The Coronavirus, not the beer

[acesfull86]

So this gentleman was so dedicated to teaching in person last year that he volunteered to do so even in the face of the risks.

And now he is willing to give up this thing that he was so dedicated to in order to avoid a harmless jab?

Sounds like there might be a little ideology behind all this.

Just a wee bit.

Is it harmless though? Maybe it is. I’m not sure.

You often talk about people getting the jab because of the positive externalities to the rest of society. It’s not clear to me that a vaccine to this person is going to bestow additional benefits to society above and beyond the natural immunity he currently has from being infected.

 

[nsacpi]

Is it harmless though? Maybe it is. I’m not sure.

You often talk about people getting the jab because of the positive externalities to the rest of society. It’s not clear to me that a vaccine to this person is going to bestow additional benefits to society above and beyond the natural immunity he currently has from being infected.

This is a case of advocating an additional layer of administrative complexity (anti bodies testing). In principle, it makes sense. In reality, this is ideologically driven and we all know it.

Imagine a tax on junk food. I could see the good professor arguing that the tax should only apply to people who are actually obese and not to healthy slender people like him. So stores selling junk food should measure each customer's body mass index before hitting them with the tax. His has a point, but I'm not inclined to give him much credit for it. He should be honest and fess up that he has an ideological opposition to the tax.

He valued teaching in person so much he was willing to take risks last year. Now all of a sudden he has a different take on things. I smell a rat.

Btw the prof has his rights to be an anti-vaxxer. I'm just advocating for his expressing that opposition in an intellectually honest manner. I would think that as a distinguished academic he would be strongly committed to upholding intellectual honesty.

 

[sturg33]

This is a policy the lecturing buffoon thinks is valuable.

He simply wants obedience from the peasants

[tw]1423928655646965760[/tw]

 

[acesfull86]

This is a case of advocating an additional layer of administrative complexity (anti bodies testing). In principle, it makes sense. In reality, this is ideologically driven and we all know it.

Imagine a tax on junk food. I could see the good professor arguing that the tax should only apply to people who are actually obese and not to healthy slender people like him. So stores selling junk food should measure each customer's body mass index before hitting them with the tax. His has a point, but I'm not inclined to give him much credit for it.

He valued teaching in person so much he was willing to take risks last year. Now all of a sudden he has a different take on things. I smell a rat.

I think we're jumping from

(1) We have vaccines available to all who want them and they're almost impossibly good. You now have the option to protect yourself from death and serious illness at a level greater than most other communicable diseases floating around in the air.

to

(2) Everyone eligible must take the vaccine to participate in normal society because we've calculated a cost-benefit analysis on limited information and are insisting that it applies to all in all cases (except for a tiny number of exceptions on religious grounds)

…and the jump is occurring a little too quickly for me.

 

[sturg33]

This is a case of advocating an additional layer of administrative complexity (anti bodies testing). In principle, it makes sense. In reality, this is ideologically driven and we all know it.

Imagine a tax on junk food. I could see the good professor arguing that the tax should only apply to people who are actually obese and not to healthy slender people like him. So stores selling junk food should measure each customer's body mass index before hitting them with the tax. His has a point, but I'm not inclined to give him much credit for it. He should be honest and fess up that he has an ideological opposition to the tax.

He valued teaching in person so much he was willing to take risks last year. Now all of a sudden he has a different take on things. I smell a rat.

Not everyone thinks covid is a death sentence.

Hard to believe I know

Quick go find another death to celebrate

 

[thethe]

I think we're jumping from

(1) We have vaccines available to all who want them and they're almost impossibly good. You now have the option to protect yourself from death and serious illness

to

(2) Everyone eligible must take the vaccine to participate in normal society because we've calculated a cost-benefit analysis on limited information and are insisting that it applies to all in all cases (except for a tiny number of exceptions on religious grounds)

…and the jump is occurring a little too quickly for me.

Thats why you can never give an inch. These are the kinds of things wingnuts like me warn about. The goal is control and seeing how much they can take.

