Despite the Bill of Rights freedom is not without limits. Sometimes in crises democratic governments become dictatorial and mandate policies. In the United States there is historical precedence for national mandates. In the Civil War Abraham Lincoln did the following: he suspended the right of habius corpus, he imprisoned individuals without charge or trial for the duration of the war, he violently enforced the military draft, and he determinedly and successfully prosecuted the Civil War to force the southern states to give up slavery. In WWII FDR enforced mandated rationing and recycling on the civilian population, he enforced a widespread military draft, and he forced American manufacturers to only produce military goods.
However, even in normal, non-crisis times we live with many government mandates. In the driving domain, one must have a driver’s license and proof of insurance to legally operate a vehicle, and we suffer consequences for not obeying the rules of the road. The point is that we all live with mandates that restrict our freedom, even in normal times. From this perspective crisis only increases the number and intensity of the mandates we live with. So now for the current question: Is Covid a crisis?
The two historical examples cited were wars that threatened our union and our democracy. Are we at war with the virus, and does it threaten our way of life? I would say yes. The virus aggressively invades human bodies and takes over cellular functioning for its own benefit, leading to negative human outcomes, including death. That is the definition of an enemy. The virus adapts and mutates to counteract our efforts to destroy it, as any serious enemy would do. Thus far we are not taking this war seriously enough. Volunteerism and incentives are not enough to get everyone to vaccinate. If this is a war, then vaccination against Covid needs to become a national mandate.
Vaccinations are one of the great public health measures developed in the few centuries , along with sewage systems, toilets, and clean water. Widespread vaccination of children against the classic child-killing diseases (small pox, diphtheria, mumps, measles, rubella, whooping cough, polio, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhoid) has greatly reduced infant and child mortality in countries that engage in widespread childhood vaccination, creating herd immunity. As adults most of us get flu shots every year.
However vaccinations have always been controversial, right from the beginning. When Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccination in England in 1796, there was immediate opposition from various groups, and it took many years before the smallpox vaccination was in widespread use. Ever since there has always been vaccination opponents that we now call ‘anti-vaccers’. So opposition to the Covid vaccine Is nothing new.
But the difference between the past and present has to with herd immunity. In the past enough people in developed countries got vaccinated to provide herd immunity. Meaning that enough vaccinations were given to suppress the microbe’s ability to replicate and mutate, thus protecting both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. From this viewpoint the problem is simple: not enough Americans are getting vaccinated to suppress the Covid virus and provide herd immunity, giving the virus the opportunity to mutate and continue its war on humanity.
President Biden has tiptoed around mandating vaccinations. He has required that federal employees be mandated, and he has urged organizations to require that their employees be mandated, but he has not required that all citizens and residents of the Unite States be vaccinated. The reason for this lack of action is obvious: politics. He knows that such a mandate would be hugely unpopular in a wide segment of the American electorate. Such a mandate might cost the Democrats control of the federal legislature in 2022, and greatly decrease the chances of his reelection.
But if Biden wants to remembered as a great leader, he might want to suppress his individual ambition for the long term good of the country. He is already unpopular with little likelihood of becoming more popular- why not use that unpopularity to get us into a post-Covid future?
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