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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30432 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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It's clear as the day the rest of the World looks down on them for this at the time of writing this.

I wouldn't be so optimistic about the rest of the world. I can't tell if the intent is to make vaccine passes the new normal or just to make preparations for the next pandemic (the Indonesian health minister wants to introduce them in May iirc, will find the link once I'm finished my shift), but here's an excerpt from what was agreed to at the recent G20 meeting:

"We acknowledge the importance of shared technical standards and verification methods, under the framework of the IHR (2005), to facilitate seamless international travel, interoperability, and recognizing digital solutions and non-digital solutions, including proof of vaccinations. We support continued international dialogue and collaboration on the establishment of trusted global digital health networks as part of the efforts to strengthen prevention and response to future pandemics, that should capitalize and build on the success of the existing standards and digital COVID-19 certificates."

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/16/g20-bali-leaders-declaration/

You can interpret it that way, or you can interpret it as a symbol for facilitating a vaccine travel system that already preceded COVID, ie. yellow fever vaccination certifications and so on, expect digitally and in an interoperable way (and this doesn't necessarily even mean using lack of vaccination to prevent travel, simply that health services in different countries know what vaccinations have been given in other countries, which might be useful medical information any which way in cases of emergencies etc.) Like government speech is wont to be, it's probably deliberately ambiguous.

I think you're viewing this through too much of a US culture war lens. Here we never had any lockdown on par with what was going on in China or some other countries, so complaints focused more on masks and vaccines. In China they're talking about shutting down manufacturing in areas where there are only a handful of cases and closing all shops except grocery stores. Even at the height of the lockdown things weren't that bad in the US, and the height only lasted a couple months in the spring of 2020.

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