The Vaccine Question for 2021
By Albert B. Kelly
We are about to approach some interesting dilemmas. I wish I could say I had the answers, but I don’t. I’m thinking primarily about what will happen when vaccines are readily available for people but they choose not to get vaccinated. This will be no small dilemma. I am not now speaking of people who can’t be vaccinated because of an existing health condition that would endanger them, but the objectors.
Should Worker’s Comp and employers continue to eat the costs associated with the quarantine of those who were exposed but have refused vaccinations? Beyond that should employers and taxpayers continue to pay for the treatment of people who could have been vaccinated but simply chose not be? I don’t know the answer to those questions but I think they’re worth asking. I say that because a vaccine or multiple vaccines with effectiveness rates at 80% or 90% changes what is possible for us in terms of controlling this pandemic and ensuring public health.
These issues surrounding vaccines are not new. I recall that roughly a year and a half ago New Jersey and New York were among several states that got pounded with an outbreak of measles, something that science had all but eliminated a couple of decades ago through a systematic campaign of vaccinations. The outbreak occurred because a large enough number of parents refused to get their children vaccinated with the recommended vaccine cocktail and the measles spread like wildfire.
We often forget about the number diseases that vaccines have made far less frightening. I’m thinking now about polio, which ceased to be the terror that it had been up until the 1950’s. If you’re not familiar with polio, it is a virus that causes paralysis in both adults and children. In fact Franklin D. Roosevelt, our thirty-second president, contracted polio as an adult and was confined to wheel chair from his twenties onward.
Other viruses that devastated generations that have since been largely controlled in this country through vaccines include Whooping Cough or Pertussis which can be deadly to babies, Chickenpox which can be painful and even deadly for infants and some adults, Hepatitis (both A and B) which can cause liver damage and other problems, and Diphtheria which impacts breathing and can cause problems swallowing. Each of these viruses was once feared in this country, but over the last several decades, they have mostly become afterthoughts because of vaccinations. That’s now changing and not for the better.
I am not immersed in the science and don’t necessarily care to be but if memory serves, somewhere in the 1990’s there were claims by some, however unfounded, that all sorts of vaccines caused various conditions and they were to be avoided at all costs. Once that became a thing, much like grass-fed cattle, organic food, and “all natural” ingredients, it was no surprise that vaccines got a bad rap by a chunk of the population. It’s a luxury to have no fear of polio or any of the other viruses that struck terror into the hearts of our grandparents.
This bad rap on all vaccines will no doubt impact whether some people get one or the other of the Covid vaccines soon to be available. And whether people avoid Covid vaccines because they believe all vaccines are dangerous or they’re a tool of the “deep state” or believe that Covid is hoax or because refusing the vaccine is a political statement about democracy, we’ll still be left with questions and more sick people than need be.
Chief among the questions will be whether or not it’s acceptable for someone to impose their risk on society and on those who can’t be vaccinated such as infants, those who are pregnant, people with weakened immune systems, and certain frail elderly- all of whom are known to be at high risk for complications? Other questions will center on the consumption of limited or scarce medical care and resources.
Should society, government, taxpayers- essentially everyone- automatically pony up the money to assume whatever costs may be incurred by and for those who could be vaccinated but refuse to do so for whatever reason? However these questions get framed, they will be the next big thing and how we collectively answer these questions over the course of 2021 will largely determine the size and shape of our recovery- whether it will be relatively quick and straight-forward or long, drawn-out, and far too costly.