Let’s duplicate the weather radio broadcasts on the AM bands and leave the commercial stuff on the internet/podcasts in order to maximize safety, then. I’m sure the folks lobbying for this bill like the Salem Media Group wouldn’t mind.
Reorganizing the spectrum to appease one party is not only unlikely to pass with bipartisan support, but would also decrease safety because existing signage is for messages broadcast on the spectrum organized as it is right now.
You need to adjust for the total # of infections. We can also talk about the of covid/with COVID distinction but frankly we don’t even need to go there. But suffice to say Influenza and COVID deaths are measured very differently
This is precisely correct, especially wrt the cost/benefit. The antibody tests won't tell you when you were infected, with which variant, or how much viral dose, on top of their imperfect accuracy. And if you're going to bother going to a hospital to get your blood drawn, why not just... get the shot and remove all doubt?
Does the calculus change in the countries where vaccines are basically nonexistant? Yes, of course. But vaccines in the US are as nearly easy to get as Gatorade now, and have been for several months. We spent many billions making it that way - we don't need to turn around and start spending even more money on pox party incentives.
I think it's also important to note that there was no change in physical distancing seen in indoor environments (mosques) - maybe due to the fact that it's obviously easier to spread out when outdoors. I think we are fairly confident by now that the vast majority of spread occurs indoors [1].
With three out of those four states having vaccination rates that are now above average, how can you be sure that an independent safety review didn't have the opposite effect?
At this point it’s impossible to say what the effect would have been. The states that have the above average rates are all very blue and that tracks with the current political winds of the democrats regarding vaccines. The political opinion on vaccines immediately shifted 180 degrees on Biden’s win, because there there was no need to resist Trump and vaccine hesitancy was a tactic being employed by the resisters.
Independent review may have convinced some who were hesitant but I suspect they would have been the folks independently hesitant as opposed to the “politically hesitant”. The politically hesitant would hold out until their trusted party authorities blessed the vaccines.
That's not what this is about. In both cases, the state is forcing an company to do something they don't want. The only difference is that you agree with the one but not the other.
Yes, because the difference is that they are essentially immutable personal traits. The parent was presenting this scenario as an equivalent one and I don't think they are.
Religion is a protected class to stop zealots from waging wars on each other, got to nip it in the bud before tension builds up. It is a very rational reason even if the protection shouldn't be needed in theory.
In some cases (e.g. Jews, Amish) the lines between race/religion/national origin become pretty blurry. I agree that it's the most ambiguous of the classes, though.
It's technically true that you could find some way to dye your skin a different colour, but I don't think most people would find that to be a realistic solution to anything.
It is in some cases (such as employment) in certain states. Ironically they were often enacted by left wing legislators, but are now being used to defend right wingers.
Well, they only measured the CO2 content within the mask. The mechanisms were not studied, so you can't make conclusions, and thus you are unable to say whether it is or is not true. (i.e. you can't say anything about filtering capability, it's not what they studied) All they found was a correlation between mask usage and CO2 concentration that exceeds the government safety levely by several multiples within a few minutes. I suspect this has to do with the rate of transmission, but again I cannot make any definitive statements without further studies.
I'm not sure those states are good examples when their governors were happy to impose restrictions on private businesses and remove their freedom of choice wrt proof of vaccination - to the complaint of the Cato Institute, no less.
