so no, you weren't right about them being "permanent".
Vaccine mandates are nothing new, ask any parent (or just review this whole thread, where it's discussed at length).
Well, restrictions were already taken away before, when numbers were lower - but not gone. And the vaccine mandates are so that deaths and serious hospitalizations will go down even though COVID is not going away. Just look at the UK; their case counts are increase, but deaths and hospitalizations much less so, and they have not reinstated much as far as safety measures go.
I believe I saw an article where it was #4, behind the usual winners of heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Let's talk about heart health and cancer screening passports and then about Covid passports.
Rant all you want, but the current capacity situation is a huge deal, as it prevents people from getting care that they could have gotten without COVID running rampant. And obesity isn't passed from person to person; an obese person attending a concert doesn't pose a risk to anyone else.
Last year, you were complaining about not even getting to go see your friends to play games with. And now, you can - everywhere in the US, no one is prevented from socializing with others anywhere. It's just that in some places, you have to wear a mask when you're around strangers. Seriously, even in restaurants and bars in Chicago, New York, etc., you can take off your mask when you're at your table with your party. Stop acting like this is preventing any sort of socialization like it was last spring.
Yes, D&D can be played virtually. There are platforms (roll20 is one) that can help you run games virtually and you can use Zoom or Discord or whatever you'd like to interact. I tried this once and hated everything about it, although that's a me problem. The back-and-forth banter, non-verbal cues, and physical gameplay were all severely lacking when doing it. My sons played with their friends and enjoyed it. I could not get into it. The way I enjoy conversing (quick reactions, under-my-breath sarcastic asides, droll comments accompanied by meaningful facial expressions) all lose a lot of their effectiveness in a virtual setting. I get almost no social fulfillment from it since I wind up frustrated.
But yes, it can be done, and many enjoy it that way.
Heart disease and cancer are not communicable, so that's a huge false equivalency. You're also ignoring that COVID is new; it's completely sensible to take extra precautions while we collectively determine the best way to prevent and treat it. We have decades of research and knowledge of heart disease and cancer, we know they are always going to be major sources of death. Why the rush to assume COVID is going to always be #4? What if we had taken that approach with polio or smallpox?
I'm not familiar with Karl's stances on this stuff. I avoided contact with people unless they were vaccinated or had remained socially isolated.
What is "masking garbage"? I know your mileage may vary, but masking isn't that big of a deal. It's a very, very, very slight inconvenience in order to interact with people.
This is the wrong way to look at it. If heart disease went from being not on the list to top 5 we would be having that conversation. If you add up everything we have put in place for heart disease prevention but instead of over 50 years we enacted it in 18 months it would be a massive undertaking.
The other difference is that you cannot catch any of the other ones you listed by being around someone that has that disease.
I have thought the best comparison to what we are putting in place for Covid is drunk driving. It is not really only your life that is put in danger when you drive drunk and our laws reflect it.
Exactly. I'm in Chicago, one of the cities with the strongest restrictions - i.e. an indoor mask mandate. I'm basically living a normal life, except I have to wear a mask in stores, on the train, and in my office and restaurants until I'm seated. This is such a small price to pay, far less than the impact wearing masks has on reducing the spread.
Eh, I'm sympathetic to Karl here. Humans are a social species, so things like friend groups are important. And it sucked a lot last year when we actually did have to stay inside and avoid interacting with others.
Was it worth it, in the interest of public health? Yes. But it still did suck.
My Church has decreed that as long as the aborted stem cells have only been used in testing, not in production, then the cooperation with evil is very remote, and therefore permissible. That's good enough for me. Not everyone is Catholic, and even if they are, they may have a different personal standard.
They’re not. Seriously. If you think they are, you have bigger problems than one of history’s deadliest pandemics.
How is what's important to someone not a completely individual decision. Some people hate their family, often for good reason. You might hate your kids when they grow up, or they might hate you.
Thx.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main