Mandatory Vaccination against Covid

[mindlight]

My view is that the question, are viruses alive, is a meaningless one. It presumes that the life/non-life distinction is absolute and definitive. I think it is more accurate to consider a spectrum of characteristics running from simple chemical reactions, through reaction chains, complex cycles, pseudo-metabolisms and on to cellular life. Viruses could sit comfortably on that spectrum and it is then an irrelevant matter of personal taste where one places the life/non-life divide.

Life is not just the physical stuff.

 

[stevil]

Well, let us hope that the contagiousness of the Omnicron version will make it the Omega version that ends this.

I'm hoping either we all get vaccinated at the same time, including poorer countries and stamp this out. Or a much more milder variant than Omicron comes along and gives us all future immunity to the more severe versions. Omicron is too severe and will result in the death of millions of people world wide, not really something to be hoping for.

By your logic, the virus's desperate bid to survive requires it to focus its last gasps on being more and more transmittable and sacrifices deadliness in the process.

That is not what I have said nor implied.

A virus doesn't get desperate and doesn't "bid to survive" it also doesn't "focus" and it doesn't "gasp", it doesn't make any calculation and it doesn't do "sacrifices"

Resorting to anthopomorphism doesn't help to understand evolution, instead it confuses matters.

Since people develop immunity after having a prior infection it means that the versions of the virus that infect people first are more likely to be successful at replicating and infecting others. This means the more contagious viruses are more likely to be successfully propagating through society. The deadliness of the virus is somewhat irrelevant, except for the fact that the more deadly the disease is, the more likely humans are to mitigate it.

The efforts to bar transmission become pointless only when we have a version that hardly kills anyone at all such as with the common cold.

It's always a trade off. Shutting down businesses comes at a huge economic cost but saves lives. It depends on where you put that line. What is the economic value of a single life. How many lives need to be at risk before a society decides lockdowns are worth it?
Where that line is will vary from country to country, it depends how "pro-life" each country is.

It is more likely that a version of covid will always be with us with phases of severity comparable to flu. At some point a decision has to be made about getting back to normal life and whether the risk of mild infection justifies not doing that. Old people and people with underlying problems and compromised immune systems are going to be dying of this till Kingdom comes from the look of things.

Yes, historically we have been able to ride out pandemics and they have become less severe overtime. We have no reason to believe that lockdowns will go on forever.

 

[Ophiolite]

Life is not just the physical stuff.

From a scientific perspective it is just the physical stuff. I'm talking from the scientific perspective, responding to a member who had posted a link with a scientific perspective. Since I think it likely you agree with me that viruses lack souls, I cannot think why you thought your comment relevant. Yes, I get that the spiritual aspects of life are important to you, but . . . perhaps you can enlighten me.