Regarding “open ended” vaccination mandates, in the Twitter thread you link to, some people draw the analogy with car inspections (safety and emissions). That gives me an idea: what if, moving forward, we mandated annual physicals instead of getting into the weeds on who is and isn’t considered fully vaccinated? Or rather, let individual doctors get in the weeds, so that the rest of us don’t have to? Physicians could take everything into account—medical history, age, sex, weight, antibody levels if necessary, prior infections, conditions that might compromise immunity—and based on all of that, give you clearance for a certain period of time. I think an “abstraction layer” could be extremely beneficial.
People who aren’t able to pass the physical exam due to underlying conditions would be presumptively eligible for public assistance, for their own safety and the safety of others (even Typhoid Mary was eventually given a nice little cottage and a job—it worked a lot better than the punitive approach).
If a doctor is found to be “passing” too many people or not vaccinating enough people, that would be evident to regulators.
I think you have too much faith in doctors and their ability and willingness to put a lot of thought and judgement into low-paid parts of health care. And I KNOW you have too much faith in regulators’ ability or willingness to … do almost anything useful, especially things that require judgement or speed of action.
[edit to add] you may be using a heuristic of projecting from doctors and regulation that you regularly encounter. But for this kind of question, you need to consider the bottom part of the curve, not the average or common parts.
Sorry, my intent was to propose a middle ground reflecting Zvi’s discomfort with specific vaccine mandates targeted at the individual, indefinitely. There’s a lot to be said for separating “code” from “regulations”. We see this with a lot of regulations related to fire codes, safety standards, etc. E.g. NIST, NFPA, DSM, etc. Is that a little clearer?
So this is the kind of slippery slope that makes me think we might be better off mandating annual physicals—France is requiring boosters, but only for people over 65.
I really don’t want this level of granularity/micromanagement by the government. Once you start mandating boosters for some people but not for others, depending on the “state of the art” it seems like it’s better to punt that responsibility (keeping up with the latest science) to individuals and their primary care doctors. I certainly don’t want to live in a world where the government has specific requirements depending on sex, or BMI, or whether you’re immunocompromised. However I would be totally OK with the government knowing that I consulted with my physician in the past year, who gave me the all-clear. Nice and binary.
Regarding “open ended” vaccination mandates, in the Twitter thread you link to, some people draw the analogy with car inspections (safety and emissions). That gives me an idea: what if, moving forward, we mandated annual physicals instead of getting into the weeds on who is and isn’t considered fully vaccinated? Or rather, let individual doctors get in the weeds, so that the rest of us don’t have to? Physicians could take everything into account—medical history, age, sex, weight, antibody levels if necessary, prior infections, conditions that might compromise immunity—and based on all of that, give you clearance for a certain period of time. I think an “abstraction layer” could be extremely beneficial.
People who aren’t able to pass the physical exam due to underlying conditions would be presumptively eligible for public assistance, for their own safety and the safety of others (even Typhoid Mary was eventually given a nice little cottage and a job—it worked a lot better than the punitive approach).
If a doctor is found to be “passing” too many people or not vaccinating enough people, that would be evident to regulators.
I think you have too much faith in doctors and their ability and willingness to put a lot of thought and judgement into low-paid parts of health care. And I KNOW you have too much faith in regulators’ ability or willingness to … do almost anything useful, especially things that require judgement or speed of action.
[edit to add] you may be using a heuristic of projecting from doctors and regulation that you regularly encounter. But for this kind of question, you need to consider the bottom part of the curve, not the average or common parts.
Sorry, my intent was to propose a middle ground reflecting Zvi’s discomfort with specific vaccine mandates targeted at the individual, indefinitely. There’s a lot to be said for separating “code” from “regulations”. We see this with a lot of regulations related to fire codes, safety standards, etc. E.g. NIST, NFPA, DSM, etc. Is that a little clearer?
So this is the kind of slippery slope that makes me think we might be better off mandating annual physicals—France is requiring boosters, but only for people over 65.
https://nyti.ms/309jD1b
I really don’t want this level of granularity/micromanagement by the government. Once you start mandating boosters for some people but not for others, depending on the “state of the art” it seems like it’s better to punt that responsibility (keeping up with the latest science) to individuals and their primary care doctors. I certainly don’t want to live in a world where the government has specific requirements depending on sex, or BMI, or whether you’re immunocompromised. However I would be totally OK with the government knowing that I consulted with my physician in the past year, who gave me the all-clear. Nice and binary.
Car inspections cost less than a 100 dollars. How much will this mandated physical cost? Do we even have more doctors than automechanics?
I mean, some of this could be delegated to physician assistants, nurses, etc.