Proof of COVID vaccination should never be required for any purpose by either the government or any private entity.
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two weeks
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
Burdens are equal.
- Fohse 2021 shows that COVID vaccines weaken our innate immune system, not just in relation to SARS-CoV-2 but also in relation to other viral & bacterial infections.
- Liang 2021 shows that virome interference has been directly associated with human disease, including development of paediatric type 1 diabetes, growth stunting in children, coeliac disease, and inflammatory bowel disease, among many others, including unknowns. To the extent COVID vaccines interfere with the virome, these problems may show up down-the-road, including in the progeny of vaccinated individuals.
- Lei 2021 shows that spike protein attacks cells in our body. This means that vaccination directly leads to harm in our body, as it causes the production of millions of spike protein. This vaccine-induced spike protein could end up anywhere in the body, including our vascular system, or brains -- again, the potential consequences are unforeseeable & unknown at this time.
- Cassen 2021 shows that COVID vaccination increases risk of autoimmunity, prion diseases, as well as other types of viral infections. These consequences won't show up for years after vaccination, so we won't know how widespread the damage until it's too late.
- Bossche 2021 shows that mass vaccination could lead to "immune escape" as a result of weakening our innate immunity. The more we use vaccines to immunize people, the more we create a disordered relationship to the virome, increasing the likelihood of viral resistance to vaccines due to replication/transmission of viral variants. As a result, mass COVID vaccination could engineer an outcome similar to antibiotic resistance, "one of the biggest public health challenges of our time," predicted to cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050. See CDC 2021. This could threaten human existence itself.
- Yeadon 2021 shows that vaccination-induced spike protein leads to a range of abnormalities in people who were previously healthy, including unusual blood clots and thromboembolic events in people younger than 50.
Re: Con's Case
1. Who are vaccine credentials for?
Vaccine credentials don't benefit voluntarily-vaccinated individuals who are protected from COVID. Nor do they benefit unvaccinated or involuntarily-vaccinated individuals who prefer to assume the risk of COVID infection.
This leaves a tiny group of people who might benefit: vaccinated individuals who aren't protected from COVID. As Con's source explains, “a 95% vaccine efficacy means that instead of 1000 COVID cases in a population of 100,000 without vaccine (from the placebo … approximately 1% would be ill with COVID and 99% would not) we would expect 50 cases.” This is the number of vulnerable people (about 5% of 1% of vaccinated individuals), a number much lower than Con suggests.
How do these people fare in a world with vaccine credentials vs one without? Con doesn't say. Con offers no evidence that asymptomatic unvaccinated individuals are more likely to transmit than asymptomatic vaccinated individuals. Con ignores the potential of testing/quarantines to limit risks. And Con ignores implementation problems, including high likelihood of fraudulent credentials, inevitable malfunctions that exclude vaccinated individuals, and potential discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, disability, gender, or socioeconomics. If there's a benefit to vaccine credentials, it's unclear & highly speculative. Con can't prove that vaccine credentials would save even one life.
2. Con fails to justify mandatory vaccination.
When governments and/or private entities condition participation in essential activities (e.g. education, healthcare, work, travel) on proof of vaccination, proof functions as a mandatory vaccination program (or as a severe & discriminatory restriction on participation in essential activities). Con never justifies this.
Con never shows that COVID presents significant enough risks (as explained in R1, COVID presents less risk than the flu for people under the age of 70). And Con fails to show that COVID can't be controlled by other means, including voluntary vaccination, natural immunity, masking, testing, and/or quarantining. COVID cases are plummeting, suggesting that these less burdensome options are sufficient. See CIDRAP 2021.
In a world in which the virus is all but eliminated, a tiny risk to a tiny group of people can't outweigh our individual rights to self-determination & bodily integrity. In the rare event that COVID causes deadly disease, patients are allowed to refuse medical treatment, even if doing so leads to certain death. If that doesn't outweigh, why should we limit these rights here?
Yes, governments have mandated vaccines in the past. But that doesn't mean they should have. And it doesn't mean they should here. Unlike past vaccines like MMR or meningitis, COVID vaccines don't require widespread vaccination to be effective. As Con's sources show, COVID vaccines protect individuals against severe disease regardless of whether others are vaccinated.
Con ignores ethical issues with human medical experimentation, privacy rights (showing that these rights aren't absolute doesn't justify abridging them without extensive justification), as well as interference with sincerely held religious beliefs. Con also fails to offer a limiting principle. Will the local bar be allowed to require proof? What about grocery stores? Could life become a series of vaccine checkpoints, all so that we can provide a tiny group of people with a false sense of increased safety? Life cannot require zero COVID risk to go on. At some point, we must choose to uphold basic rights & ethical principles rather than seeking zero risk at increasingly greater costs.
In short:
Given the absolute in the resolution (never, ... for any purpose), with the ability to forgo quarantines and related burdens when crossing borders easily carried the day.
At length:
Pro opens with an attack on the general populace getting vaccinated at all. Which bridges to an appeal that receiving the vaccines shouldn't be forced. And finally something toward BoP that forcing people to show proof would likewise be a violation of peoples rights... And then back to his opinions against getting vaccinated at all for the majority of R1.
Con swiftly gets to topical benefits of forgoing otherwise necessary quarantines for individuals who have already received the vaccine, and bridges to current practice of needing certain vaccines in order to go to school. His assumed benefit of displaying vaccines encourages more people to be vaccinated, is an area of dispute that is a fine example of scope creep.
R2 opens with pro firmly trying to move the goalposts to a related topic of mandatory vaccinations, as opposed to ever being required to show proof if vaccinated. He swiftly moves onto SJW pathos appeals (getting vaccinated is racist, sexist, etc. Sadly Godwin's Law applies, so I don't know if this was an attempt at humor). He does however make a good point that in light of his attacks on the vaccine, con has not proven proof of vaccinations will outright save lives. He then meanders off topic to complain that con has not proven the vaccine itself should be mandatory. He even argues that catching some strains might be beneficial (an interesting idea, but too buried in so much off topic stuff).
Con does a swift killing blow with a reminder that the topic as worded is inclusive to any future covid vaccine which even pro might approve of (this was his opening last round, and was dropped). He repeats his effective appeal to avoiding quarantines and related benefits. He moves back onto explaining schools and stuff... But lets face it, consideration of the resolution is already too far in con's favor unless he slides in a major concession at the end.
To be clear, I believe the resolution dealt with "Proof of COVID vaccination," as opposed to mandatory vaccination in it of itself. If a desired debate is that we shouldn't force everyone to get the currently available vaccines, that is what the resolution should be.
IMO if the vaccine is good or bad, people already have it. A debate on proving you already have it, should focus on that instead of if it was a mistake to get it.
Remind me to vote on this, and I will.
Appreciate that, though just recognize that this is pretty perfectly in my wheelhouse. I'm a virologist (mostly involving plants, but still) and policy debates are my jam.
You are clearly superior.