Is your economy fully open yet? What are the restrictions like currently?

it's because these protests are seen as right or far right and adolf merkel hates that.

if those were muslims, the police would have marched with them, protected them, embraced them, exchanged gifts and so on.

things are pretty open, a few states have open clubs even with tests, proof of vaccination or both and limited number of people

so if you dont mind jumping through hoops like a trained monkey getting tested or waiving your vaccine passport around you can do most stuff

even amateur football is back with spectators

the way its currently going the state is creating an environment, where businesses will be forced to demand vaccine passports so they can claim the business owners "freely decided" to do it

they will make the shot mandatory if you dont want to live like a caveman

the most recent stupidity: the health ministers want to vaccinate children despite the german vaccine commission not being in favor of it

so yeah, the exact same "listen to science!!!!" people do whatever the fuck they want

To be fair: the vaccine commission not recommending child vaccinations does not imply that they advice against them - only that there is not enough data for an explicit and unequivocal recommendation.

Other than that, I agree. All across Europe, politicians more or less want to make vaccines mandatory, but they're too much of a coward to openly do so. Hence, they resort to nudging and teasing strategies which try to make life so unpleasant or even impracticable for the unvaccinated that they're forced give in.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 2 2021 01:05pm

you call it cowardice, i call it living in a society where the individual has a choice concerning their healthcare decisions. not surprised you don't get the difference though.

of course it's a fine balancing act between individual freedom and general public interest, and this is a borderline issue, since selfish pricks like ampoo and all the other science-denying nutjobs are endangering their fellow citizens with their behaviour. at the end of the day i think they have a right to be irresponsible little shitheads. i certainly oppose mandatory vaccinations, even though it's clear that getting everyone vaccinated would be the safest and fastest way out of the pandemic.

the funny thing is: had merkel decided to try and make vaccines mandatory, you'd be screaming bloody murder and going on about tyranny and fascism. since she didn't, you call it "cowardice". there's literally nothing she could have done you wouldn't bitch about, admit it.

also, i'd love to hear what exactly you think is making life "unpleasant and impracticable" specifically for anti-vaxxers in order to "force" them to get their shots. to me it seems like those people are responsible for many of the inconveniences that vaccinated people still have to endure - now and in the forseeable future.

This post was edited by fender on Aug 2 2021 02:40pm

I am against mandatory vaccination and also against making them quasi-mandatory by requiring the unvaccinated to constantly provide tests for which they have to pay, or by making clubs/gyms/restaurants inaccessible for the unvaccinated (see, e.g., the plans in France and Italy). So while I would have blasted Merkel for a vaccine mandate, I still prefer politicians being upfront about it and taking the responsibility over hiding behind private businesses and letting those do the dirty work.


Side note: restrictions are not something the vaccinated "have" to endure now and for the forseeable future - these restrictions are a political decision, we could follow the lead of the UK, drop all restrictions and still not see our healthcare system overrun. The original goal of flattening the curve has already been achieved. Now, I would actually keep up mild restrictions until every eligible person really had the chance to get vaccinated, which should take until the end of this month or so. But once the vaccination campaign wraps up, all restriction have to go imho, irrespective from the vaccination rate we achieve by then. If the antivaxxers prefer to deal with the infection than with the vaccine, then so be it.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 2 2021 03:03pm

merkel has been pretty upfront about being in favour of everyone getting vaccinated, i really don't know where you see the deception / hiding part. you can have a principled stance on being in favour of something but still leaving the choice to the individual. you're just trying to find something to criticise her anyway, because you're in the tucker carlson kind of grifter / hack category: you're smart enough to have gotten the vaccine yourself, because you know it protects you and you know it's the intelligent choice - but you have to pander to the coo coo crowd because they are your political allies.

btw, providing tests OR documentation of vaccination is mandatory for EVERYONE, not just anti-vaxxers. so please tell me what we're doing here in germany to make life "unpleasant and impracticable" for antivaxxers specifically, because i only see how THEY make MY life more unpleasant and impracticable. oh, and cases are currently spiking in the uk, even though they have been considerably quicker with offering everyone a vaccination AND have a higher vaccination rate, the 2nd highest worldwide afaik - not that you haven't already admitted that some of the measures (obviously) still make a lot of sense...

The UK has led in every way during the pandemic in a surprisingly consistent way:

Vaccine development and effective drugs against COVID-19
Vaccination rate
Death rate
Biggest economic contraction
Biggest economic recovery
Biggest relaxation of restrictions with increasing infections (no country attempted it on this scale before and it looks like it may have paid off)

That's the thing: they are trying to implement rules which will, in practice, leave no one a choice. Poorer antivaxxers will not be able to afford the 3++ tests per week for every member of their family. Places like restaurants, gyms and clubs will eventually no longer be accessible with a negative test and become vaccinated-only affairs. Various politicians dropped hints in this direction the last few days.

Or take a look at the recent law for returning vacationers: people coming back to Germany from a high-incidence country are subject to a minimum quarantine of 5 days if they are unvaccinated; even a negative test after the first day cannot shorten this. Since all our neighboring countries will become high-incidence this winter and almost no one can afford to just sit out a 5 day quarantine, this recent law will effectively mean that the unvaccinated cannot travel abroad this winter.


See the explanations above. Regarding the vaccination rate: according to my sources, the UK has 69% of its population with the first shot and 56.5% fully vaccinated. In Germany, the corresponding values are 61.7%/52.2%. So the difference is not all that large. Note that the Brits tend to report their vaccination rate with regard to their adult population, which makes the numbers seem bigger.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 2 2021 03:36pm