«Weird that I actually have to explain this, but taking things away from people until they agree to do what you say isn’t giving them a ‹choice›. It’s punishing them until they concede to your demands. Normally we would refer to this type of behaviour as manipulation and abuse.»
@BethanyCherisse
Germany loves abbreviations like 3G — vaccinated («geimpft»), recovered («genesen»), and tested («getestet»). They also have 2G (only vaccinated and recovered are allowed to participate in public life) and 2G+ (same as 2G, but both group have also be testet).
Regarding these G-Games — if there is 2G+ then what about 3G+? At first I thought there is no 3G+, but there is. With 3G+, the unvaccinated need to do a more expensive PCR test, while the vaccinated and recovered do not have to be tested. But why doesn’t 3G+ mean that all three groups have to be tested? Why can’t the vaccinated and recovered be tested together with the unvaccinated?
Well, because it would mean that those who are vaccinated are treated like the unvaccinated, and we cannot have that. After all, one of the main pressure … ahem, selling points for the vaccinations is that to be in the same room, vaccinated do not have to do a test while the unvaccinated do. Especially with 3G at work this will suck … 15-30 minutes out of each day for the unvaccinated. But as 2G+ shows, vaccinated still pose a risk of infection and transmission. So its a political not a public health strategy.
The only way to sell tests to the vaccinated (2G+) is to make sure they still have some advantages to the unvaccinated. At least the later aren’t even allowed to participate at all.
And yeah, in a way, it might work to get more people to get vaccinated. After all, if you remain unvaccinated, you are excluded from a lot of events (if that’s your thing), even if you could show that you are not infected (if you can trust the test result). And you need to have lots of resources — time and money for the tests. And a spine to withstand the frequent attacks, being blamed for the high Covid numbers, called asocial and the like.
Being a scapegoat is not that surprising — it’s hard to get a pandemic under control, as some countries with insanely high vaccination numbers show, Covid is still a problem. It might be that our control over the virus is less than we like. Even with these measures. So politics, media, and citizens need a scapegoat when things go bad.
Even though it does not make that much sense. After all, you cannot have high numbers of infected vaccinated if you only test the unvaccinated. And those untested but infected vaccinated will act as — as one person said — pandemic stealth bombers. And this whole vaccinated vs. unvaccinated will tear our society apart.
Oh, and one more thing — the recovered.
You are «recovered» if you do a PCR test while you are infected with Covid and get the appropriate documentation. You cannot be tested for Covid antibodies and if you have them, count as recovered. Apparently, the tests we use aren’t that specific. You might have had a Corona virus, but not necessarily this one. So you have to get infected and get it documented.
In a way, getting infected would be a way out for the unvaccinated. Take part in a Covid party, hope that you did not have Covid before and that you survive it (for me roughly anything but rolling an 1 on a D1000 followed by an 1 on a D10). Might even be worth it, if not for two reasons: First, why would I want to live in a country that makes infecting yourself with a potentially deadly virus more appealing to you than dealing with their pandemic regulations. Second, being recovered only counts for six months. After that time you are back in the group of the unvaccinated. It’s currently only the vaccinated who have no time limit on their status, well, for the moment, soon they will have to have boosters.
Strange that natural immunity does not count as much as vaccinations, strange that 2G+ means vaccinated and recovered have to be tested, while 3G+ means unvaccinated have to do a more expensive PCR test.
But like written, it makes sense considering it’s a political strategy. And that’s the underlying principle — it’s not doing what is medically appropriate, but to get people vaccinated. Natural immunity does not count. Testing vaccinated (and recovered) can only be done if you exclude the unvaccinated. That’s one hell of a way to lose both trust and the goals of this health crises.
