Vaccine mandates: An act of compassion

MIA YOUNG: After a long, demoralizing, and deadly few months, the Biden administration has taken on a new strategy for propelling the country out of the clutches of COVID-19. On September 9, 2021, President Biden announced a new set of initiatives to combat the ongoing pandemic, the most sweeping of which was a series of new vaccine requirements aiming to increase the number of vaccinated Americans amid the havoc of the delta variant. President Biden did the right thing in acknowledging vaccine mandates as the only possible way forward; implementing them despite significant pushback is a feat of both public health competence and human empathy.

There are three primary components of these new COVID-19 vaccine regulations. First, President Biden announced plans to sign an executive order requiring all executive branch federal employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Second, a previous vaccine requirement for all nursing home workers who treat patients on Medicare and Medicaid will now be extended to include all such workers in the healthcare field. Third, companies with 100 or more employees will have to require either vaccination or weekly testing for all workers. This new rule will apply to over 80 million employees in the private sector. President Biden’s announcement came in the midst of a deadly surge caused by the delta variant, which cost over 26,000 Americans their lives in August alone.  

When tackling a public health problem that requires behavior change, public health professionals use models to assess motivations, examine barriers and create interventions. There are countless examples of states, localities, organizations and institutions stepping up to the plate and doing just that. Vaccines have become widely geographically accessible and ad campaigns have worked to address people’s fears about side effects. Messaging has focused on meeting people where they are and encouraging them to get vaccinated to keep themselves and their loved ones safe and healthy. However, traditional public health frameworks are not set up to respond to widespread, aggressive and concerted efforts to undermine faith in basic medical interventions. Anti-vaccine rhetoric has been parasitically permeating discourse around the vaccine, particularly on social media platforms such as Facebook. Seeding mistrust in vaccines that have been shown countless times to be both safe and effective has proven remarkably powerful, leading to over 30% of the adult population in the U.S. remaining unvaccinated against COVID-19 despite vaccines having been widely available for several months. Messaging and interventions were not enough to pierce through the barrage of misinformation, thus necessitating vaccine requirements.

While sticking with his hallmark tone of compassion and empathy in his announcement, President Biden expressed frustration shared by many vaccinated Americans about sustained vaccine hesitancy and refusal: “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.” Day in and day out, those of us who got vaccinated as soon as we became eligible scroll through news story after news story of our fellow citizens being unwilling to do what it takes to protect one another and pull ourselves out of the darkness of the last year and a half. Those of us with loved ones who are at a higher risk for getting sick and dying are worn down by the constant fear that someone close to us will become just another number on the rising death toll of this pandemic. There is no way out of this without change, and President Biden’s announcement is a crucial step in the right direction. When personal choices put the lives of others at risk, the government has both the jurisdiction and the responsibility to step in. Having intimate experience with loss, President Biden knows the pain that so many have suffered over the past 18 months. His order was an act of compassion towards all of us for whom COVID-19 has caused the experience or ever-present fear of losing someone we love. 

Up against the scourge of misinformation, turning to mandates was the right decision both morally and from a public health perspective. Traditional health messaging was not breaking through, and the delay has been costing the health and lives of far too many Americans. Out of consideration for those who have already been vaccinated, and to honor those who have died, the US must continue on its trajectory to set aside dishonest arguments about personal freedom and do the right thing by requiring people to get vaccinated.

Mia Young is a junior in the NHS from Washington, DC.