One thing you immediately learn as a parent is that if you keep accommodating your children’s irrational tantrums, you do nothing but encourage them. There are millions of otherwise vaccine-eligible Americans who over the past eight months have found one excuse after another to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine. Some small portion of them are logistically incapable of doing so for reasons having to do with poverty, lack of access to transportation, or other real-life, empirical impediments. From the standpoint of the entire population, though, those number a small minority. For most of the rest who are able from a health standpoint to take such vaccines, refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19 is either a conscious decision or the consequence of extreme and unjustifiable inattention.
Those who make up this latter category have been on the receiving end of an unprecedented campaign at both the state and national levels, geared to get them to take the vaccine. Private industry has also contributed mightily to this effort. In an era where such messages in favor of vaccination are literally available on every television or smartphone screen, there is no longer any legitimate excuse for anyone to claim ignorance of them.
I recently attended an outdoor concert of some 15,000 people who were required to either provide proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test within the past 72 hours to gain entry and admission. I saw exactly zero people who were noncompliant. These concertgoers varied widely in their economic strata, political persuasions, and education level, but because they all had a common desire to see the same band, all somehow found the time to jump through the necessary hoops to do so. (They were rewarded, by the way, with an exceptional concert.)
Juliette Kayyem, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, explained in the Atlantic that it is long past time for American institutions and businesses to end the seemingly interminable efforts to cajole the remaining vaccine-eligible to get vaccinated. If the country is to move forward to extricate itself and recover from the pandemic, we need to make vaccination against COVID-19 a condition for all Americans who wish to participate in that effort and take advantage of the opportunities and privileges that come with that decision. And we need to ensure that anyone who fails to do so will simply be denied those opportunities.
Kayyem’s article, “Vaccine Refusers Don’t Get to Dictate Terms Anymore,” amply expresses the frustration those who have been vaccinated now feel toward the population of vaccine-eligible refusers. She notes that with the FDA’s official approval last week of the Pfizer vaccine, the stage has been set providing American businesses and private industry, in particular, the justification to exclude the unvaccinated from employment opportunities as well as the option of participating in many public activities. As Kayyem explains, these actions have been in the works for months:
These are just a few examples of an unmistakable trend by Americans and employers who are frankly fed up with the never-ending litany of excuses from the vaccine-eligible for refusing to get a simple vaccine. For the employers and businesses who drive our economy, it is a simple matter of economic expediency and workplace safety. For private citizens it is a matter of their personal safety and health, and particularly the safety and health of their small children who cannot yet receive the vaccines. In any case, as Kayyem explains, “What all of these decisions show is that the adults running major institutions in our society want to move forward, and they are done waiting around for vaccine refusers to change their mind.” In other words, the vaccinated have a message for the vaccine refusers: Time’s up.
Kayyem notes that it is those who have been vaccinated, not those who have refused, who have essentially borne the economic burdens of the pandemic, by eschewing travel and public gatherings in order to protect themselves. The economic and personal sacrifices of all of those lockdowns last year were made at the expense of those who patiently waited for the vaccines to arrive, not the unvaccinated bikers who congregated unmasked in Sturgis, South Dakota, for example. The sacrifices made by parents who stayed home when schools physically closed down or navigated to online learning were made in the furtherance of those who wanted to protect their children, not by the idiots screaming about their so-called freedoms in school board meetings.
While extraordinary efforts have been made to coax the unvaccinated into doing the right thing to protect themselves and other Americans, Kayyem believes that by now the rationale of those vaccine-eligible refusers have reached a point of diminishing returns, where “the specific feelings and concerns of vaccine refusers should be largely irrelevant to vaccinated people who are eager to move on with their lives.” As Kayyem writes, “Americans are entitled to make their own decisions, but their employers, health insurers, and fellow citizens are not required to accommodate them.”
The problem with continuing these attempts to coddle the unvaccinated is that it creates a neverending feedback loop of vaccine hesitancy and refusal. By constant efforts to address every new rationale people use for their refusal, all we do is perpetuate the notion that none of this is really an emergency. So the unvaccinated simply find another excuse for the rest of us to address. If that pattern is allowed to continue, most of the unvaccinated will simply never comply:
It is perfectly legal for businesses to demand and require their employees that physically enter the workplace to be vaccinated: the Department of Labor has released rules and guidance that says exactly that. But Kayyem notes that many businesses have also found creative ways to encourage vaccinations—such as imposing mandatory surcharges on employer-based health insurance plans for those who refuse the vaccine:
But the bottom line is that in an emergency situation, which is exactly what the COVID-19 pandemic is—and always has been—people just shouldn’t be allowed to threaten the lives and future livelihoods of others by their own bad or misinformed decisions. Kayyem equates it to the scenario of a sinking ship, in which “Passengers aren’t given the luxury of quibbling with the color or design of the life vest, and they can’t dither forever about whether to put one on or not.”
No, passengers on a sinking ship aren’t afforded that luxury. They either put on the life vest like everyone else, or they will be left to drown. The good of the rest of the population they’ve put at risk (both physically, economically, and in the quality of their lives) simply matters more to the collective public than their uninformed feelings or beliefs.
