Why Must I Change My Behavior To Protect Those Who Choose Not To Vaccinate?
We are rapidly approaching the point where people who are unvaccinated are that way because they choose to eschew the vaccine. Here in AZ, which has had a pretty solid vaccination program, tens of thousands of appointments for *free* vaccinations are going unused. Vaccination rates are falling because people don't want them.
But states like Michigan still require that every citizen's freedoms be restricted until more people are vaccinated. What if those folks choose never to get the shot? Are we doomed to the same east-german-style regime forever?
And why should we? People are making the individual choice that they perceive the risks and costs of vaccination to be higher than that from COVID. OK, fine. I disagree with them, but am happy to respect their right to make that decision. But why do the rest of us still have to tiptoe around them? They have made their risk choice, why don't we let them live with it and get on with our lives?
The answer is two-fold, and comes back to political incentives. First, politicians fear they will be blamed for outbreaks of disease among the unvaccinated that raise their state's numbers -- we have lost the ability to talk in terms of individual responsibility and so somehow even when an individual explicitly makes a risk choice, we still want to blame politicians if this choice goes bad. The other reason is that politicians really don't want to give up the power they have -- they have gained powers unprecedented in American history through declarations of health emergencies and fanning the flames of irrational fears, and they don't want to give those back. Any excuse to extend the emergency will be grasped.
