Why don’t migrants get COVID vaccines at the border?

by philg

“Vaccine Refusal Will Come at a Cost—For All of Us” (Atlantic, owned by someone smart enough to marry rich):

People who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine will have higher health-care costs. The rest of us will foot the bill.

Imagine it’s 2026. A man shows up in an emergency room, wheezing. He’s got pneumonia, and it’s hitting him hard. He tells one of the doctors that he had COVID-19 a few years earlier, in late 2021. He had refused to get vaccinated, and ended up contracting the coronavirus months after most people got their shots. Why did he refuse? Something about politics, or pushing back on government control, or a post he saw on Facebook. He doesn’t really remember. His lungs do, though: By the end of the day, he’s on a ventilator.

You’ll pay for that man’s decisions. So will I. We all will—in insurance premiums, if he has a plan with your provider, or in tax dollars, if the emergency room he goes to is in a public hospital. The vaccine refusers could cost us billions. Maybe more, over the next few decades, with all the complications they could develop. And we can’t do anything about it except hope that more people get their shots than those who say they will right now.

… A new study found that 34 percent of COVID-19 survivors are diagnosed with a neurological or psychological condition within six months of recovering from the initial illness. …

As lockdowns are lifted, [former Obama administration official Kathleen] Sebelius hopes that vaccine passports will create social pressure, which might wear down hesitancy if unvaccinated people are barred from sports games, concerts, and other public events.

So much interesting stuff in here! The CDC estimates that roughly half of Americans have had a COVID infection, so if we accept the above statistic, roughly 17 percent of us are the walking wounded, with new neurological and psychological deficits. The Obama official is excited by the idea that everyone should have to carry some kind of proof of vaccination in order to participate in society. Maybe this will be a smartphone app or a RFID wristband (or my own favorite: RFID neck chip, as proven in dogs). Mx. Sebelius would, presumably, react with horror if someone suggested that one form of ID be required in order to vote, but now a much more onerous task will be imposed on those who wish to shop for groceries at Target.

The Atlantic makes the point that Democrats bear “The White Man’s Burden”. They work hard at their elite/government jobs while the non-whites (Republicans) clog up ICUs and hog ventilators that Democrats fund.

Take up the White Man’s burden—
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain.
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.

With enough federal and state orders and restrictions on the non-vaccinated, presumably the recalcitrant can be coerced eventually. But what about a group of people over whom the Feds have a lot of control, i.e., migrants? They no longer try to sneak across the border, but instead run right into the arms of the nearest government worker. Roughly 96 percent of these folks will be here in the U.S. forever. Many of the “children” saying that they’re under 18 have a biological age that is older than 18 and therefore they would easily fall into the emergency use authorization age range for the vaccines that are currently being used (though not “FDA-approved”) in the U.S.

If these folks are going to live in the U.S. forever and they’re going to be on Medicaid or “charity care” forever and we believe that these vaccines will actually reduce long-term health care costs, why not set up vaccine clinics at the detention and processing facilities for migrants (who are not in a “concentration camp” and who are not “kept in cages”, unlike from 2017 through early 2021)?

This could also be a good opportunity prototype a federal vaccine passport. By definition, the migrants are “undocumented” so they need a document-free way of showing that they’ve had the shot that entitles them to walk free amongst the righteous (vaccinated) natives.

The argument can’t be that vaccines are in short supply. See “Nearly 40% of Marines decline COVID-19 vaccine, prompting some Democrats to urge Biden to set mandate for military” (USA Today) for one place where the Feds could get boxes of vaccine vials.

The argument can’t be that the migrant lifestyle prevents infection. See photo below from “Biden administration spending $60 million per week to shelter unaccompanied minors” (Washington Post article, but Texas Tribune photo). Just as the Swedish MD/PhDs predicted, humans don’t bother with the 6′ distance requirement once you give them a paper mask and tell them that #Science says it works.

The argument can’t be that there aren’t enough migrants to make it worth the trouble of setting up a vaccine tent with refrigerator and technician. The above-linked article says “about 22,000 to 26,000 unaccompanied minors will arrive at the border each month and require federal care” (that’s just the minors; there are also plenty of adults).

