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Feb. 3rd, 2015
A modest proposal
Feb. 3rd, 2015 04:37 pmThinking about all the news items regarding spread of diseases and low vaccination rates, I have a siuggestion.
Unlike some folks I know, I *do* believe that to some extent we realy *do* have to allow actual religious exemptions. Those existed for a long time and *weren't* a problem until the laws got changed to allow "personal belief" exemptions. Because *in practice* those turn into "I don't like the idea".
And, of course, there are medical exemptions. Some people have conditions that don't allow them to be vaccinated (compromised immune systems for one)
So, my proposal.
Let's say the required vaccination level for maintaining "herd immunity" is 95%. So that means that for safety no more than 5% of the population can be unvaccinated.
Public schools (at least) would be required to have no more than *half* that percentage of unvaccinated students.
This would be handled be giving first choice to the kids who can't be vaccinated die to medical conditions. After that, they can admit kids who have religious exemptions, until they hit the maximum. If there are more kids in those categories than the allowable percentage, then priority goes to the ones who've been attending the school longest.
After that, if your kid isn't vaccinated, they can't go to that school. Parents can send their kid to another school that hasn't maxed out yet. But *they*, not the school district, are responsible for transportation.
I'd want private school strongly encouraged to follow the same rules.
I'd allow private schools to choose to not adhere to the limits. Heck, if there are enough unvaccinated kids in a district, the district could choose to set up separate schools for unvaccinated kids.
But schools that don't adhere to the limits aren't allowed to share events with schools that do adhere to them. That's to prevent spreading things to the schools that follow the rules.
This would annoy the heck out of the yuppies and the like who have bought into the anti-vax propaganda. But it'd let them have their way *without* endangering other kids.
I predict that if such a policy was put into effect, it wouldn't be vary many years before the epidemics of various disease sweeping thru the "low vaccination rate" schools would lead to a lot of parents changing their mind about vaccinating their kids.
Hard on the kids, but there's really no way that failing to vaccinate *isn't* apt to be hard on the kids. This just limits the hazards as much as practical to just those kids, not the rest of the population.
Unlike some folks I know, I *do* believe that to some extent we realy *do* have to allow actual religious exemptions. Those existed for a long time and *weren't* a problem until the laws got changed to allow "personal belief" exemptions. Because *in practice* those turn into "I don't like the idea".
And, of course, there are medical exemptions. Some people have conditions that don't allow them to be vaccinated (compromised immune systems for one)
So, my proposal.
Let's say the required vaccination level for maintaining "herd immunity" is 95%. So that means that for safety no more than 5% of the population can be unvaccinated.
Public schools (at least) would be required to have no more than *half* that percentage of unvaccinated students.
This would be handled be giving first choice to the kids who can't be vaccinated die to medical conditions. After that, they can admit kids who have religious exemptions, until they hit the maximum. If there are more kids in those categories than the allowable percentage, then priority goes to the ones who've been attending the school longest.
After that, if your kid isn't vaccinated, they can't go to that school. Parents can send their kid to another school that hasn't maxed out yet. But *they*, not the school district, are responsible for transportation.
I'd want private school strongly encouraged to follow the same rules.
I'd allow private schools to choose to not adhere to the limits. Heck, if there are enough unvaccinated kids in a district, the district could choose to set up separate schools for unvaccinated kids.
But schools that don't adhere to the limits aren't allowed to share events with schools that do adhere to them. That's to prevent spreading things to the schools that follow the rules.
This would annoy the heck out of the yuppies and the like who have bought into the anti-vax propaganda. But it'd let them have their way *without* endangering other kids.
I predict that if such a policy was put into effect, it wouldn't be vary many years before the epidemics of various disease sweeping thru the "low vaccination rate" schools would lead to a lot of parents changing their mind about vaccinating their kids.
Hard on the kids, but there's really no way that failing to vaccinate *isn't* apt to be hard on the kids. This just limits the hazards as much as practical to just those kids, not the rest of the population.