That’ll be sure to influence the conservative justices.
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“The fact that I can’t finish my senior year in basketball, like, our last couple of games, it’s pretty devastating.”
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst or just can’t finish their senior year in basketball for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the bracket of heaven.”
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Just saying you’re a Christian doesn’t make you a Christian.
That’s pretty much what it takes. You don’t really want the government regulating religion or lack of religion.
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totally agree. But, while I would never want the government in the position of deciding what is or isn’t genuine faith or whatever, I’d be quite happy if there were fewer dispensations that can be accessed (and can only be accessed) by proclaiming faith.
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Meanwhile on Alternate Earth:
Unvaccinated high school student gets severely ill from attending school during chicken pox outbreak, sues the health department for allowing him to go to school during a chicken pox outbreak…
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TIL there’s a Chicken Pox vaccine that was released a decade or so after I had Chicken Pox.
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The word “shingles” contradicts you.
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And I guess that’s the problem for many Christians - curing diseases is Jesus’ job, not the job of doctors. You know, “let your faith heal you” bullshit*. Which seems like it’s making a lot of unreasonable demands on Jesus.
*I had family members who were Christian Science (oh, the irony of that name), and it often amounted to, “Wait to go to a doctor until it’s too late.” (I say “had” because they’re dead now. The, uh, way Jesus intended, I guess?)
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Excuse me?
Chicken pox IS NOT “safe”, for one. While not particularly noxious at first, when contracted at a young age, much later in life it can be VERY unpleasant, indeed, as the cause of “shingles” (see my post above). So yes, the school has an interest in both protecting the student from infection and keeping him from potentially spreading the disease that they already know is present in the student body.
“But he doesn’t have chicken pox” is worthless here. You are infectious LONG before you show symptoms and you can carry the virus without ever suffering any symptoms at all (not possible if you’re actually immune).
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No. The public health department is not interfering with his participation in sports. They are interfering with his associating with other students and thus potentially threatening some.
Sports is just the method of associating. Aren’t they also interfering with his math class attendance? His English class attendance?
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Exactly so. The school has not only a direct, legal mandate to prevent those infections they can, they also have the necessity of preventing such a civil suit (which he would win).
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Um… Yes it does, and yes you can. At least in the US, you can say you belong to a belief with ONE member (you), or one billion, and no one can say otherwise, with legal force anyway.
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Welcome to boing boing new comrade.
Ill, you meant?
The young person in question doesn’t have to be ill himself to be a carrier of a highly contagious virus; and no one else should be expected to deal with the needless risk of infection.
He made his choice, that choice has consequences.
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Vaccination almost certainly would have prevented your particular case of shingles, but just as a caveat, it’s unclear what may happen as the kids vaccinated today age into older adults. The varicella vaccine is a live virus (attenuated) and hypothetically can park itself in your spine just like the wild type does - re-emergence as shingles might be possible. Hopefully, the episode would be mild; the few cases of post-vaccination shingles have been reported as such.
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To be clear, in the realm of public health he is a serious threat to others in this situation. He doesn’t want to be vaccinated against a disease? Fine, stay out of the infection zone.
It’s like this…there is a brush fire creeping towards your house, so you clear all the brush (vaccinate the kids). Then just as the fire is about to die down your idiotic neighbor throws a bunch of dead leaves and branches on the fire, with a bunch of the stuff leading to your front door.
“But my kid wanted to play basketball! Waaaaaaaa you can’t be mad at ME”
No Joel, if your neighbor did that your neighbor would have a broken nose, and this is literally no different. If he doesn’t want to be vaccinated, he can stay home.
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No, others are a threat to him, probably because they are unvaccinated. He is being protected from the consequences of his bad decision.
Improbable, unless almost the entire student body has been vaccinated, in which case of course some will be among the 2% or so who still may get a mild form of the disease.
https://health.mo.gov/living/healthcondiseases/communicable/chickenpox.php
Quite the opposite, which you would know if you had actually done all that research you claim.
From the link:
“About 15% – 20% of people who have received one dose of varicella (chickenpox) vaccine do still get chickenpox if they are exposed, but their disease is usually mild. Vaccinated persons who get chickenpox generally have fewer than 50 spots or bumps, which may resemble bug bites more than typical, fluid-filled chickenpox blisters.”
(Note that that is after one dose, not the full course of two shots.)
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No sir, the unvaccinated, uninfected person IS a threat to others, as his infection would come later in the infection cycle, and help keep the outbreak going strong longer than it otherwise would. Well…the rate of people like this entitled brat is what I mean.
Seriously, this is not about protecting the guy from the disease, it’s about eliminating future potential carriers of the disease.
“But I want to play basketbaaaaaalll. Moooooom I thought if I said the right words I could do whatever I wanted? MOM THEY AREN’T ACTING RIGHT, THEY WANT ME TO THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE!!!”
"Its ok honey, we will sue those mean people for daring to tell you to take responsibility for your decisions "
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You are right, of course, but it can be both. I don’t wish disease on anyone, even the stupid.
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Sure why not, let him back in school … build a separate, little room for him and his mom and dad and they can attend class all day on how vaccines work and why they are beneficial … maybe they could even write 100 times on the blackboard “I will not needlessly endanger my children and the children of others by refusing to have them vaccinated as a result of willful ignorance” That should work … naw, probably not … faith is generally immune to reason and logic in these cases.
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