What is the argument against immediate vaccination for those migrants who want it? That the children are unaccompanied and therefore the feds are unable to get parents to consent? Teenagers can get abortions without parental consent here in Massachusetts. Why not a vaccine that #Science says will save their lives? (Our legislature couldn’t find time to pass a legal framework for all of the restrictions that have been imposed by 66 (so far) executive orders, but in December 2020 they did manage to pass a new abortion law. See “Groundbreaking Massachusetts Abortion Law Repeals Parental Consent for Older Teens” (Ms. Magazine):

Last week, the Massachusetts legislature passed a groundbreaking new law creating an affirmative right to abortion in the state, expanding abortion access after 24 weeks, and removing a parental consent requirement for 16- and 17-year-olds. … We are saying that women and pregnant people should be trusted to make the personal decisions about their body and if, when and how to become pregnant that we know they’re perfectly capable of making and there should not be barriers, especially barriers that disproportionately impact low-income people and people of color.

“women” and “pregnant people” can be trusted, which means that a “man” can be trusted only if he becomes pregnant? So at least young “women” and “pregnant people” among the migrants should be entrusted to make their own decisions about whether to take a non-approved vaccine.)

22 thoughts on “Why don’t migrants get COVID vaccines at the border?”

  1. I’m not sure how vaccine passports are going to work. I had my first shot and they gave me a paper card. It has a doctor’s initials and a date and a lot code for the Moderna vaccine. The card itself is just a photocopy on medium-weight paper stock. It doesn’t even identify the vaccine administration site. There is a spot for a second set of initials, lot number, and date when I return. In fact, I had to fill in my own personal information. It would be very easy to counterfeit this, and there is no way to verify the information. Even if the place the vaccine was administered was identified, they couldn’t confirm or deny the information being valid because of HIPPA if someone called to verify it. So I wonder how these “passports” are going to work and if this qualifies as such passport. If it does, possession of this particular document is proof of nothing at all.

    • @VaccineBoi: It’s surprising how widely they differ. There are probably hundreds of variations across the country.

      My card, which they told me to save *and* photograph with my phone, looks to have been professionally printed on 80 or 100lb white, matte card stock with logos for the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services. The main information on the card was:

      First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, **MEDICAL RECORD OR IIS RECORD NUMBER**

      And more…you can see it at the link below. The vaccine type, lot numbers, administration dates and the administration site were indicated with preprinted stickers. I have intentionally obscured personally identifying and localizing information.

      So this card is a little better, but it’s also basically just a handwritten piece of paper with a couple of stickers on it.

      > I Even if the place the vaccine was administered was identified, they couldn’t confirm or deny the information being valid because of HIPPA if someone called to verify it.

      I think that’s correct. On this card the medical record/IIS number along with the administration site, lot numbers and dates give a pretty clear picture. I would have to give permission for that information to be verified, wouldn’t I?

      Here’s the photo. I wonder how many different variations there are in the USA?

      https://i.ibb.co/120YPTd/VACC-CARD.jpg

    • @Alex, the photocopy of the card you got is what my parents got. On theirs, the IIS and Site was left blank, on both of them!! You would think the nurse who gave them the first shot forgot, but surly the nurse on the second shot would notice, no?!! Also, naturally, the signature of the nurses who gave them the shots is hardly readable. You simply cannot link it to the real nurse.

      I think the solution is a micro-chip implant, Philip made this suggestion some time ago. Once you have it and the ID is in a global DB, we can all have our freedom back: sport events? Check. Bars? Check. Visit grandparents? Check. Drive on the highway, alone in a car without a mask? Check. Hookup with young lady? Check.

      Btw, IBM is working on this problem “IBM Digital Health Pass” [1]. Lets see how fast it will fall (everything IBM touches, it simply goes to the ground (I was an IBM’er)).

      [1] https://www.ibm.com/products/digital-health-pass

  2. Here we go again. “Vaccine” “passports”. A push for some clearly freedom-destroying and private individual control-enabling artifact that is easy to subvert by a malicious actor. Never mind that it has no basis in the law and is against recent HIIPA patient privacy law just created under recent Obama administration. “Mascachusets” influence.

  3. This future burden from lack of covid vaccine is no different than similar righteous talk about smoking, overeating or reckless lifestyle. It is convenient to bring this objection out now for a certain political view about vaccines, but better not bring it up about drug use or casual sex.

    • Peter: That’s a great point. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/14/986997576/once-on-the-brink-of-eradication-syphilis-is-raging-again : In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as catching the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can’t even remember how many times he’s had it. “Three or four? Five times in my life?” he struggles to recall. “It does not seem like a big deal.” At the time, about a decade ago, Lemon went on frequent methamphetamine binges, kicking his libido into overdrive and silencing the voice in his head that said condoms would be a wise choice at a raging sex party.

      If a hater were to complain that Mr. Lemon should have cut back on his recreational meth and trips to the local bathhouse so that our society’s spending on health care could be reduced, we would all condemn that hater.

