Why do "Progressives" have the most taboos?

[ThatRobGuy]

The justification was not just concern for children - teachers were justifiably concerned for their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families as well. While children are not at any great risk of dying from COVID, they do still catch it and spread it. Elderly teachers and teachers with immunocompromised family members might be understandably reluctant to return to the classroom because of that. I know a fair number of teachers, and I can't think of one who actually liked teaching remotely. They tolerated it because they were worried about their students and worried about their families. Perhaps more than necessary, but I can understand not wanting to risk people dying in the name of creating an ideal educational environment.

And while teachers generally lean left, I don't recall any concerted push for this coming from the "Left" in general.

The initial justification of teachers' own well being may have been rational in mid-late 2020...but that same justification wasn't valid in early 2022 when vaccines were already widely available and most teachers had already gotten vaccinated and boosted (for those who wanted it) The article was referencing a potential Chicago teachers strike being proposed by their union in January of 2022.

And the NY Times also acknowledged it as a "partisan error", as the states still pushing for remote learning (long after people were vaccinated) were in blue states that higher vaccine uptake rates.

Not too mention, I would think that undercuts some vaccination messaging.

If it's January 2022, and vaccinated and boosted teachers are claiming they're afraid to go back into the classroom (with a large number of students also being vaccinated at that point), what's the takeaway from that sentiment with regards to perceptions of vaccine efficacy?

Either A) the teachers just wanted to keep working from home (the most likely) or B) they didn't trust the protection of the vaccines as much as they claimed they did...which kind of undermines trying to force other people to get them.

How can one insist on everyone else doing it touting its benefits, but then say that even after they'd gotten 3 doses "I'm afraid I'll die if I come in contact with someone who has it"?

You can't honestly pin that on "the Left". The stay-at-home order was instituted by a Republican administration. The rest was simply the free market at work - workers got a taste of working from home thanks to the lockdowns and decided that they liked it. In almost every case that I've seen, workers were as productive or more productive in WFH scenarios than they were in the office - if they had not been, companies would not have kept WFH policies in place. Therefore, from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to require workers to come to the office every day. Obvious exceptions for hands-on work aside, of course.

The initial stay-at-home orders came from both sides, and were well-founded. There were no vaccines, and nobody knew what we were up against. Keeping stringent measures in place clear into late-2021 was largely a "blue state" phenomenon.

My position has always been that once the vaccines were available, and the uptake was high enough that hospitals were no longer at risk of being overwhelmed...from a public policy perspective, we're done. If we're not going to strain hospitals, and I'm vaccinated and boosted (and have 2 prior infections on top of that), I really don't care what you do at that point.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Again, I’m fine with censorship cutting both ways if it’s demonstrated to be in the service of preventing quantifiable harm. There’s not really a meaningful comparison to be made between teachers striking for WFH and people dying, but have at it.

I'll just simply say that it's important to consider countervailing interests here, and use a lens that sees more than just the previous and subsequent 2 years.

You say that loss of education and social interaction can't be compared with costing people's lives.

I'd say, let's wait a while and see how well these kids recover.

The kids who are 6-10 years old now are the ones we're going to have to rely on to be our doctors and decision makers in the future as well as pay for our social security when we're old.

I don't want that generation to be ran by bunch of socially awkward germaphobes who suck at math and think that heavy-handed restriction is the only method of risk management.

 

[gaara4158]

I'll just simply say that it's important to consider countervailing interests here, and use a lens that sees more than just the previous and subsequent 2 years.

You say that loss of education and social interaction can't be compared with costing people's lives.

I'd say, let's wait a while and see how well these kids recover.

The kids who are 6-10 years old now are the ones we're going to have to rely on to be our doctors and decision makers in the future as well as pay for our social security when we're old.

I don't want that generation to be ran by bunch of socially awkward germaphobes who suck at math and think that heavy-handed restriction is the only method of risk management.

I don’t know that hand-wringing over the potential externalities of erring on the side of caution in an effort to save lives is any less risky than actually erring on the side of caution. As you say, we shall see.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

The initial justification of teachers' own well being may have been rational in mid-late 2020...but that same justification wasn't valid in early 2022 when vaccines were already widely available and most teachers had already gotten vaccinated and boosted (for those who wanted it) The article was referencing a potential Chicago teachers strike being proposed by their union in January of 2022.

I'm aware - your post talked about the initial justification as just applying to children though, with the idea that once we figured out that COVID wasn't as dangerous for kids, that justification was removed. I wanted to clear that up.

If it's January 2022, and vaccinated and boosted teachers are claiming they're afraid to go back into the classroom (with a large number of students also being vaccinated at that point), what's the takeaway from that sentiment with regards to perceptions of vaccine efficacy?

Either A) the teachers just wanted to keep working from home (the most likely) or B) they didn't trust the protection of the vaccines as much as they claimed they did...which kind of undermines trying to force other people to get them.

How can one insist on everyone else doing it touting its benefits, but then say that even after they'd gotten 3 doses "I'm afraid I'll die if I come in contact with someone who has it"?

