Personal Choices & Vaccinations: What We Owe to Each Other
6 minute read.
Shortly after I was vaccinated at a CVS Pharmacy in Phoenix, Arizona on May 1, 2021 (Team Johnson & Johnson).
My dad loves to tell the story of when my brother and I were little, and my parents had just taught us about our ability to make choices. (I don’t remember this, I was too young). I was sitting in my parents’ bedroom watching TV, my brother came in, changed the channel without warning, and I said...
“Tucker, you have choices. ... Get out.”
Obviously, this story is hilarious because while little Anya recognized his capacity for free will, she thought it best to decide for him, lest he saw the consequences of changing the channel on her. Sure, he could have changed the channel back to what I was watching. But that’s not how tiny siblings think. Even though I don’t remember this story that I’ve heard so many times, I know I felt like I was helping him make the right choice.
I often feel this way now amid the pandemic, facing unvaccinated people. I’m speaking specifically about people who are unvaccinated not because of lack of access but for reasons of hesitancy or outright opposition to vaccines.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone has the choice to put or not put something in their body. Everyone has the right to bodily autonomy, blah blah blah. I’m a feminist and pro-choice, so this is an argument I’ve used many times (but it isn’t even close to respected in the same way that it is when anti-vaxxers use it). Whatever. The point is that the vaccine is a choice, and you have the right to choose whether you take it.
…But we all know what the right decision is.
The risk of not vaccinating is far greater than vaccinating. Full stop. End argument. That’s all you need to know.
Now, if you haven’t, please, go get your jab.
Oh, that wasn’t enough for you to get the jab?
Fine. Let’s talk about how your attitude hasn’t worked out so far.
The US tried the honor system. It didn’t work. Those “Please wear a mask if you are unvaccinated” signs were about as effective as the pull-out method. Probably even less effective. Now, the delta variant is raging across the US, and it is far more contagious than the original virus.
I know people who didn’t get vaccinated and then stopped wearing masks as soon as those signs came out. It’s pretty shameful. But peer pressure is a powerful thing. If everyone else around you isn’t wearing a mask, chances are you’re going to feel like taking yours off.
(I mean, not me, because if I don’t know you, I’m not going to trust that you’ve been COVID safe, and I’ll keep my mask on even if I’m the only one. But I’m strong-willed, and I actually give a fuck about other people’s well-being, even if everyone else around me doesn’t appear to care.)
Maybe you aren’t strong-willed. And perhaps you don’t really care about other people. I don’t know you.
What I do know is that your choice to get vaccinated is not just a personal choice. It does not affect only you. It affects all of us.
I’m sorry that this isn’t just about you. I know you really, really want it to be. It would actually be great if it were—imagine if the vaccine was only responsible for protecting you and not others! Then I wouldn’t give a single damn if you got vaccinated. If you were to die or get sick, that would be entirely on you. But that just isn’t the case.
Unfortunately, this is a group project. And if you’re not pulling your weight, the rest of the group will hate you.
I don’t want to tell you what the right choice is because you should already know. But because so many of you failed the honor system test, everything is about to get way more serious.
You had the choice to get vaccinated. You were supposed to choose to do it of your own free will. That’s why the US made it free of cost (when is the last time the US made anything medical FREE?). That’s also why there have been ridiculous incentive schemes to motivate you to vaccinate, like the St. Louis Cardinals offering up free baseball tickets if you get vaccinated or the Missouri vaccine lottery.
But if you don’t get vaccinated when you have the choice, I have bad news for you.
You’re about to face some much more difficult choices.
Schools will start requiring COVID vaccines (not a novel concept as far as requiring vaccines go). Some employers will start mandating vaccines, too (No, this does not violate HIPAA). Some US government institutions like the military have already required all personnel to be vaccinated. Now even some restaurants and stores are taking it upon themselves amid poor governmental enforcement to require proof of vaccination for entry.
If all that isn’t enough for you, here’s the doozie: eventually, you will be required to have a COVID vaccination to travel. If you never want to leave the US, good for you. You’ll just continue contributing to the Petri dish that is the United States. And you won’t spread the virus to communities you don’t live in, like some nasty, disease-laden colonialist who thinks they’re entitled to exist wherever they want despite whatever risk they may bring to native occupants.
But if you do want to travel outside the US, vaccines will eventually be a requirement for entry. And I can promise you that border patrol will have no chill about visitors who try to enter unvaccinated.
The irony of all this...
...is that this wouldn’t have to happen if vaccine-hesitant people had simply chosen the obvious right choice.
What’s even more ironic is that as we try to get the hell out of this nightmarishly long pandemic, the tables will turn. It’s the people who have been isolating, who have been masking, who vaccinated, and who have been ridiculed for “living in fear” that will now have the benefit of enjoying the freedom to move about the world as we once did pre-pandemic.
The people who are not making those efforts will be gradually forced into isolation and out of the welcoming embrace of society. Those denying the severity of COVID will be the ones to bear the brunt of the pandemic, as it should have always been.
The Italian journalist Selvaggia Lucarelli says it best:
“I no longer have any intention of sacrificing my life, time, freedom and adolescence of my son, as well as his right to study properly, for anyone who refuses to vaccinate themselves. This time you’re staying home to yourself, not us.”
If you’re still unvaccinated by choice, have read to the end of this piece, and you’re still not convinced to get the vaccine, I have just one left thing to say to you...
______ (fill in your name here), you have choices … Get out.
Guess you better start gearing up for the life you’re going to live off the grid. Good luck finding oats at the country store in town, miles away from your isolated cabin. If you’re lucky, they won’t require vaccination proof.
As time goes on, life will be easier for you if you just get vaccinated. Besides, it’s what we owe to each other.