A question for our COVID-times: Can the United States eradicate COVID without vaccines. nn“No.” Vaccines have eradicated a slew of infectious diseases, from smallpox to polio to diphtheria to measles, and have mitigated another slew, including the flu and shingles. COVID is another virus.
A more difficult question: How do we reach herd immunity, if not eradicate, COVID?
President Biden’s answer: A national vaccine mandate.
Historically, vaccine mandates are legitimate. At the urging of his troops, who wisely recognized that smallpox posed a greater danger than the enemy, General George Washington ordered the vaccination of troops. By 1905 the Supreme Court (Jacobson v. Massachusetts) upheld the City of Cambridge’s mandate for smallpox vaccination. In 1922, Justice Louis Brandeis, writing for a unanimous court, upheld communities’ vaccine mandates for school children.
But states and communities enacted the mandates. Uncle Sam has given them the right to do so, and has given employers the right.
But a national mandate? A medically significant swathe argues that Uncle Sam must not, cannot dictate what a citizen ingests. The word “mandate” sticks in the craw; the more it sticks, the farther we get from herd immunity. The “anti-vaxxers” are screaming “No.”
In the interests of pragmatism, while the battle pro and con over a national mandate wages, here are end-runs around Uncle Sam, around the legal hassles, that will move us closer to herd immunity.
First, industries can fire, as well as refuse to hire, unvaccinated workers. An unvaccinated person puts at risk not just him/herself, but others, even vaccinated others who can still “catch it,” and infect the children in their homes. We are two degrees of separation from this virus. Businesses can legitimately do this. Note: this is not the same as a litmus test of race, religion or sexual preference. Uncle Sam has outlawed those. This is a litmus test tied to public health.
If businesses are leery of tramping on employees’ liberty to infect others, businesses can levy a hefty surcharge on those employees’ insurance premiums. A stay in a hospital for a COVID patient averages $18,000. We charge smokers higher premiums. Why not the unvaccinated? (Maybe the vaccinated workers can reap lower premiums.)
Restaurants can demand that staff be vaccinated. To up the ante, restaurants can ask diners to show proof of vaccination. Without a “vaccine passport,” diners will need to take an on-site COVID test (at their expense) before entering. Will it deter some diners? Probably. Will it encourage vaccinated diners, leery of leaving their pods, to dine out? Certainly.
Airlines, trains, buses, subways, taxis, Ubers and Lyfts now require masks. Again, let’s up the ante: require passengers and drivers to be vaccinated (and, maybe, drop the mask requirement — a mask makes long-distance travel painful).
Theaters, movies and sports arenas can ask patrons to whip out their vaccination passports along with their credit cards. Only the vaccinated need come (or those willing to pay for an entry COVID test.) Now many facilities take temperatures of patrons; a COVID test is more reliable. We can broadcast in “social media” places that have vaccinated staff on board, and those that don’t.
On to us, the patrons. We can ask restaurants in advance whether all their staff are vaccinated. If the answer is “no,” or “almost all,” we can find a restaurant that says “yes.” We can ask of stores: “Is your staff vaccinated?” For weddings, funerals, baby showers, graduation festivities — vaccination status should accompany the RSVP (with the note that the unvaccinated are not welcome).
Universities are requiring vaccination of faculty, staff and students. But what about elementary and middle schools, where most students are either too young for a vaccine, or have not yet gotten one. To protect students, schools can require teachers to be vaccinated — or stop teaching. We have heard tales of unvaccinated children “catching” COVID from unvaccinated teachers. Maybe a few lawsuits from families will convince school districts to safeguard their students.
The final outreach: family. Many families eschew politics, in the name of harmony, if only very short-term harmony. Let’s talk about vaccination, shunning (a strong word, but a look at the data from hospital ICUs warrants the word) relatives who refuse the shots.
Candidly, I think a national mandate obviates the need for companies to vet employees, for businesses to institute protocols for vaccine passports and COVID tests, and for families to split into factions. But let’s keep our eyes on the prize: herd immunity.
Joan Retsinas is a sociologist who writes about health care in Providence, R.I. Email retsinas@verizon.net.
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2021
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