Later fears were more about passing COVID to immunocompromised/elderly/at-risk family members (or from teachers who were themselves immunocompromised, elderly, or otherwise at risk) - these are people who either could not be vaccinated or were at high enough risk of complications that, despite being vaccinated, they still didn't want to risk unnecessary exposure. And the official messaging on the vaccines has never been that being vaccinated prevents COVID - just that it reduces the chances that you'll contract it and generally results in a less severe case if you do get sick.

The initial stay-at-home orders came from both sides, and were well-founded. There were no vaccines, and nobody knew what we were up against. Keeping stringent measures in place clear into late-2021 was largely a "blue state" phenomenon.

I'm not aware of any states that had measures requiring WFH into late 2021.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Later fears were more about passing COVID to immunocompromised/elderly/at-risk family members (or from teachers who were themselves immunocompromised, elderly, or otherwise at risk) - these are people who either could not be vaccinated or were at high enough risk of complications that, despite being vaccinated, they still didn't want to risk unnecessary exposure. And the official messaging on the vaccines has never been that being vaccinated prevents COVID - just that it reduces the chances that you'll contract it and generally results in a less severe case if you do get sick.

I'd argue that the original messaging around it was mixed. Before it came out, the original goal was to have it be as effective as a flu shot (40-50% transmission prevention, and 80% effective a preventing hospitalization and death). When it was released, it outperformed those original benchmarks by a lot against the original strain and alpha. (something like 90% effective against transmission; 97% against hospitalization and death). Then the messaging changed a bit.

Did Biden Say You Won't Get COVID if You're Vaccinated?

Biden overstated the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccinations during a July 2021 town hall.

www.snopes.com

Unfortunately for society, when Delta showed up, the vaccination settled into that original "flu vaccine expectations" bracket and the messaging had to shift again.


But, given that we knew by the time Omicron rolled around that it was no longer primarily a tool of prevention, but rather a tool of severity reduction, the "what about the immunocompromised folks?" argument really didn't hold water unless the expectation was that everyone go back to staying at home again. Immunocompromised folks are certainly in an unfortunate position, but they had to deal with the same risk assessments pre-covid regarding bad flu seasons.

We can't structure our entire society around the 2% of people who have some level of immunocompromising factors.

I'm not aware of any states that had measures requiring WFH into late 2021.

The stringent measures I was referring to (that were kept in place a long time after it was justified) were things like California still mandating social distancing in restaurants clear into the 2nd half of 2021, school districts in various blue states still pushing for remote learning clear into the beginning of 2022.

For a patron, it may be not be "the end of the world" to have to wait a little longer in line to get a table, or to not be able to "mingle" in a bar like they could before, but for the person owning the business, mandating that you can only service 20 patrons at a time (when your preexisting business model was built around 40-50) is the difference between paying or not paying your mortgage.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

But, given that we knew by the time Omicron rolled around that it was no longer primarily a tool of prevention, but rather a tool of severity reduction, the "what about the immunocompromised folks?" argument really didn't hold water unless the expectation was that everyone go back to staying at home again. Immunocompromised folks are certainly in an unfortunate position, but they had to deal with the same risk assessments pre-covid regarding bad flu seasons.

Teachers tend to have more issues with illnesses given that they spend 8-10 hours in close proximity to 20-40 children who don't always do the best job of washing hands or covering their mouths when they cough. And while the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine is similar to that of the flu vaccines, the virus itself remains ~3-4x more deadly than the flu. That changes the risk assessment.

We can't structure our entire society around the 2% of people who have some level of immunocompromising factors.

I agree, but that's not what this conversation is about. Remember, we're talking about whether the Left used COVID to try to push through systematic changes to society.

The stringent measures I was referring to (that were kept in place a long time after it was justified) were things like California still mandating social distancing in restaurants clear into the 2nd half of 2021, school districts in various blue states still pushing for remote learning clear into the beginning of 2022.

For a patron, it may be not be "the end of the world" to have to wait a little longer in line to get a table, or to not be able to "mingle" in a bar like they could before, but for the person owning the business, mandating that you can only service 20 patrons at a time (when your preexisting business model was built around 40-50) is the difference between paying or not paying your mortgage.

None of this has anything to do with your original claim that the Left used COVID to push through a systematic shift to WFH.

 

[renniks]

Hey guys,
This is something I've realized Liberals start from the "Sex,Alcohol, Rock and Rolls." Attitude, however, they soon devolved into dislike anyone who questions, "Intersectionality." A lot of this Clowns think they are "edgy" by being blasphemous about Religion and Religious people. Since they believe religious people have a lot of "taboos."

However, the opposite is the case. "Progressives" since to have the most taboos. They make fun of Religions and think doing so is edgy. However, they have tons of taboos from being unable to joke around about minorities even more extreme to being unable of talking about overweight people or disabled people.

Good observation. They actually are more authoritarian than the people they call authoritarians.
They claim to want freedom but it's actually only their version of slavery.