Vaccine Centrism

There's nothing inconsistent about being pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine-mandate.

I’m probably not the only one who has this odd experience every time I argue with someone about vaccine mandates: As soon as I voice my opposition to them, the person on the other side of the issue starts explaining to me how effective the vaccines are at stopping, or at least slowing, the spread of Covid-19. Then we start getting into the weeds about whether that’s actually true or not, and by then, the conversation has already shifted to a place that’s completely beside the point. Debating whether or not the vaccines suppress transmission, or whether they decrease the opportunity for the virus to mutate into a more virulent strain, implies that the debate over mandates is a merely empirical one. It’s predicated on the assumption that if I could be persuaded that the vaccines are really as great as some people say they are, then I’d be more in favor of forcing them on people. But that’s not what’s at the root of my opposition.

I’m vaccinated. I was so eager to get the vaccine last spring that (like a lot of people) I lied, claiming I was an essential worker. Next week, I’m getting my booster. I do not need to be convinced that the vaccine affords me a good deal of protection against Covid-19. I understand that.

I’m opposed to vaccine mandates because I believe that they alter the balance of power between the government and the governed in a way I’m not comfortable with.¹ Whether the vaccines are 100% effective or 0% effective has no bearing on that concern. Regardless of how much vaccine mandates do or do not control the pandemic, that balance is tilted to the extent that we have them in place.

Just to put my cards on the table, though, at present, I think vaccine mandates would probably make little discernible impact on the spread of Covid-19. The vaccines are very good at preventing a Covid infection from killing you, or sending you to the hospital. I believe they’re somewhat but not very good at mitigating transmission. And I recognize that there are entire countries that are barely vaccinated at all, such as most of the continent of Africa. We can put a shot in every shoulder in America, and there will still be plenty of opportunity for new strains to emerge.

There’s plenty to argue about in that paragraph — and I’ve had those arguments many times — but these empirical arguments are not the only arguments we should be having. We should also be arguing about power.

We live in an era of profound distrust of institutions. We’ve been through year after year of gridlock and failed political leadership. On both the left and the right, there’s profound angst about the future of our democracy, and an ambient sense of doom. Against this backdrop, over the last couple of years we’ve seen changes in the way the government uses its authority — lockdowns, school closures, masking rules, vaccine passports — that none of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes, and maybe haven’t even imagined. And most of those changes have been implemented suddenly, almost cavalierly, with barely any public debate.

It should not be the least bit surprising that this has stoked a deep and pervasive sense of anxiety and dread throughout the body politic. People are, rightly and understandably, concerned about where this all leads. It might be hyperbole to warn of an American equivalent to China’s social credit system — but is it? A year ago if you’d predicted the emergence of vaccine passports in America’s biggest cities, people might have accused you of being hysterical. And yet here we are.

These are the terms in which many (myself included) who question vaccine mandates are thinking. But it’s not at all how those who support them think about it.

From the perspective of people who want more of them put in place, the idea that vaccine mandates are even mentioned in the same sentence as words like “authoritarianism” is utterly preposterous. To them, not only is getting the vaccine an eminently practical and responsible thing to do, but it’s incredibly easy, too. Vaccines are free and readily available everywhere. It takes just a few minutes to get the shot, and then maybe a day or two of feeling like shit. Mandating vaccines is not like mandating, say, that everyone does cardio at least 20 minutes a day for the rest of their lives. Getting the shot is the simplest thing in the world, so what’s the big deal about making them mandatory? Seatbelts are mandatory too; you don’t see people refusing to buckle up in the name of resisting tyranny.

This is why, when you argue with people who support vaccine mandates, they so quickly go to the question of efficacy. To them, it’s a very simple risk-benefit calculation. There’s essentially (in their view) zero risk, and then there’s enormous benefit. That’s basically the entire calculation to pro-mandate people. So naturally, they argue with you on those terms, explaining to you that the risk side is way overblown, and that the benefit side is measured in millions of lives saved.

Those are all points you could argue over for days, trading peer-reviewed studies back and forth that neither you nor your interlocutor really understand. But to those who reject mandates on principle, those are all secondary questions. The primary question is whether we want to live in a new social order, one in which you have to scan a QR code to prove you’re an upstanding citizen before you’re allowed to walk through the door of a restaurant, or take off your mask at the gym.

The last couple of years have shown us vividly that the slippery slope “fallacy” isn’t fallacious at all. If we can just sort of stumble into something as unprecedented as vaccine passports, why is it crazy to imagine the state collecting data on whether your debts are paid or if you have a bench warrant out and integrating that information into the passport system? It would be a very effective way of collecting debts and finding fugitives, after all. What’s to stop us from being forced to scan a QR code to prove that we don’t have a drinking problem before being allowed into a bar? Or to have to meet a certain social media popularity threshold to be allowed into elite social spaces?

We have the technology to do all of these things. What we don’t have is a set of social norms that would incline us to comply with such a regime. Vaccine passports are a step in the direction of changing those norms, of normalizing compliance. Likewise, vaccine mandates are a step in the direction of normalizing the idea that the government has authority over what we put into our bodies. You don’t need me to describe to you all the dystopian scenarios you could come up with to play out that slippery slope. Those are Black Mirror screenplays that practically write themselves.

The pro-mandate people can’t imagine how you could seriously think of vaccine rules as authoritarian. All you have to do to get out from under them is to get the shot. It’s not like Soviet Russia or theocratic Iran. The only person forcing you into subjection is yourself.

But in fact, it’s entirely consistent to believe in vaccines, to think every adult who can get them should, and also be opposed to coercing people into it. Whenever I end up in one of these arguments, I find myself being asked to defend the decisions of people who choose not to get vaccinated, which is an awkward position to be in as someone who thinks the vaccines are a good thing. But I don’t have to defend their decisions; it’s not required to sustain my position on the question. I can completely disagree with their choice not to get vaxxed. I can be as perplexed as pro-mandate people about their reasoning. I can desire a world in which 100 percent of the population has the shot. I can have all of those thoughts in my head and still be opposed to granting the state the license to threaten people’s jobs and basic freedoms to do something that I personally wish they would do on their own. Controlling the pandemic and resisting authoritarianism are related, but separate, concerns. One can want to do both. We don’t have to choose.

1. I’m opposed to vaccine mandates by law. I am not necessarily opposed to private businesses mandating them for their employees, and I am not opposed to businesses requiring proof of vaccination for entry. Those businesses are within their rights to set those conditions, and, in the case of brick-and-mortar establishments, in fact often must do so in order to keep their customers.