 

[sturg33]

I think we're jumping from

(1) We have vaccines available to all who want them and they're almost impossibly good. You now have the option to protect yourself from death and serious illness

to

(2) Everyone eligible must take the vaccine to participate in normal society because we've calculated a cost-benefit analysis on limited information and are insisting that it applies to all in all cases (except for a tiny number of exceptions on religious grounds)

…and the jump is occurring a little too quickly for me.

Correct. He is a tyrant.

 

[nsacpi]

I think we're jumping from

(1) We have vaccines available to all who want them and they're almost impossibly good. You now have the option to protect yourself from death and serious illness at a level greater than most other communicable diseases floating around in the air.

to

(2) Everyone eligible must take the vaccine to participate in normal society because we've calculated a cost-benefit analysis on limited information and are insisting that it applies to all in all cases (except for a tiny number of exceptions on religious grounds)

…and the jump is occurring a little too quickly for me.

That's one way to characterize it.

The way I would put it is this. There are large externalities involved. I've explained in other posts that this includes the cost of caring for people sick with covid (the rest of us are footing most of that bill) and the cost of supporting those who become disabled (also a cost born by society). Plus the added risk of dangerous variants if we don't do a better job of reducing infections.

From that it follows that good public policy involves incentivizing taking the vaccine. It is a simple proposition. And I've further advocated doing this in a very simple and elegant way. Giving people who choose to vaccinate cold hard cash. That way we don't have to get involved in these passive aggressive arguments about the good professor's rights to an antibodies testing regime, the right to fly commercial, etc. If we make the cash reward sufficiently generous we don't have to worry about these other more problematic methods for incentivizing taking the vaccine. People like the good professor will be able to participate in normal society but will be slightly poorer because ultimately they will be paying for the cash bonus to the rest of us. If he is not an economics professor, he may never even realize this. Win-win.

 

[sturg33]

Do you believe forcing someone against their will to take a medicine would qualify as an "externality"?

 

[sturg33]

Good clip for Rogan... Addressing losers like the lecturer

[tw]1423828853877837833[/tw]

 

[nsacpi]

Do you believe forcing someone against their will to take a medicine would qualify as an "externality"?

i think that qualifies as an idiosyncratic use of the word externality

 

[sturg33]

Right and politicians will never use that power again!

LOL such a naive stupid guy

 

[thethe]

People have certainly shown their true character.

 

[acesfull86]

That's one way to characterize it.

The way I would put it is this. There are large externalities involved. I've explained in other posts that this includes the cost of caring for people sick with covid (the rest of us are footing most of that bill) and the cost of supporting those who become disabled (also a cost born by society). Plus the added risk of dangerous variants if we don't do a better job of reducing infections.

From that it follows that good public policy involves incentivizing taking the vaccine. It is a simple proposition. And I've further advocated doing this in a very simple and elegant way. Giving people who choose to vaccinate cold hard cash. That way we don't have to get involved in these passive aggressive arguments about the good professor's rights to an antibodies testing regime, the right to fly commercial, etc. If we make the cash reward sufficiently generous we don't have to worry about these other more problematic methods for incentivizing taking the vaccine. People like the good professor will be able to participate in normal society but will be slightly poorer because ultimately they will be paying for the cash bonus to the rest of us. If he is not an economics professor, he may never even realize this. Win-win.

I agree with most of that.

But, the good professor may have already "done his duty" by getting COVID and recovering from it. His natural immunity (for as long as it lasts) is conferring the positive externality on society. Rushing to jab him with a vaccine might not confer any additional benefit to him privately or society at large.

I don't think that means we should send him a check for getting sick and not dying, but I also don't know that it means he should have to pay the cash bonus for others, or be forced to take a vaccine that he doesn't need or risk not being able to do his job.

 

[nsacpi]

I'll give one last analogy to illustrate some of the issues at work.

Imagine there is an insurance pool consisting of one half people who never exercise and one half who exercise regularly. As you can imagine, there is a significant transfer taking place from the people who exercise to those who don't. That's why many health insurance plans offer incentives such as subsidies for gym membership. Everyone in the pool benefits from those subsidies because they reduce the overall costs of the insurance plan.