One of the common refrains of those Republican governors who refused to mandate social distancing and masks in their businesses within their states was that we had to “get back to business” and “get the country moving again.” Most Americans and—increasingly—many American businesses agree. The country has to get moving again. The way to do that is for everyone to get vaccinated. And if you’re not willing to get vaccinated, then we’re no longer going to allow you to hold the rest of us hostage by your refusal.
Time’s up. It should have been up a long time ago.
Those who make up this latter category have been on the receiving end of an unprecedented campaign at both the state and national levels, geared to get them to take the vaccine. Private industry has also contributed mightily to this effort. In an era where such messages in favor of vaccination are literally available on every television or smartphone screen, there is no longer any legitimate excuse for anyone to claim ignorance of them.
I recently attended an outdoor concert of some 15,000 people who were required to either provide proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test within the past 72 hours to gain entry and admission. I saw exactly zero people who were noncompliant. These concertgoers varied widely in their economic strata, political persuasions, and education level, but because they all had a common desire to see the same band, all somehow found the time to jump through the necessary hoops to do so. (They were rewarded, by the way, with an exceptional concert.)
Juliette Kayyem, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, explained in the Atlantic that it is long past time for American institutions and businesses to end the seemingly interminable efforts to cajole the remaining vaccine-eligible to get vaccinated. If the country is to move forward to extricate itself and recover from the pandemic, we need to make vaccination against COVID-19 a condition for all Americans who wish to participate in that effort and take advantage of the opportunities and privileges that come with that decision. And we need to ensure that anyone who fails to do so will simply be denied those opportunities.
Kayyem’s article, “Vaccine Refusers Don’t Get to Dictate Terms Anymore,” amply expresses the frustration those who have been vaccinated now feel toward the population of vaccine-eligible refusers. She notes that with the FDA’s official approval last week of the Pfizer vaccine, the stage has been set providing American businesses and private industry, in particular, the justification to exclude the unvaccinated from employment opportunities as well as the option of participating in many public activities. As Kayyem explains, these actions have been in the works for months:
These are just a few examples of an unmistakable trend by Americans and employers who are frankly fed up with the never-ending litany of excuses from the vaccine-eligible for refusing to get a simple vaccine. For the employers and businesses who drive our economy, it is a simple matter of economic expediency and workplace safety. For private citizens it is a matter of their personal safety and health, and particularly the safety and health of their small children who cannot yet receive the vaccines. In any case, as Kayyem explains, “What all of these decisions show is that the adults running major institutions in our society want to move forward, and they are done waiting around for vaccine refusers to change their mind.” In other words, the vaccinated have a message for the vaccine refusers: Time’s up.
Kayyem notes that it is those who have been vaccinated, not those who have refused, who have essentially borne the economic burdens of the pandemic, by eschewing travel and public gatherings in order to protect themselves. The economic and personal sacrifices of all of those lockdowns last year were made at the expense of those who patiently waited for the vaccines to arrive, not the unvaccinated bikers who congregated unmasked in Sturgis, South Dakota, for example. The sacrifices made by parents who stayed home when schools physically closed down or navigated to online learning were made in the furtherance of those who wanted to protect their children, not by the idiots screaming about their so-called freedoms in school board meetings.
While extraordinary efforts have been made to coax the unvaccinated into doing the right thing to protect themselves and other Americans, Kayyem believes that by now the rationale of those vaccine-eligible refusers have reached a point of diminishing returns, where “the specific feelings and concerns of vaccine refusers should be largely irrelevant to vaccinated people who are eager to move on with their lives.” As Kayyem writes, “Americans are entitled to make their own decisions, but their employers, health insurers, and fellow citizens are not required to accommodate them.”
The problem with continuing these attempts to coddle the unvaccinated is that it creates a neverending feedback loop of vaccine hesitancy and refusal. By constant efforts to address every new rationale people use for their refusal, all we do is perpetuate the notion that none of this is really an emergency. So the unvaccinated simply find another excuse for the rest of us to address. If that pattern is allowed to continue, most of the unvaccinated will simply never comply:
It is perfectly legal for businesses to demand and require their employees that physically enter the workplace to be vaccinated: the Department of Labor has released rules and guidance that says exactly that. But Kayyem notes that many businesses have also found creative ways to encourage vaccinations—such as imposing mandatory surcharges on employer-based health insurance plans for those who refuse the vaccine:
But the bottom line is that in an emergency situation, which is exactly what the COVID-19 pandemic is—and always has been—people just shouldn’t be allowed to threaten the lives and future livelihoods of others by their own bad or misinformed decisions. Kayyem equates it to the scenario of a sinking ship, in which “Passengers aren’t given the luxury of quibbling with the color or design of the life vest, and they can’t dither forever about whether to put one on or not.”
No, passengers on a sinking ship aren’t afforded that luxury. They either put on the life vest like everyone else, or they will be left to drown. The good of the rest of the population they’ve put at risk (both physically, economically, and in the quality of their lives) simply matters more to the collective public than their uninformed feelings or beliefs.
One of the common refrains of those Republican governors who refused to mandate social distancing and masks in their businesses within their states was that we had to “get back to business” and “get the country moving again.” Most Americans and—increasingly—many American businesses agree. The country has to get moving again. The way to do that is for everyone to get vaccinated. And if you’re not willing to get vaccinated, then we’re no longer going to allow you to hold the rest of us hostage by your refusal.
Time’s up. It should have been up a long time ago.