Vaccine Mandates

When the COVID-19 vaccine became available, I got the vaccine without anything resembling force. Even though I admittedly wasn't among the first in line, I fully supported the development of the vaccine and embraced the vaccine as something that could help us put the pandemic behind us. Even if I knew that the vaccine wasn't as effective as initially portrayed, I'm confident that I would have still become vaccinated.

As a Washingtonian, I saw our state quickly embraced force. Vaccines were mandated for a wide variety of jobs even while the vaccine only had emergency authorization from the FDA. These mandates were not isolated to government jobs. To make matters worse, many businesses were prohibited from accepting customers who did not provide proof of vaccination.

The state refused to accept philosophical exemptions, which means citizens were prohibited from refusing on the basis of beliefs that are not controlled by religion. In other words, the state was attacking our right to develop and maintain our own belief systems. Although most anti-vax Americans have misguided views, one segment of the population should not take away rights from others.

Our state also rejected allowing COVID testing as an alternative. The argument was made that the alternative would have been too complicated to properly implement.

I should probably point out that the vaccine mandates were not truly vaccine mandates. They were actually proof of vaccination mandates. If you were vaccinated but refused to carry medical paperwork with you, you were effectively prohibited from living your life. Those who carried fake or stolen paperwork had far more rights during the pandemic.

Even people with medical conditions reported problems with obtaining exemptions. There were also threats made to doctors if they provided improper approval for exemptions. Because of this, there was reluctance on the part of the medical profession to approve exemptions even when exemptions were justified.

It was clear from the beginning that side effects were possible with the vaccine. There's also a big difference between failing to prevent loss of life and actually killing people. If even one person died as a result of these mandates, that is a very serious concern.

There were mental health concerns emerging from the authoritarian handling of the pandemic. Even if the vaccine itself doesn't kill, this was a part of policy that was certain to increase suicidal tendencies, substance abuse, and violence. It's safe to say that these vaccine mandates have played a role in the loss of life.

The only defense that can make sense for these mandates is that more lives were saved than ended. This means that the lives of groups in smaller numbers are valued less than the lives of groups in larger numbers. In other words, our state openly embraced the idea that minorities are expendable.

Life isn't worth living if we don't have a say in our own lives. More people should have been vaccinated, but this should have been by choice rather than force. Mandates went way too far. My body is not the property of the government. As such, the government should not have that kind of control.