America's debate over pandemic mask and vaccine mandates hinges on an age-old dilemma: When does personal liberty yield to the public interest?
Against that backdrop, a striking paradox has evolved: About 99% of America’s COVID-19 deaths today are. Yet, the unvaccinated – who are more susceptible to infection and more likely to spread the disease – also appear to be most resistant to wearing masks.
“Even as the pandemic highlights our mutual dependence, it is striking how little solidarity and shared sacrifice it has called forth,” he noted. “The pandemic caught us unprepared – logistically and medically, but also morally. … arrived at just the wrong moment – amid toxic politics, incompetent leadership and fraying social bonds.”
In the end, however, COVID-19 has no politics or ethical code. The virus, acting on a principle of proliferation, has killedThe moral, Tipton suggested: “Being a good citizen is being mutually responsible. If you believe in the gospels, wear your mask.”During World War II, the Greatest Generation forged unity with common goals. Americans tended victory gardens to overcome food shortages, volunteered for national defense and made personal sacrifices for the good of the country.
“There’s just been such tremendous inconsistency in communications about this,” said Corey Basch, chair of the public health department at William Paterson University in New Jersey. “I can understand why there are pockets of the population who really don’t want this mandated, and feel distrust.”Consider Los Angeles and Orange counties in California, sibling hotbeds of COVID-19 that form the nation’s largest metro area.
By contrast, Michael Thomas, a 62-year-old accountant in San Clemente, said he doesn’t believe masks work and he won’t be getting shots because “a person’s immune system will either fight off COVID or it won’t.” In conservative Orange County, plans for digital vaccine recordkeeping were canceled, and there are no generalized mask requirements. But late last month, Disneyland reinstated a mask mandate and announced mandatory coronavirus shots for most employees.Barely one month after Gov.
Plato advocated conduct that promotes social harmony. His student, Aristotle, promoted action allowing individuals to fulfill their human purpose. Thus, the debate proceeded. When inoculations for smallpox and polio were first mandate in the past century,backlashes erupted, eventually dying as shots eradicated two of the world’s worst scourges. Yet, Berg noted, some batches of the early polio vaccine hadThe question is not whether government should constrain personal liberties in the public interest, she concluded, but when and how.
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