The same thing is going on right now with the giant insurance pool known as the United States of America. Half are vaccinated and half are not. And this second group is getting sick and incurring medical costs at a much higher rate. This imposes a transfer from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. So we need a subsidy or incentive for vaccination analogous to the subsidy for joining the gym

This doesn't even take into account other forms of externalities such as the increased risk of dangerous variants as a result of large parts of the population choosing not to vaccinate.

 

[CK86]

I'm not a fan of mandating vaccines for people. If a person doesn't want it, they shouldn't have to get it. They'll have to live with the consequences if they get sick but that's their choice to risk it.

I got mine as soon as I could in March simply because I looked at it from a financial standpoint. If I was sick enough that I needed to go to the doctor, I'm out probably $200 (my insurance at the time sucked). If I get hospitalized, that's a minimum of $500 before any treatment even happens. If I end up staying for multiple days, suddenly I'm in the several thousands of dollars range and my financial situation goes from okay to hell. So strictly from a financial standpoint, getting the vaccine was an easy choice for me.

 

[nsacpi]

I agree with most of that.

But, the good professor may have already "done his duty" by getting COVID and recovering from it. His natural immunity (for as long as it lasts) is conferring the positive externality on society. Rushing to jab him with a vaccine might not confer any additional benefit to him privately or society at large.

I don't think that means we should send him a check for getting sick and not dying, but I also don't know that it means he should have to pay the cash bonus for others, or be forced to take a vaccine that he doesn't need or risk not being able to do his job.

Let's just say I have a more jaundiced view of the professor's true motivations in this little debate.

 

[thethe]

I'll give one last analogy to illustrate some of the issues at work.

Imagine there is an insurance pool consisting of one half people who never exercise and one half who exercise regularly. As you can imagine, there is a significant transfer taking place from the people who exercise to those who don't. That's why many health insurance plans offer incentives such as subsidies for gym membership. Everyone in the pool benefits from those subsidies because they reduce the overall costs of the insurance plan.

The same thing is going on right now with the giant insurance pool known as the United States of America. Half are vaccinated and half are not. And this second group is getting sick and incurring medical costs at a much higher rate. This imposes a transfer from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. So we need a subsidy or incentive for vaccination analogous to the subsidy for joining the gym

This doesn't even take into account other forms of externalities such as the increased risk of dangerous variants as a result of large parts of the population choosing not to vaccinate.

There exists a significant subset within the unvaccinated population that still have lower risks than a subset of the vaccinated population.

 

[acesfull86]

I'll give one last analogy to illustrate some of the issues at work.

Imagine there is an insurance pool consisting of one half people who never exercise and one half who exercise regularly. As you can imagine, there is a significant transfer taking place from the people who exercise to those who don't. That's why many health insurance plans offer incentives such as subsidies for gym membership. Everyone in the pool benefits from those subsidies because they reduce the overall costs of the insurance plan.

The same thing is going on right now with the giant insurance pool known as the United States of America. Half are vaccinated and half are not. And this second group is getting sick and incurring medical costs at a much higher rate. This imposes a transfer from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. So we need a subsidy or incentive for vaccination analogous to the subsidy for joining the gym

This doesn't even take into account other forms of externalities such as the increased risk of dangerous variants as a result of large parts of the population choosing not to vaccinate.

People who are running 20 miles a week and doing weight training in their homes should have a right to prove they're healthy, not be forced into a gym membership that may or may not provide any incremental benefit (and could possibly come at a cost)

 

[acesfull86]

Let's just say I have a more jaundiced view of the professor's true motivations in this little debate.

He's almost certainly an ideologue, but there are millions of others who have recovered from COVID and are now being pressured into a vaccine that they may or may not actually need based mostly on benefits that may or may not be conferred to the rest of us.

The CDC says getting the shots are perfectly safe for people who have recovered from COVID (provided they wait 90 days if they received certain treatments). I dunno, they're probably right, but it's a little early in a game where the best guidance seems to change by the hour.