Around 475 police officers have died due to complications with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. The number is five times higher than the rate of gun death during the same period. COVID-19 has successfully become the leading cause of death among police officers.
If police officers joined the force to protect and serve, they should accept masks and vaccination mandates to help protect and serve themselves and their communities. Their deaths are preventable by the exact things they are actively fighting.
The NYPD issued a lawsuit against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccine mandate for city workers in late October. A week prior, de Blasio announced that municipal workers such as firefighters and police officers would be required to have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by October 29. Workers were put on unpaid leave if they did not comply. About 30% of police officers are still unvaccinated.
The lawsuit was filed the same day thousands of New Yorkers participated in a protest of similar mandates. In Washington state, nearly 2,000 workers were either fired or left for not complying with mandates.
Different representatives, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, have compared mask mandates to the Nazis’ control of Jews during the holocaust; she compared a mass genocide to something meant to prevent death.
We know that masks work. We know that vaccines work. And yet, people still refuse them. They call these incredibly useful mandates oppressive. It’s unamerican. It violates their freedom.
Even though it’s a well-known fact that George Washington had a smallpox vaccine mandate during the Revolutionary War, sure, it wasn’t a full vaccine. Instead, soldiers were exposed to cowpox to increase their immunity to smallpox. The amateur inoculation helped Washington and his army win because his soldiers had a built-up immunity that helped prevent them from getting the disease.
Not to even mention the polio vaccine mandate that’s been active for the past few decades. Then the measles vaccine. Diphtheria. HPV. And, of course, smallpox. A disease that has been eradicated thanks to the vaccine against it.
We cannot talk about COVID-19 vaccines and not mention the countless people who say that they won’t trust it because of how quickly it was made.
There’s a reason why people are warned against calling COVID-19 coronavirus. It’s because coronavirus is not a single virus; it’s more of a family. Scientists were able to develop a vaccine so quickly because we know about the other viruses. Many of which are simple common colds. Others are much more serious, like SARS-CoV.
Canine coronavirus. The diseases aren’t even limited to humans. There are coronavirus vaccines for dogs. In a TikTok video, a creator finds an old bottle of the canine coronavirus vaccine and proceeds to question the credibility of current vaccines. And people reacted just as we’d think they would; they used it as an argument.
There are multiple types of coronaviruses. COVID-19 was identified in 2019. That’s where the 19 comes from. Canine coronavirus was first identified in 1971. The vaccine has existed since at least the 90s. Commenters on the original video say, “Oh, so the government has known about COVID-19 since the 90s?” A simple google search can prove all of their theories wrong, but they continue to refuse to accept facts.
In the morning of November 4, President Biden announced that private businesses with at least 100 employees would either need to require workers to be fully vaccinated or have a COVID-19 test taken weekly starting January 6. Almost immediately, governors from Iowa and Indiana vowed to fight the rule. Florida and Arkansas have also joined in the fight, with many other states expected to join. They state that it violates their freedom.
The entire conversation about vaccine mandates is not something new. And people opposing them due to heavy amounts of misinformation isn’t new either. Between 1998 and 2002, two different studies showed that measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines could cause autism.
The theories have since been proven wrong, and a few scientists have retracted their name from it though the theory hasn’t gone away.
A person does not develop autism; they are born with it. It is something that is produced while they are still in the womb. There is no way of telling if a fetus will be autistic. There is no medical test such as a blood test to diagnose the disorder. It’s behavioral. How would a vaccine for a virus affect a behavioral disorder? It doesn’t.
Vaccines don’t cause autism. COVID-19 vaccines hardly cause any severe side effects. COVID-19 is a heavily infectious disease. Not getting vaccinated does affect other people because once you’re exposed, others can be exposed. It’s almost certain. It’s not a matter of ‘my body, my choice’ when others are guaranteed to be affected.
People have been getting vaccinated since the moment they were born. A hepatitis vaccine is heavily suggested right after a child is born. The vitamin k vaccine has been recommended since 1961 because low vitamin k levels can result in severe bleeding and death in newborns. Yes, death due to vitamin k deficiency is rare, but it’s rare because of how often newborns are immunized. If someone is fully vaccinated by age 18, then they have had over a dozen vaccines. Why fight now?
There is no reason to be fighting vaccine mandates now. The world is over a year through a pandemic and killed over five million people globally. COVID-19 is the country’s biggest killer of police officers. They are actively proving that they would rather be jobless than have to deal with a few needles. They are actively fighting against the very thing they signed up for: protecting their communities because it damages their false sense of freedom.
Fighting vaccine mandates does nothing else than prove the level of concern for others is falling. Unemployment is preventable by vaccination. Death is preventable by vaccination.
