Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.
— D. H. Lawrence, born in 1885
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Health Minister Brad Hazzard is standing firm behind plans to require churchgoers to show proof of vaccination when NSW reopens, despite religious leaders pushing for an exemption on the grounds no one should be turned away from church.
Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Kanishka Raffel and other faith leaders are lobbying Mr Hazzard directly on the issue, and some ministers have publicly contemplated civil disobedience if the government keeps the requirement.
‘Stand up and say no’: Churches fight government over vaccine mandate
Mixed messages as senior Catholics and other clerics rebel on COVID vaccine rules
The Vatican's ruling that Catholics should get the coronavirus vaccine hasn't stopped the waters being muddied by two archbishops.
Fiery moment Gladys Berejiklian admits today's daily Covid briefing will be her last because she 'needs a clear head' to lead NSW through its 'most challenging two months ever'
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has ended her final regular COVID-19 update with a fiery exchange over her decision to stop fronting the press daily.
The NSW government should reveal advice from its health authorities about plans to ease COVID restrictions at 70 per cent vaccination rates, Labor MP Tanya Plibersek has said.
Ms Plibersek called for greater transparency from Gladys Berejiklian about the competing advice the state government received on reopening, after the NSW Premier announced last week she would stop daily press conferences on the coronavirus outbreak.
… neither science nor basic logic is on their side. The simple argument against their position does not require a Ph.D. in epidemiology to understand. But, in fact, the Ph.D.s already get it, as do those with only a high school education. Indeed, proving Alexander Pope’s quip that “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” it is those in between—the ones who have the false confidence that comes from thinking themselves “educated” but whose educations are not as thorough as that of some others—who are the least vaccine-hesitant group in America. The Ph.D.s and those who have not submitted to the indoctrination of our education establishment are the ones who have not lost touch with the elementary common sense it takes to know that when the government comes a-knocking to offer to stick you with a syringe loaded with a rushed, experimental vaccine based on a new technology being implemented for the first time ever, a bit of “hesitancy” might be in order.
As an article in Nature last month put it, a "massive UK study of COVID-19 cases shows that people who are jabbed have good immunity at first, but quickly become more vulnerable to the fast-spreading Delta variant."
The following passage from the article I have linked to, however, prompts me to wonder if I should not get the shot after all (I turn 80 next month):
Any knowns and unknowns concerning vaccine risks must be weighed against the known and unknown risks of COVID-19 itself, which includes, of course, long-haul COVID complications. For many people, especially the elderly and individuals with various pre-existing conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and chronic liver disease, this should be an easy choice.