Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (photo), a Republican, just approved a law prohibiting that state’s public schools and universities from requiring Covid-19 vaccinations (see story here).
There’s a case to be made. Making people get vaccinations is intrusive.
While that’s not exactly what businesses or schools do by requiring vaccination to be on their premises, such a requirement is inherently coercive, as is any threatened denial of service.
But the Ohio bill goes farther. It “also bans discrimination against people who have not received such a vaccine that would otherwise have to refrain from certain activities approved for those who have been vaccinated.” That, too, is coercive: It compels vaccinated students to mingle with unvaccinated students as a condition of being in classrooms or participating in school activities.
And given the high transmissibility of the emerging variants, “unvaccinated” is tantamount (or soon will be) to “infected.” (See story here.)
This law only applies to vaccines without “full” FDA approval. That’s a red herring. The Covid-19 vaccines are not experimental; they went through the same rigorous vetting as other vaccines and medicines. These vaccines work and are safe. It’s also a ruse, because the final approval it insists upon is a bureaucratic process, not a scientific one, and this is being used as a gimmick to make Covid-19 vaccines voluntary without also making routine childhood vaccinations voluntary (even GOP politicians aren’t so stupid as to expose kids to measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc.; at least, you hope not.)
The bottom line is that in Ohio, if you want to send your kids to a public school or college, you’ll have to expose them to unvaccinated people. That wouldn’t be a problem if Covid-19 vaccines were 100% effective at preventing infection, but they’re not, and this law gives license to people less responsible than you to put your family at avoidable risk.
And also remember, it isn’t just vaccines Republicans oppose; they’re also against masks. What they’re really doing is shoving a dangerous infection down your throat.