      Similarly, in https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-04-14/stds-hit-record-high-again-cdc-says

      Meanwhile, approximately 31% of chlamydia, gonorrhea and primary and secondary syphilis cases were among non-Hispanic Black individuals, although they accounted for only 12.5% of the U.S. population, according to the report. Men who have sex with other men were also disproportionately impacted by STDs, the report says.

      These disparities likely aren’t caused by differences in sexual behavior, but “rather reflect differential access to quality sexual health care, as well as differences in sexual network characteristics,” the report says.

      —————–

      It is fine to shut down schools for a year or more, but it is certainly #NotOK to suggest telling people to have sex with just one other person (or none, in the case of married individuals :-)) for a month so that everyone could be tested and treated.

  4. As you can see from my vaccination card, the Dept. HHS and the CDC thought to include instructions to keep the card in Spanish. With a little work they could include a QR code or a barcode with a GUID that would uniquely identify each card, so if it was duplicated a competent database programmer would know right away when it was scanned. It still wouldn’t positively link the card to the person, but at least photocopying them en masse would be a bad idea.

    Still not as good as the “chip in the neck” idea.

    • And competent enough programmer could read existing and produce new QR code, generated randomly or copied.

    • @LSI: Now we know why you’re “Low Skilled.” Glad you’re on our side. 🙂

      At least it would be a little tougher. The really amazing thing is that we’ve got this crappy patchwork all around the country for what is, essentially, the most important thing that has ever happened, and so many people didn’t even try!

    • @LSI: Also to clarify: what I mean is that the GUID/Barcode/QR is produced during the printing process, so no two cards are alike from the beginning, and all the GUIDs are in a database somewhere. That’s do-able but I admit I’m not sure whether it could be “easily” subverted.

      We’d need 8 billion GUIDs for the world, 350 million or so for the USA, but nobody even thought of it, apparently. I’m ashamed of us.

    • @LSI: After a while of seeing these things you start to ask yourself: “Why do I pay so much in taxes?” And then you have that sickening realization: “It’s obvious.”

    • Alex, with hundreds of millions of people and potentially billions with open border unique id means little without ability of constant tracking of each individual, and even then competent actors can subvert it. Just look at stolen identity crimes and how much money victims spend to fight them, in the process paying other to track all their transaction and abandoning any privacy of action. 95% competent vaccination passport is a terrible idea that leads to full 1984 – like society. And further destroys economic growth.

  6. I’ve noticed that quite a few people (like that Atlantic writer) have no idea how the immune system works and think that the vaccine is a magic force field that keeps the equally magic plot device virus away.

  7. Fortunately when the vaccinated all get their expensive autoimmune diseases we won’t have to pay for it as everyone in the game has immunity from vaccine harm. There are whispers of insurance companies denying coverage for covid vaccine injury care, after all the injured thought it was a good idea to do experimental drugs, they should have paid attention in school when they were told to resist the peer pressure of doing experimental drugs. Heck mobile home bathtub meth seems safer than some of these newfangled experimental not vaccine vaccines.

  8. So far several airlines, cruise lines and colleges will require proof of vaccination. You can be sure that concert, sports and theater venues will follow.

    You can cry and whine about all you want. Play along or stay home.

    I don’t like it, but that’s the reality…at least for a year or two.

    • ‘I have to’ cried the weak man. If you take this bathtub meth you can hang out with the cool kids. People are so stupid. Remember Walmart and Target had no exception mask policies, they lasted less than 24 hours, you don’t need a mask at either one, never have. Making the weak think they ‘have to’ is the only power they have, all enforcement is theater. And it is never going away so you better choose wisely how you are going to deal with it, and it won’t be just one(or two) shots if you take the compliance route. The vaxxed are the new Tuskegee experiment they are going to be giving you all sorts of crazy stuff over the years with the top up shots. Good luck.

    • GB…”And it is never going away so you better choose wisely how you are going to deal with it, and it won’t be just one(or two) shots if you take the compliance route.”

      You’re exactly right, soooo…play along or stay home. I don’t like paying my car registration or property tax every year. Life is tough.

    • The rules are not going away but the rules are all fake. If you tested them you would know that. You go on and get an experimental not vaccine from manufacturers that have been given complete immunity from any adverse effects and is promoted by people who are on the record supporting global depopulation. Because if you don’t you might not be able to go to a baseball game, might being the operative word. They would love to force this stuff but know they can’t so are playing suckers to get it ‘with but we have to’ so we can do stuff. The cure is going to be the real boomer remover.

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