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A public-health expert recently noted it is impossible to convince a person thinking illogically using logic. Although COVID vaccines are lifesaving, more than 60 million adults remain unvaccinated, some fearful, and worse, some hostile to vaccination and even masking.
Politicization regarding COVID and vaccination is rampant. Millions believe disinformation from garbage internet and social media sites, politicians and some in the right-wing media rather than information provided by public-health professionals and officials and their own trusted health care providers.
David Leonhardt of The New York Times and Philip Bump of The Washington Post have penned articles explaining that the irrational politicization of COVID, vaccines and masking created a death-rate gap between blue and red America.
The gap, once minimal, has dramatically and progressively widened since vaccine availability, with conservative areas having significantly higher mortality. Forty percent of Republicans remain unvaccinated compared to 10% of Democrats. The fight against COVID should be a public-health battle, not a cultural one.
There is no substitute for vaccination for the greatest and longest protection. Non-vaccinated individuals will continue to suffer the greatest burden of disease.
Fully immunized status, nationally at 60% and in Indiana at 50%, falls well short of herd immunity. Indiana owns one of the lowest state rates. As winter sets in, we are again experiencing a surge of Delta infections, and the new, worrisome variant, Omicron, looms before us.
Yet the illogical thinking continues. Recently, Gov. Eric Holcomb and the Legislature attempted to end the COVID emergency order prematurely, eviscerate business’s ability to mandate vaccines and codify disinformation. The legislation, postponed but already filed again for the session in January, is a symbolic nod to resisting “government overreach.” What a dreadful message to the public: “Time to move on; the pandemic is over.”
Vaccine mandates are a rational last-resort public-health measure to achieve herd immunity of 85% to 90% vaccinated. No one wants mandates, but it’s the only path forward out of this crisis.
American smallpox immunization mandates go back more than 200 years. School mandates are responsible for our high childhood immunization rates. Nonetheless, many conservative states, including Indiana, have enacted laws that prevent government from mandating COVID vaccination in various ways.
With the proliferation of businesses requiring employee vaccination, nine states have prohibited companies from doing so. The Indiana Legislature appears poised to restrict business mandates as well. What happened to the conservative philosophy of small, nonintrusive government?
Biden’s mandatory immunization rules conflict with most state vaccination prohibitions. Federal regulations preempt state laws. We may be headed for a showdown.
Two previous Supreme Court decisions upheld the constitutionally of vaccine mandates, at least at the state level. Constitutionally, public-health enforcement is largely reserved to the states. Federal mandates are more uncertain. Federal courts have recently issued conflicting decisions on the constitutionality of the mandates, and now a series of lawsuits raised by more than two dozen states, including Indiana, will play out in federal courts.
Undoubtedly, the controversy will wind up in the conservative-dominated Supreme Court. Will the court rule contrary to its own precedent? Anyone’s guess.
Important in determining constitutionally has been the belief that individual liberties are never absolute, always balanced with the common good and mitigated when producing harm to others. I’m a firm believer.•
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Feldman is a family physician, author, lecturer and former Indiana State Department of Health commissioner for Gov. Frank O’Bannon.
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What happened to the conservative philosophy of small, nonintrusive government? It was overtaken by the liberal, intrusive large government, that instituted all the mandates.
Dr. Feldman makes some good points and one in particular merits further examination. “No one wants mandates, but it’s the only path forward out of this crisis.” It is also a path that may that may set a precedent to trample constitutional freedoms, and thereby establish the beginning of the end of our Republic as it was brilliantly founded. Freedom and liberty have many risks. “Life at any cost” has never been the patriots call. Rather “freedom and liberty at any cost” has been the patriots call. Lots of blood has been spilled for this call. Far more than the 800,00 plus of the pandemic …, a statistical count based on criteria that is anything but transparent. As a red state leaning voter who sometimes crosses the line to vote blue when I believe that choice is the best decision, I believe vaccination is a good choice and got two shots as quickly as they became available, based on a simple calculation that the benefit easily outweighed the risk, for me and everyone else. Too bad ALL the politicians and many bureaucrats (Dr. Fauci is the single greatest example with his infinite contradictory public statements) jumped on this public health matter and quickly made it a national disaster. Public confidence in government across the board and across both sides of the aisle is at an all-time low. And trust is vitally important.