New York City - New Mandates

[Gooseandamoose]

For anyone who hasn't seen it on the news, NYC mayor Bill de Blasio announced two new vaccine mandates yesterday for New York city

1. All private sector employees will have to be vaccinated without testing as a substitute. This is in addition to the mandates for many public sector workers that are already in place.

1. All children from 5 and up will have to be vaccinated with one shot to access indoor dining, museums and indoor entertainment venues. In addition, "Children between 5 and 11 will also be required to get vaccinated to participate in high-risk extracurricular activities. These activities include sports, band, orchestra, and dance. "

So that's pretty much everyone that will need to be vaccinated to work (unless self employed for the time being anyway) or do anything indoors in NYC, including kids from 5 and up.

Total insanity. Also going to scurper a lot of family holidays to NYC!

I'm half way there and I definitely think a child's life should be prioritised over mine if it came to it. I've had a lot more years.

I don't even much like children ffs. You'd think Mumsnet would get it though.

Vaccine immunity wanes very rapidly. Are we really happy for kids to be getting boosters every few months? If not then what’s the point of a vaccine that wanes after 3 months or so?

This is my main concern ATM.

We've had the vaccines + booster. But I feel a bit uneasy at how fast things are moving. We're being asked to make decisions about our own health with very little time to carry out any research. One second S. Gilbert says boosters are not needed for healthy individuals (she must know of all people, right?) the next everyone should have a booster with X or Y vaccine. Types of vaccines we are allowed to have are being limited. There's very little choice and it's impossible to have any clarity of what we will be required to do in the next 6 months. I'm not blaming the government or the scientists, but the situation is becoming unsettling.

Forced vaccination to carry out essential activities is unacceptable in my view (what happened to that family in Germany is very sad). Having said that, I think people should stop being precious, children should wear masks if mandated and testing required for high-risk activities (e.g. going to concerts or recreational stuff)

@KaycePollard

It's not shocking, it's normal human thinking.

Not normal in my world. It's shocking. Wait until you are "old" and still a human being!

The NHS does prioritise younger lives though if forced to make a choice. I am an old fart and I am happy with that.

I read recently that the WHO is not for the vaccination of children or of boosters for adults in the West whilst there are many countries which have not yet been able to vaccinate their vulnerable people. I must say I agree with them and I think the vaccine hoarding and overuse in the west is very very selfish

Political organisations should also stop interfering with scientific advice. We need to know whether boosters will continue to be medically required or not, simple (without the mentioning of poorer countries, etc). This ideological tripe is muddying the waters and confusing the message also.

Also agree children's lives should be prioritised as in I believe their longterm wellbeing should be considered more important than mine (40s). This does not mean all our lives aren't important, again the nuance here is being deliberately ignored so that anyone expressing uncertainty can bashed as mindless/ selfish etc.

@KaycePollard

Children are virus vectors? What a nasty thing to say. This is what people are turning into from all the Covid hysteria.

Children do spread the disease - they don't tend to suffer badly themselves, but the people they pass it on to can suffer quite badly.

And as for hysteria - try being clinically extremely vulnerable. People are still housebound, and for some illnesses, such as blood cancers, the vaccine doesn't offer much protection. These people are housebound until the pandemic eases. So think before you condemn.

I am familiar with blood cancer so I very much sympathise. Extra precautions can be taken around people with this condition and regular testing is probably better. Vaccination reduces but does not eliminate the spread and unfortunately protection seems to wane very quickly hence the push for mass boosters. Vaccination of very young children will not create a Covid- free environment for the immunosuppressed and extremely vulnerable members of society, as others have already pointed out on this thread.

For people with conditions such as blood cancer, any virus or bug can be serious. This is very sad but we can't stop living nor should we accept segregation of children based on a Covid pass.

