Vaccine Mandates On The Rise
by Dr. Rena Daiza
From Krispy Kreme doughnuts to million-dollar lottery tickets, vaccine incentives are happening all over the country as states creatively entice their residents to get the COVID-19 vaccine. With widespread vaccine availability, minimal side effects, and proven performance, it would be ideal if this is all we needed to reach herd immunity in the United States, but sadly it has not been enough.
Vaccines are effective and safe. By the end of June, research has estimated that the vaccine has prevented more than 279,000 additional deaths due to COVID-19. Sadly, today’s vaccination rates are becoming stagnant and COVID-19 deaths are slowly increasing again. Currently, 98 percent of those hospitalized with the virus are unvaccinated and nearly all the deaths related to COVID-19 are affecting the unvaccinated population.
The longer we take to reach herd immunity, the more opportunity the virus has to mutate into different variants. Each new variant reflects a change in the virus’s properties, causing easier spread and/or an even more severe disease. We are already seeing this in the widespread Delta variant which currently accounts for the majority of COVID-19 cases in a very short amount of time.
Many in the Chaldean community have been hesitant to take the vaccine which is contributing to Michigan’s rising COVID-19 cases. We need to do better. If incentives are not enough, vaccine mandates will be a necessary next step.
Some businesses including my own workplace, a health system, have already put vaccine mandates in place. Hospital settings are high risk for contact and transmission of the virus. It seems unlikely that the United States will overcome the pandemic without vaccine mandates. There will be exemptions of course, but most people will not fall into that category. Mandating a vaccine does not mean physically forcing someone to get the shot. Rather, we should expect those eligible but choosing not to get vaccinated may not be able to travel to certain areas or participate in activities because their unvaccinated status poses a risk to the population.
During my conversations with community members, some consider a mandate an infringement upon their rights. But we would do well to remember that we are still in the middle of a public health crisis. It is our duty and obligation to not only protect ourselves but protect the most vulnerable around us. Remember, some people cannot get vaccinated even if they wanted to due to their age or because they are medically fragile. They are counting on the rest of us who are able to get the vaccine to provide a form of indirect protection for them from the virus.
We should recall that vaccine mandates are embedded in the history of the United States. Most infectious diseases in the country like measles, mumps, and rubella, are mandated by school systems. Our children are not able to start college without their meningococcal vaccines. This is not new. Due to the mandates, the vast majority of people in this country are vaccinated and we are able to prevent outbreaks. Similarly, in the early era when the United States was fighting smallpox and polio, it took vaccine mandates to reach herd immunity, and we have successfully eradicated those diseases from our country. It is because of mass vaccination orders that we no longer see cases of polio and smallpox in the United States, diseases that devastated the country for hundreds of years. Other vaccines that have not been mandated outside health systems like influenza will continue to spread through our communities year after year. We can’t let that happen with COVID-19 since we have already seen the destruction it can cause.
COVID-19 continues to be an emergency. Each time COVID-19 produces a new variant, the fight to reach herd immunity becomes more difficult. We are desperately trying to buy time until enough people get protected. In the United States we are lucky to have access to three remarkably effective vaccines against COVID-19. Not every country has the same availability, and we should take full advantage of this opportunity. One way or another we will reach herd immunity as antibodies can come from the vaccine with minimal side effects or through the hard way of catching the virus. We have seen and lived through what a year without an available vaccine can do to our community.
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval for use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. We can expect approval on other vaccines to follow. Because of this, there will likely be more vaccine mandates put in place. It is important to look at mandates as a positive, a way to save lives and move beyond this pandemic. When we look back at this time, let’s be on the right side of history.