Vaccine mandates — it’s not black and white.
Most things aren’t black and white. And nor are the arguments for vaccine mandates.
Reasons for vaccine mandates:
1. They protect others from Covid that you may transmit.
AND
2. They are very safe.
I think the combination is a very good reason.
On (1), lets assume that vaccines do significantly impact the vaccinated persons ability to spread Covid. The degree to which this is true is not clear, but I feel a high probability there is some impact and for some people Covid is a real threat.
On (2), I believe they are very safe from the studies so far, and likely very safe long term. But we can’t be as sure about longer term because we just don’t know. A counterweight is the preponderance of experts saying they don’t see any mechanism for long term problems, but experts in many fields, definitely medicine, have been wrong before and they don’t know everything. (Thalidomide, many medical procedures from the not so distant past that experts all agreed with…).
For example, there are exemptions for pregnant women. Do we know of a mechanism that might do any harm? No. But we ‘sense’ that the decision to take new vaccine for pregnant women is best left to them.
Also experts are not immune to groupthink, peer pressure, incentive structures and so on.
I personally think for most people anyone over 40 or those not healthy, the benefits far outweigh the risks. For young healthy people, much closer.
3. You will use up medical resources by your decision to not vaccinate. Why treat the person who *chose* not to get vaccinated vs the person who did make a “better choice” and needs the ICU?
I am sure that vaccines do significantly decrease risk from serious disease for those at risk. The data is clear. I don’t think that is true for those that have a very low risk from Covid anyway (young healthy people). Or if they do, they’re reducing a very small number to another smaller number.
But this measuring of who deserves medical resources is a slippery slope. If this is used as justification, then what about those that indulge in other high risk behaviors completely out of their choice? Not wearing seatbelts, playing football or cheerleading, drinking sugary drinks, not practicing mindfulness medication or yoga,…
4. Not taking a vaccine makes you a Covid mutation factory.
First, I think the evidence that people who are not much affected by Covid are going to be responsible for worse mutations than those that are vaccinated is not strong. Second, Covid is here to stay (I’m talking about in the world). Are we really going to try to make some part of the world a zero Covid zone? There are 4B+ people who are not getting vaccines any time soon where Covid has spread. We’re not stopping Covid mutations.
5. You’re a free-rider.
Ok maybe sort of. But the people who choose to not vaccinate aren’t forcing others to vaccinate. There are “free riders” in all kinds of things and we don’t penalize them.
Reasons against vaccine mandates:
1. It gets us on a slippery slope for not good enough reasons.
Mandating people take things except in really special circumstances is bad. I guess we can disagree on how special the circumstances have to be. I don’t think the current circumstances are that extreme, and there are clear practical alternatives.
2. For a young healthy person esp those that might want to reproduce.
And esp for women (eggs don’t get produced again), the long term unknowns vs risk from Covid should be a decision for them. I understand experts say no reason to worry — this is dealt with earlier.
3. We could simply mandate that everyone buy extra medical insurance.
(in some form) consummate with their statistically calculated risk if they don’t get vaccinated. This would apportion the cost of not getting vaccinated to the right place if we’re concerned about medical costs. (Understand that $$ doesn’t auto-create ICU capacity, but it will reduce ICU need by incentivizing vaccinations among the most at risk group.)
4. Many people don’t feel safe around unvaccinated people.
Note I said “feel”, not are not safe. The possibility of transmission is covered in (1) as a good reason for vaccine mandates. What people feel based on whatever they have read (mRNA is a threat from vaxxed people all the way to Covid is the black death) should not factor in mandating vaccines.
5. We’re scaring everyone into thinking they will need boosters forever to survive.
The world is something we need to medicate and inoculate ourselves at higher and higher rates, and we’re fragile things that need to live in our safe little bubble, while all kinds of life-threatening viruses and things roam the rest of the world.
We have made people unreasonably scared — look calmly at the excess deaths by age and co-morbidity.
6. We are the land of the free, more so than many other places.
(I’m writing in the US context, because that’s the context for my reasoning and position.)
Ayn Rand, the constitution, liberty from government, and all that.
Ok I’m not a constitution expert. But I think as a nation, we have a strong culture of individualism, and I think it contributes to the dynamism and innovation in the US.
On balance, I am *against* mandating vaccines.
I’d rather see us apportioning cost and mandating extra insurance, and using that as incentive for older people to be vaccinated, and have the cost to younger people be very little and let them decide, if we want to do any kind of mandating. But I haven’t thought too deeply about this, so I’m open to being shown this is not a good idea.
I’m happy to be convinced otherwise over a drink, if you’re open to changing your mind too.