We were supposed to be visiting NYC at Easter. As things stand we will have to cancel as our children will be under 12 and therefore not vaccinated. We are pro vax and our children have had every vax going but as things stand they can’t be vaccinated against covid so that’s a non starter. Anyway, I’m sure that travellers such as myself and the many hundreds of others who will have to cancel their holidays are not in the slightest bit of interest to most of the people of NYC but I mention it because I have been following the situation with some interest. Less than 20% of children age 5-11 in NYC are currently vaccinated against covid. This is a move to force their parents into action. Personally, that doesn’t sit very comfortably with me. Alternatively the vaccination rate of younger children will remain low and businesses are going to suffer which isn’t ideal either. As I understand it deBlasio is off in a couple of weeks (hoping to run for governor so I understand) and the situation under the new Mayor Eric Adams could change but the mandates are widely supported across the city. Obviously though, as I said, I’m not a New Yorker so I’m happy to be corrected by someone who knows more than I do!
As a side note, when I started college in the US I was required to provide proof of vaccinations. As I’d grown up in the U.K. I didn’t have that so over the course of the first term I had to have all my childhood immunisations all over again! (Which was fine, I didn’t mind) But despite that I was never stopped from attending college or going out for a meal with my friends. It was a gentle, calm process. This mandate feels the exact opposite of that as I struggle to draw a direct comparison.

@mathanxiety

TheScenicWay

<span class="italic">Vaccine immunity wanes very rapidly. Are we really happy for kids to be getting boosters every few months? If not then what’s the point of a vaccine that wanes after 3 months or so?</span>

You need to provide solid evidence for your statements here.

In particular, the statement that immunity wanes rapidly/after 3 months.

Evidence means properly conducted studies, not the theories of some keyboard culture warrior living in his mother's basement somewhere in Idaho.

Do you not read the news? If the vaccines are so effective (they aren't - they don't stop transmission or infection), why are boosters needed after only a few months?

Also, we don't know the long term side effects of the jabs. Everyone thought AstraZeneca was safe until it wasn't and it is no longer generally given out in the UK. Are you being purposely obtuse?

@mathanxiety You use very emotive language but completely ignore the fact that the JCVI didn’t support the universal vaccination of children age 12-15 in the U.K

Can I ask what the JCVI have to do with NY or any other country but the UK for that matter? As far as I am aware they are a UK advisory board only. Mathanxiety isn't in the UK, NY isn't in the UK, most of the world isn't in the UK. Those if us outside of the UK don't care what your advisory board says, it is completely irrelevant to us. Why on earth would we care what one advisory board in one country out of many has to say?

@luinagreine This is a U.K. site in case you hadn’t notice. It has every relevance given that it influences views in the U.K. People on this thread are being made out to be anti-vax crackpots so those outside the U.K. need to understand why there is hesitancy about vaccinating children in the U.K.

I'm not anti vax but I am pro choice. This is scary. Sure, you care about this issue but what about climate change? Everyone will HAVE to buy an electric car soon. A specific brand. And if you don't you are selfish. A very slippery slope. Many of you don't care now. But you will. Not over this matter but over another matter.

[quote BunsyGirl]@luinagreine This is a U.K. site in case you hadn’t notice. It has every relevance given that it influences views in the U.K. People on this thread are being made out to be anti-vax crackpots so those outside the U.K. need to understand why there is hesitancy about vaccinating children in the U.K.[/quote]
Yet you will all rip apart the decisions of another country that you have no idea about? This thread isn't about UK children, this is about children in NY where the advice is completely different. Your JCVI recommendations are nothing to do with NY children, they don't apply to them so your reactions are completely out of line.

It does affect British children who can no longer visit New York. So, as Brits we’re allowed to analyse why and that includes taking account of the medical advice we’re given in our country. Think that’s fair enough.

Total insanity? Have you seen how low the death rates are in NYC?

What's insane to me is that people are offered a safe, effective vaccine produced by incredible scentists that allows them to get their lives back, and decide they actually don't want it.

Catching and transmitting covid while vaccinated is less likely, but not unlikely.

