The COVID-19 pandemic

[danbrotherston]

"mandatory" vs. "not mandatory" suggests a dichotomy that doesn't exist in reality.

Everything is a grey scale. It is not physically "mandatory" to drive sober, but driving drunk carries extremely serious consequences, the least of which is jail time.

So mandatory is always a question of where on a spectrum. Temporary vaccine passports for restaurants being very low on the spectrum, mandatory school vaccines being higher.

Now, I'll admit that usually we use the word mandatory in a sensible way, driving sober is mandatory because we as a society don't consider it acceptable under any circumstances to drive drunk.

So, is it acceptable under any circumstances not to be vaccinated (outside of legitimate medical exemptions)? I'd say no.

So then it's a question of enforcement of that "mandatory" idea.

I certainly agree that literally holding people down and forcing a needle into them is unacceptable in our society, but there are so many other options that this suggestion is basically just a bad faith argument.

I'm strongly in favour of requiring vaccines for schools, at this point.

I'd be in favour of fines (you know, like, a healthcare premium) for those who don't get vaccinated.

I might even be in favour of a triage policy which limits unvaccinated people's access to hospital and ICU beds in times of triage.

All of these are forms of "mandatory", none of them are even remotely as inflammatory as the straw man argument of the gestapo forcing a needle into your arm.

By that logic though we would also have to treat people who smoke, are obese, engage in extreme sports, etc with fines and a triage policy because they made those choices, and they statistally bog down the health care system as well. No?

That's a false comparison, there is no public health emergency triage situation being caused by people who do extreme sports or are obese. "statistically bogging downt he health care system" isn't a real thing, on the other hand, our healthcare system is actually cancelling surgeries right now as a result of unvaccinated covid patients.