By Muskaan Mahajan
The pandemic has greatly affected our daily lives. In March of this year, schools closed and they were expected to open in May. Unfortunately, schools never reopened, and we continue to stay in our boring homes. Yet, the number of cases and deaths are not decreasing.
Currently, most people wear masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19; however, the only way to guarantee a 0%transmission rate is a vaccine. Despite this fact, some people believe that making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory is not the right thing to do.
Many people are skeptical about taking a rushed vaccine without knowing the long-term consequences it could have. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a coronavirus vaccine could be created by late December, but people are rightfully doubtful — according to Tyler Clifford of CNBC, developing a vaccine usually takes about a decade or so. Also, according to Thomas Philipson, an economist at the University of Chicago, recommending a vaccine is better than making it mandatory, which could create backlash from the people. Making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory could have the opposite effect of what was intended. According to a recent poll taken by Suffolk University in North Carolina, 24 percent of people said they would not take a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if the vaccine were mandatory, 44 percent of people said they would not take it.
Even though there may be a pushback against a mandatory vaccine, I do not believe that the reasons against a mandatory vaccine for COVID-19 are sufficient not to mandate it. Ultimately, I think the benefits are greater than the harms for two key reasons.
The first reason is that schools could be held liable if a student has either tested positive for COVID-19 or has passed away because of COVID-19, according to Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA(American Association of School Administrators). This possibility worsens the situations for school districts that do not have any mandatory policies relating to COVID-19 precautions as they would inevitably have more cases and deaths. Moreover, the increase in cases at schools could lead to the continual shutdown of schools since students and staff might have to quarantine again when an outbreak begins. The only way we would be able to solve this problem is by making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for all students.
The second reason is, according to FDA policies, COVID-19 meets all the criteria to require a mandatory vaccine, including the following: the disease causes death, the vaccination of children reduces the spread of the disease, and protects students. The COVID-19 vaccine would meet all of these criteria since COVID-19 has caused millions of deaths, and the vaccine would reduce the spread of the disease by making students partially or fully immune. Thus, mandating a vaccine against COVID-19 would be no different from mandating a vaccine against measles or polio.
Many arguments against vaccines mostly speak about the dangers of the vaccine itself. However, according to Helen Bedford, a children’s health specialist at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, “Vaccine hesitancy is a problem mainly in high-income countries, where widespread immunization has made outbreaks of infectious disease much less common. As cases become rarer, the number of people with first-hand experience of the seriousness of the diseases diminishes.” The SARS CoV-2 virus is in no way rare, so people ought to understand its seriousness and push for vaccination.
All in all, a COVID-19 vaccine should be made mandatory because mandating the vaccine is the only way to lessen the spread of the virus at schools.