The problem with mandates like this is that from a strict public health standpoint, which is the justification, there needs to be zero exceptions to the vaccine requirement, as well as a no exception negative test policy. No vax, no negative test, no entry. Period. 3 year old can't be vaccinated? Too bad. No entry. Needle phobia? Too bad. Not vaccinated, no entry. If the logic, reasoning, and justification is that unvaccinated people are cause here, then by god ban them ALL.

The way these types of things are being implemented end up being nothing more than a patchwork of hurdles and just making things disproportionately more difficult for people compared to the benefit.

All that said, I really think that for most of the people who are the most vocally all in for vaccine mandates and excluding people, it is about how to stick it to the perceived other side, to score points, to be punative.

@samyeagar

Catching and transmitting covid while vaccinated is less likely, but not unlikely.

The problem with mandates like this is that from a strict public health standpoint, which is the justification, there needs to be zero exceptions to the vaccine requirement, as well as a no exception negative test policy. No vax, no negative test, no entry. Period. 3 year old can't be vaccinated? Too bad. No entry. Needle phobia? Too bad. Not vaccinated, no entry. If the logic, reasoning, and justification is that unvaccinated people are cause here, then by god ban them ALL.

The way these types of things are being implemented end up being nothing more than a patchwork of hurdles and just making things disproportionately more difficult for people compared to the benefit.

All that said, I really think that for most of the people who are the most vocally all in for vaccine mandates and excluding people, it is about how to stick it to the perceived other side, to score points, to be punative.

Totally agree with this.

Sounds good to me. Freedom to live life normally for people.

This is going to be happening globally - and it is the only way. England will be slow because of Boris the libertarian - but we will get there.

Those of you shouting "I'm pro choice" what about the vaccinated that what the choice of living their lives normally? We have chosen vaccinations as we know it protects ourselves and others.

Anti-vaxers have chosen to be selfish.

@Skinnytailedsquirrel

Those of you shouting "I'm pro choice" what about the vaccinated that what the choice of living their lives normally? We have chosen vaccinations as we know it protects ourselves and others.

Anti-vaxers have chosen to be selfish.

So presumably you are against people bringing their young unvaccinated children out in public where they might be around other people? They are selfish if they do?

I mean, going by the current definition of "anti-vaxxer" being thrown about, people who take their unvaccinated young children out are selfish anti-vaxxers.

@Skinnytailedsquirrel

Those of you shouting "I'm pro choice" what about the vaccinated that what the choice of living their lives normally? We have chosen vaccinations as we know it protects ourselves and others.

Anti-vaxers have chosen to be selfish.

And have people who have chosen to be vaccinated also chosen to have a total empathy bypass? Because it certainly seems so. Not everyone who is unvaccinated is an anti-vaxxer.

@XenoBitch - your comment doesn't make sense. Someone who medically cannot have the vaccine is not necessarily an anti-vaxxer!

Compulsory vaccinations (for those who can) (and only 0.1% approx cannot) will help those who cannot receive it. HTH

@samyeagar - I have said that this will happen eventually. Just now small children have the highest rates of Covid, so I certainly believe they need to be included in the vaccination rules.

[quote Skinnytailedsquirrel]@XenoBitch - your comment doesn't make sense. Someone who medically cannot have the vaccine is not necessarily an anti-vaxxer!

Compulsory vaccinations (for those who can) (and only 0.1% approx cannot) will help those who cannot receive it. HTH[/quote]
One of the big problems we are facing is the fact that like soooo many other words recently, the word anti-vaxxer no longer has any meaningful meaning, and is largely just another ingredient in a word salad.

[quote Skinnytailedsquirrel]@samyeagar - I have said that this will happen eventually. Just now small children have the highest rates of Covid, so I certainly believe they need to be included in the vaccination rules.[/quote]
Exactly. People should not be subjected to other peoples little 3 year snot-nosed unvaccinated little super-spreaders.

@samyeagar or YOU could stay away from kids if you're that worried.