OK, I normally love your articles, but I disagree with this one. Respectfully, of course, because I do respect you.
I'm against government mandates on vaccination for a number of reasons.
1. My body, my choice. Period.
2. Nuremberg codes prohibit forcing people to get medical treatments. There is a reason for this. Is COVID really the reason to go against it?
3. The death rate for COVID is very low for young, healthy people. One reason it's so important to make sure the elderly and those who are diabetic, etc., get the vaccine - because they are at risk. But for a typical 18 year old? They are more likely to get hit by lightening than to die of COVID.
4. Smallpox had a 30% death rate but no government vaccine mandates - though schools required vaccines with religious and medical exemptions. Covid has an overall death rate of 1 in 5000 according to the latest New York Times numbers. Of course every death is a tragedy, but compare COVID to deaths from cancer and heart attacks... almost 10 times as many people died of heart attacks last year, for example. Deaths from the flu were about 2/3 that of deaths from COVID, but we don't mandate flu vaccines.
5. Un-vaxxed hurt themselves. Vaccinated people can still transmit COVID but they are less likely to be seriously ill. They ARE more likely to be asymptomatic, which means they may not realize they have COVID and need to quarantine, so they may actually be more likely to spread COVID - however, they are far less likely to die from it. The people most at risk from the unvaccinated are - themselves! Should we save people from themselves or give them the freedom to make their own bad decisions?
6. We didn't ban bathhouses when the AIDS epidemic was raging and we don't force lung cancer patients to quit smoking, etc. We don't yank health insurance from diabetics who still eat dessert. How intrusive do we want to be in peoples' lives? I don't want to get involved in other peoples' sex lives or their medical decisions.
7. If I care about my safety, I'll get a vaccine. If I don't, I won't.
