Monday, November 22, 2021

The Indefensibility of Post-Vaccine Lockdowns

Reasonable people may disagree about the justifiability of early-pandemic lockdowns (while awaiting the availability of vaccines), but this is just nuts:

Austrian officials’ decision to impose a lockdown that will last at least 10 days and as many as 20 came after months of struggling attempts to halt the contagion through widespread testing and partial restrictions. Starting Monday, public life in the country is to come to a halt, with people allowed to leave their homes only to go to work or to procure groceries or medicines.

What's the justification for this?  When vaccines are freely available to all, Covid isn't a serious threat except to those who refuse the vaccine, and thereby accept personal responsibility for the consequences. If policymakers are worried about hospital over-crowding, unvaccinated adults suffering complications from Covid should go to the back of the line.  If the unvaccinated are not willing to accept the risk of death due to a lack of hospital beds, they can either (i) get vaccinated, or (ii) stay home or take other precautions while local case rates are high.  But if they insist on risking their health, and get seriously ill as a result, they've no-one to blame but themselves.  It's simply not reasonable to infringe upon everyone's liberties for fear of harms that individuals have it within their own power to mitigate or avoid.

3 comments:

  1. One competing consideration: A policy of requiring non-vaccinated adults to go to the back of the line would impose on some the burden of denying life-saving care to those in need of it. Even if the denial is justified, I can scarcely imagine how difficult it would be. Perhaps this consideration is not sufficiently strong to justify even the temporary infringement of liberty involved in the lockdown, but I think it is often overlooked in these discussions.

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  2. A couple of considerations that you've neglected to mention that have an impact on your argument:

    1. When vaccines are freely available to all
    - They're not, only people aged over 12 years of age are able to be vaccinated in Australia
    - They're not, there are significant social and policy barriers to vaccination in remote communities, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
    - They're not, there are some populations where vaccinations are medically discouraged from being vaccinated (people who have certain diseases, etc.)

    2. Covid isn't a serious threat except to those who refuse the vaccine, and thereby accept personal responsibility for the consequences
    - as at 1 above, there are a large number of people who cannot obtain the vaccine, regardless of whether they want it or refuse it
    - it's not sound to claim that people who want the vaccine, but are not allowed or able to obtain it, accept personal responsibility for the consequences
    - It's not sound to claim that COVID isn't a serious threat except to those who refuse the vaccine. The populations at 1 above remain seriously threatened by a Covid infection.

    3. It's simply not reasonable to infringe upon everyone's liberties for fear of harms that individuals have it within their own power to mitigate or avoid.
    - As at 1 and 2 above, it is not the case that all individuals have it within their own power to mitigate or avoid (i.e. get vaccinated.)

    Not trying to diminish your argument, just that it's lacking without addressing these points.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Simon, I don't know about the specifically Australian context (note that the OP referenced Austria, not Australia -- though tbh Austria might also have some country-specific factors that I'm unaware of).

      If it's really true there that the vaccines aren't relevantly available to all significantly threatened populations, then sure, my argument simply wouldn't apply in that context -- it isn't a "post-vaccine" scenario yet.

      A couple of possible points of disagreement:

      (1) COVID is not a serious risk to children. (Of course, it poses some non-zero risk, but so do bookcases. I'd guess most kids are at greater risk from falling furniture than from Covid. It's the sort of thing it makes sense for their parents to take reasonable precautions over. But that's not at all the same thing as the level of risk that could justify population-wide suspensions of basic liberties.)

      (2) What are "social" barriers to vaccination? I don't believe that cultural attitudes of distrust (as are rampant amongst U.S. anti-vaxxers, for example) excuse one from the personal responsibility to take a vaccine that is physically available in one's locality.

      If the vaccines aren't physically available, that's of course another matter (and goes back to my original comment about whether or not we're talking about a genuinely post-vaccine society).

      (3) "there are some populations where vaccinations are medically discouraged from being vaccinated"

      Is that true? When I briefly tried looking into it, I couldn't find any examples. Of course, I'm not a medical expert; I'd be interested to hear experts' opinions on whether there are really any conditions for which the vaccine poses a greater threat than covid does. (My naive assumption would be that everyone at significant risk from covid should get vaccinated, even if the vaccine is not totally risk-free for some individuals.)

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