Unvaccinated people should not be able to...

Why stop with domestic airline travel? How about a vaccine mandate to use social media!

Over the last few months, the appetite in the public health community to compel vaccination has grown. The idea is simple: people who elected to get vaccinated are good, and those who don’t are bad. (PS Natural immunity doesn’t exist). Whatever we do to make it harder to be unvaccinated the better! Work place mandates, restaurant mandates, etc. Some have even said we deny medical care to the unvaccinated. (wowzers!)

In a few months, we moved from “an 80 year old should definitely choose to get vaccinated” to “a 20 year IT worker better get 2 doses ASAP or else they can remote work someplace else!”

Many relish penalties for failing to get the desired number of shots. The Biden administration pushed workplace vaccine mandates; and many municipalities have mandates for restaurants or bars. There are mandates for theaters and nightclubs. There are even mandates for schools. LA recently backed away from a proposal to throw out 12 year olds who had not complied with both doses, but will likely revisit it. San Francisco is poised to demand 5 year olds show proof of vaccination to sit in a restaurant.

Recently, the administration has floated the idea that it will soon require vaccination for domestic air travel. This decision has been applauded (including by those who appear to get their tweets from the White House), but I expressed some concerns in a prior post.

But my question for pro-mandate proponents is why stop there: is there any limiting principle to your policy? For instance: (PS: I do not endorse any of what follows)

Why not mandate vaccine passports for grocery stores? The unvaccinated can get amazon fresh or go hungry.

Why not mandate it for gas stations? If you can’t fill up your car, it will encourage you to get vaccinated.

Oh, you drive a Tesla? Why not a vaccine mandate to get electricity? No jab no jolt!

Church mandates? They can be crowded, after all. God only sees the vaccinated anyway.

Mandates for playgrounds? No reason to let unvaccinated kids play.

How about use of public roads? Why should the unvaccinated get access to freeways— it’s just another way to spread the virus, anyway.

Mandates to use social media? If you don’t scan a vaccine card into Facebook or Twitter within 24 hours, your account will deactivate.

How great is this idea? If you had a vaccine mandate for social media use, you would immediate solve 2 problems. 1. You would encourage vaccination. and 2. You would remove all posts skeptical towards vaccination or mandates! Q.E.D.

A vaccine mandate to speak in public. Talking spreads virus, so without proof of boosting, why let someone talk? The penalty can be imprisonment.

Did I mention a mandate for prisoners? See prior mandate.

How about a mandate to get social security checks? This would target the at risk demographic.

Others have already suggested a mandate for medical care; so how about a mandate to leave your house?

My question is simple: if you think aircraft mandates make sense, why not go further? What is your limiting principle? Forget the law— you don’t understand it anyway—what is your philosophical principle?

Mine is simple: I like policy that results in greater gains than losses for human health, in the short and long term. That’s why I am critical of these brute force policies which will have unintended and unpredictable consequences.

My prior writing on this topic: 2 for MedPage today here, and here, and one for Substack here