The Risk vs. Reward of Mandated COVID Vaccines, And The Line Between Inconvenience and Tyranny

Delivering on yet another promise which drew nothing but mockery and scorn from many on both sides of the political aisle, the Trump administration was right. We will indeed have a COVID-19 vaccine before the end of the year. The availability of immunizations in the United States looks likely in the coming weeks, and the United Kingdom became the “first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine,” saying that the vaccine is safe and offers “95% protection against COVID-19 illness.” This particular vaccine is “the fastest vaccine to go from concept to reality, taking only 10 months to follow the same steps that normally span 10 years.”

So far, so good. Vaccines are, objectively, positive scientific inventions and are responsible for saving thousands — if not millions — of lives across the globe. COVID-19 is, objectively, a dangerous illness for vulnerable sections of the population, and so the availability of an apparently reliable method of protection has the potential to be instrumental in the fight against the virus.