When it comes to managing the vaccination process in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it could well be that rules will be put in place to restrict the movement of un-vaccinated persons in the interest of public safety. The operative word is “could”, as at the moment there is a lot of discussion going on that front.
I can see situations where being vaccinated will be mandatory just to ensure that people don’t turn themselves into a lethal weapon and unwittingly end up killing someone because they are COVID positive – although they don’t know this and are a-symptomatic for the virus – and then give it to someone else who might die from it. This might happen in situations where social distancing isn’t an option – such as on airplanes – or when a population group is particularly vulnerable such as senior care homes where the vast majority of deaths (80% in Canada) have occurred.
It might be said that such restrictions infringe on personal rights and freedoms, but I see this more as just another way to ensure each other’s safety, e.g., such as restricting vehicles to speed limits or one-way traffic or mandatory stop signs so we don’t all end up killing each other when driving our cars.
Reasonable people with some sense of social responsibility should not take issue with this, but it is clear that not everyone is that way inclined or appears to have evolved to the point that they are capable of thinking that way.
To take this latter point a little further, no doubt that in the end, when all this COVID trouble is over – here’s hoping! – there are going to be people who will proudly proclaim that they were able to survive this plague without being vaccinated or, for that matter, without wearing a mask or social distancing, so what was the big fuss all about?
However, it is less likely that they survived the pandemic unscathed regardless of their non-adherence to recommended public safety measures in light of COVID. More likely, it was the fact that the vast majority of people around them did follow the recommended procedures such as masking up and getting vaccinated and so prevented the anti-vaxxers from becoming infected with this potentially deadly virus even if they themselves were infected with it.
No, you couldn’t prove that of course, but you shouldn’t have to as this is merely an appeal to reason – and it is an unfortunate fact that, from the looks of it, not everyone is in possession of this faculty, and so they will not be able to get the point.