Employers to the rescue!

 

      The Covid pandemic, and the government-imposed lockdowns and other draconian measures, have wrecked havoc on our lives and the economy.  There was much rejoicing when a vaccine was developed, which was accomplished in a much shorter time frame than anticipated. 

      Unfortunately, a sizable chunk of the population is resisting having themselves vaccinated.  (And it's not just the Covid vaccine; measles and other deadly diseases with readily available preventative vaccines also have their skeptics.)  These skeptics, of course, are dead wrong.  Their justifications for not getting it have all been debunked; see this article:  COVID-19 vaccine myths - Mayo Clinic

drinking on an airplane: no mask required

      The last thing we need is for government to pass more laws and regulations, threatening everybody with fines and/or imprisonment for not complying.  They've already done this with air travel, via this idiotic requirement that you must wear a face mask at all times.  This puts flight attendants into the job of Covid Mask Police, something that never was meant to be in their job descriptions.  I recently took an airline flight.  I found it interesting that it was Ok to remove one's mask while eating or drinking.  Therefore, for people like me who cannot get enough oxygen with a mask, and want to avoid confrontations over it, all I had to do was get a drink (a water bottle will suffice) and spend the entire flight nursing it. 

      But I digress.  If you want to encourage people to get the vaccine, there is a force within our society that is VASTLY more effective:  employers.

      It started with health care workers, who really are on the front lines in the Covid battle.  One by one, their employers started to REQUIRE them to get vaccinated.  See this article: Mandatory Vaccination of Health Care Workers.  Then bar and restaurant owners joined in, and more industries where employees deal with customers face-to-face did likewise. 

anti-vaccine protests

      Naturally, there was all sorts of pushback:  lawsuits, press conferences, public protests, and so on.  Employees screamed that this was an infringement on their "rights", and their employers had no authority to require certain medical treatments.

      In the end, nearly every lawsuit or protest has failed.  Non-compliant employees were fired.  (Unless they could produce documentation proving they had valid medical reasons why they could not take the vaccine.)

      So let's cut to the chase here:  if your employer requires you to undergo some sort of medical treatment, that is NOT an infringement on your "rights".  Employers, or managers of anyplace where people come in close physical contact, have a responsibility to protect everyone within.  If you want said employer to pay you a paycheck, then you must do things their way.  Don't like it?  Well, go work for someone else.  Good luck.

one size does NOT fit all

      This is also a great time to reconsider why we let the government run the education industry.  Government's one-size-fits-all philosophy of educating our kids has all sorts of problems.  Now you can add vaccination requirements to the list.  Wouldn't it be oh-so-much-simpler if we let the free market sort this out?  You could have one private school that says:  come one, come all, we will not ask you questions about your medical history!  Then another school could say:  you ain't stepping inside this building unless you prove you're vaccinated!  Every family would then have the freedom to select what THEY feel is best.

      By the way, the same principle - letting the free market solve societal problems - also applies to preventing substance abuse.  For decades, employers across the land have been testing their employees to ensure they don't come to work drunk or stoned.  Nobody protests it.  It's part of the job requirements.  Thus, government doesn't need laws on the books banning harmful drugs, or as some have advocated: alcohol prohibition.  Employers will do it, and much more effectively.