In his first solo press conference since taking office, Joe Biden discussed reaching his goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans before his first 100 days in office. He has now set a new goal, to vaccinate 200 million Americans by his 100th day in office.
That would be nearly two-thirds of the population. To ensure his goal is met, $10 billion is now being allocated for vaccine access. With many Americans concerned about possible side effects of the experimental vaccines, many are wondering if Biden will now try to force Americans to get a shot. The Biden administration has continued to dodge questions about vaccine mandates or vaccine passports, which have raised concerns about where public health orders start and end.
Britain is currently proposing that pubs utilize COVID-19 test status checks and vaccine passports to end social-distancing guidelines. Checkpoints have continued in Ireland for months. China already rolled out its first vaccine passport. One of Biden’s many executive orders opened up the pathway to vaccine passports while also expanding contact tracing.
These measures remove personal choice and further bring about a global socialized system, wherein one needs to acquiesce to government demands in order to live with any semblance of freedom. In working to offer care for everyone, the question of whether the government can be allowed to make medical decisions for its people is growing timelier. Even the United States has kept family members from visiting elderly family members in care facilities, taking away what little joy many of them have left.
In the United States, as of now, whether one is allowed to exercise personal choice is a matter of which state one lives in. In Missouri there is no mask mandate, and the governor has stuck by his stance. Before the vaccine rollout he reasoned, “You know, the vaccine is going to be here in 30, 40 days. Do you really want the governor of the state of Missouri to say, ‘Every man, woman, and child is going to be mandated to take a vaccine,’ cause that’s the road you go down.”
Those against being told what to do remind us that governments makes medical mistakes all the time, often deadly mistakes. In New York, masks were mandated, and power abused, when Andrew Cuomo filled nursing homes that were full of vulnerable residents with infected patients and the results were deadly. If these issues are already a problem at the state level, a federal initiative to implement strict health mandates for vaccines and/or health laws has much more potential to backfire.
With Biden’s new vaccination goal in place, those who are concerned about the vaccine are waiting and watching. If receiving vaccines become the law, who will be responsible for side-effects? Without a precedent, that question remains unanswered.
