Steven Novella M.D. has an article up on Science-Based Medicine arguing for vaccine mandates, on the basis that activities like air travel, going to the movies, working in certain occupations etc. should be conditioned on getting vaccinated against Covid-19. There would be no coercion in the form of forced vaccination (or as one poster suggested, jail time); instead, life would become more and more restricted for vaccine refusers as they are banned from partaking in activities that have become privileges during a pandemic.
“In essence, vaccine refusers are making the lives of everyone else less convenient and more expensive, and that burden should be turned back around on them as much as possible.”
“I would also note that refusing to get vaccinated (without a legitimate medical excuse) is objectively wrong. The benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the risks by orders of magnitude, and refusers justify their decision with demonstrable misinformation. This is not a matter of opinion – their facts are wrong.”
“At this point we likely need a federal law, to override those states that outlaw vaccine mandates for schools or private companies. We tried to beat this pandemic with purely voluntary vaccination, and we failed. Vaccine mandates are now our best choice.”
I’m in agreement with Dr. Novella. We’ll see if the Biden Administration and Democrats have the will and capability to get such a law passed.
It’s not just a matter of passing a law. There is also the matter of enforcing it.
About … what, 20-30% of the population? A lot people will push back and while in most cases it will just be harmless moaning a certain number are willing to be, shall we say, more forceful. Is that enough to justify hesitancy? I don’t know - what do you think?
Laws? Novella isn’t talking about laws. Here’s the relevant bit (bolding mine):
What it typically meant by a vaccine “mandate” (and what I personally endorse) is not forced vaccination, but rather granting privileges based on vaccine status. Essentially, if you don’t want to get a vaccine to protect against COVID that is your right, but society has the right to exclude you from activities that put others at risk as a result of your decision. You don’t have the right to infect other people.
Dozens of companies are now requiring vaccination or weekly testing. IMHO, it’d be wiser to require testing thrice weekly and to eliminate the religious exemption so many anti-vaxxers use as a convenient shield.
And then there’s Delta Airlines, which is imposing a $200 surcharge on monthly health insurance premiums for its employees, noting that all Delta employees who’ve been hospitalized for COVID in recent weeks have been unvaccinated.
Businesses can also require customers to be vaccinated, and that’s where a database of those who’ve been vaccinated, one that’s accessible only via authorization by the individual, would be make sense. You want entrance to a place of business? You authorize. If you’re not in the database, sorry, Charlie. The very, very few people who have legit medical exemptions might be on a separate list.
I’d put them on the vaccinated list with a notation - no sense in making two look ups. I guess the business in question could make a call on letting someone in - require a mask at a minimum, do the shopping for them perhaps.
That’s fine. But there are still very, VERY few people who would legitimately make it to this list. Mental paranoia or believing in insane conspiracy theories would not qualify anyone for a medical exemption.
Likewise religious exemption. There are very, VERY few religions that forbid vaccinations. If your “religious belief” goes against what your actual church says, I don’t think it should be considered valid. It’s just your own personal bullshit belief at that point.
I agree also, with one amendment: If you’re caught using a forged/fraudulent vaccine certificate to engage in a controlled activity, it’s charged as a serious felony.
While there are plenty of individual parishes that might tell you to avoid vaccines, the religious bodies themselves seem okay with them. I often see Christian Scientists and the Dutch Reform Church listed as two examples that forbid vaccines, but that doesn’t appear to be the case at all.
Plenty of people claim religious objections. I can’t find a major religious body that forbids it.
I don’t recall if I or anyone posted this yet in this thread. Paul Waldman of Washington Post calls it right: The full approval of the Pfizer vax is . . .
Religious exemptions come down to personal beliefs, do they not? And personal beliefs are what got us into this mess in the first place. Believe what you will, but the right of your fist ends where the right of my nose begins. Unvaccinated people do not have the right to endanger the health of others. No one does.
That’s true of religions that have a hierarchical authority structure. But there are plenty of sects where the only Earthly authority is the pastor of an individual congregation. And it’s probably not too hard to find individual congregations of those sects that prohibit vaccines or whatever.
So you can’t say “No religious exemptions because no religious authorities oppose vaccination”: That’s simply not true. Instead, just say “No religious exemptions because public health overrides religion in this case”. Or tie it to privileges: If the unvaccinated aren’t allowed to go to restaurants, say, and someone claims a religious opposition to vaccination, then I’m sorry to hear that your religion prevents you from going to restaurants, but hey, it’s your beliefs.
If it were possible to prevent anti-vaxxers from seriously endangering the rest of us, they could be left to their lunacy.
The problem is that the only way to prevent anti-vaxxers from seriously endangering the rest of us is to shunt their COVID cases off to separate facilities to be treated by students of Doctor Google and Professor Facebook so that the sane people don’t lose access to medical facilities and personnel.
“It’s a gray area, but given the severity of the pandemic, it’s very likely that if your employer requires that you be vaccinated and you are fired for refusing to do so, you will not qualify for unemployment benefits, according to Nicole Marquez, director of social insurance for the National Employment Law Project.”
Maybe someone who worked from home could get unemployment of they were fired for not getting vaccinated. In that case, their vaccination status doesn’t really matter to their employer. But there would be cause if the unvaccinated employee worked around other employees.