The Disappearing Vaccine Mandate

Now You See it, and Now You Don't

Public Health officials and politicians around the country are getting a quick education on the Overton window. That is usually defined as the spectrum of policies which are acceptable to the vast mainstream of the population. Politicians in general have little influence on the dimensions of the Overton window and risk rebellion or the blatant ignoring of policies which don’t conform. Throughout the pandemic we have seen segments of the populace who ignored Public Health recommendations or mandates. That’s not terribly surprising, we don’t expect everyone to obey speed limits, DUI laws, recommendations regarding safe sex, drug and alcohol use, or even avoid burning down buildings while peacefully protesting.

Based on the earliest data regarding the efficacy of the COVID RNA vaccines I thought vaccine mandates were worth discussion, and might be reasonable candidates for a fit through the Overton window, although certainly with a lot of resistance. As the data accumulated over the next few months, it became clear that the protection from immunity was rapidly waning, and this was accelerated by the appearance of Delta, and then Omicron with its high level of antibody escape. The reasonable argument for vaccine mandates, with their subjugation of personal liberty to the common good, is predicated on vaccination preventing you from acquiring infection and passing it to another person. Once that fails to be the case, even with repeated vaccinations over a short time frame, the argument in favor of the common good takes a serious hit, and the value of the vaccine becomes that of personal risk reduction. I was very happy to have my recent visitation by Omicron ameliorated by my three doses of vaccine, but the personal risk argument clearly does not fit the parameters of acceptable policy for our particular societal window. We saw the beginning of this with various court challenges, culminating in the Supreme Court decision to block the Administration’s mandate for large businesses. The decision was predicated on the mandate being an OSHA implementation of an emergency rule which the Court found exceeded their authority. OSHA immediately responded that they would plan to formulate a regular standing requirement, but the swift pace of events which has marked this pandemic from the beginning makes that seem like a long shot. The other reasonable common good argument was, mandatory vaccination would lessen the risk of overwhelming and breakdown of the healthcare system. The combination of vaccine and natural post-infection immunity have brought us to the point where that is not at all likely to happen going forward. The government can and has instituted rules such as mandating seatbelts, which directly impact only personal protection, but in general these laws impose relatively little in the way of controls that are likely to meet with serious wide spread objection. They fit through the Overton window with ease. The line of reasoning that the government should be allowed to compel this in order to lower healthcare costs for the common good seems fairly weak when we live in a society where cigarettes, vaping products, alcohol and highly processed meats are for sale. Politicians have learned that banning those, and other clearly less than healthful options, is a no go through the window. One other argument is based on the profit motive, and private companies are enabled to compel vaccination as a requisite for employment. After an initial enthusiasm, it seems that trend is reversing as well.

The vast bulk of society, and the media, have just decided that we are on the off ramp of the COVID highway, and it would take a giant pothole to upend that momentum. Within the last week the governor of New York ended the state indoor vaccine mandate for restaurants and other venues. Minneapolis and St. Paul have also rescinded their vaccine mandates, as has the conservative bastion of Seattle. Even Washington DC has done away with an indoor vaccine requirement. Of course there are holdouts, like Chicago, and complicated patchworks of local requirements. Better take your GPS and your have your paperwork handy as you travel around the greater Boston area. What is the likely outcome and how much does it matter? Whatever your view of vaccination mandates, it appears the pendulum is giving us some clear signs of the current direction. My personal take is that mandates, at this particular point, would have a negligible impact on the course of the pandemic in the United States. Could abandoning them have any positive effect? Well definitely not on COVID case counts. But there is an urgent need to repair faith and trust in the population towards Public Health and Science in general. I am beginning to see signs, just in the last week, that government officials are starting to take note of and respond to the window of public opinion, and that is really the first step needed to begin repairing the chasm that has widened between a substantial number of our citizens and Public Health authorities. We had better get to serious work on that, or the next round will go even less well.