Smallpox is a deadly disease that has a 30% risk of fatality. After a massive campaign of vaccination undertaken by the World Health Organization and world governments, smallpox was eradicated by 1975. Yet, how many people here have gotten the smallpox vaccine? Many babies and children were given the vaccine in the mid 20th century, but if you belong to the 18-40 demographic, it is likely you were not inoculated against this deadly disease. But what is the sense in getting inoculated if the disease has been eliminated? Well, there have been instances of smallpox leaking from the lab that led to fatalities. What about hepatitis? Before the pandemic, I got a call from my doctor alerting me that my hepatitis vaccination needed a top-up, as I only got it about 16 years ago in middle school. I got the first of three shots but couldn't get the remaining ones because clinics stopped taking non-emergency patients. I will probably need to start over from the first shot.

But do we mandate smallpox or hepatitis vaccines? Well, we do mandate hepatitis vaccines for schoolchildren, but to my knowledge we do not in fact mandate vaccination in adults except in special cases where it may be necessary for their line of work (ie military, business trips to certain regions, etc). We do not mandate a hepatitis vaccine to go to a restaurant or to work in the office, despite the fact that these diseases are so deadly.

The point I am trying to get at is that we have lived with pathogens much more dangerous than covid-19, and we continue to be at risk of many of these pathogens. Yet in no time in our history have governments taken such draconian measures in response to the risk from those pathogens. You don't need an anthrax vaccine or a smallpox vaccine to travel, to eat at a restaurant, to go to work, yet for a virus with a 99.8% survival rate you will be forced to have written proof of vaccination. You will be forced to risk taking a vaccine that may have deadlier side effects than the disease it is meant to treat.