The thing is, I don't think there's any democratic country where there's an actual "vaccine mandate". Nobody there is forcing anyone to get vaccinated. It's done through "Corona passports".
And on top of that, countries like Denmark have much higher levels of social trust than countries like the US.
While at least generally true, requiring to go into many workplaces (and therefore stay employed) and many other indoor locations is pretty close to a mandate if widely implemented. I'm not saying I disagree with doing this, but it gets close to forcing people in all but name.
That's a good thing. If it's personally painful to not get the vaccine, we'll have many more vaccinations, which will lead to better public (and economic!) health. Freedom of choice does not mean freedom from consequences.
BTW, if you /don't/ get the vaccine, you'll still almost-certainly get covid antibodies eventually, via contracting the virus. As a reminder, the virus itself has not been FDA approved, and is known to have both short and long-term harmful side effects. The vaccine is many orders of magnitude safer than the virus.
Trust me. I'm not arguing against vaccines at all and I got one as soon as I could.
However, I think most of us would agree that literally vaccinating people by force would be wrong. So I also don't think it's unreasonable to be at least a bit discomfited when some combination of government at multiple levels and employers make it harder for unvaccinated people to earn a living and participate in society. Even if at the end of the day I approve of many of those requirements--for example I need to prove vaccination status to go to a planned industry event next month which seems very reasonable--I certainly take no joy in such coercion and recognize that it is further polarizing.
Sure it's just "consequences" but those consequences are such that it's also not really a choice.
I am sick and tired of people believing that their "rights" are more important than public health. I would very much wish that people would recognize this for themselves, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with forcing people to comply if they don't. We've done this for decades already; for example, many/most/(all?) school districts in the US require certain vaccinations[0] for children, else they are not permitted to go to school (and in many places, not sending your children to school, without other arrangements, is illegal, so they are de-facto forced to comply, absent allowed religious/medical exemptions).
Sure, you might say that the scope of some of these new and proposed vaccination rules around COVID go much further, but I don't see a material difference. If we haven't been up in arms about requirements around childhood vaccinations, I don't think we can reasonably be upset about businesses requiring their employees to be vaccinated against COVID.
At this point my patience with the vaccine "hesitant" is gone. Unless you have a valid medical reason, if you are refusing to get vaccinated, you are actively inviting great harm on the health of your community, and that needs to stop. I do agree that literal vaccination by force would be going too far. But I am absolutely thrilled that my city requires vaccination for many indoor activities right now, and requires employees at those indoor businesses to be vaccinated, and that many private businesses are implementing their own vaccination requirements. It's the right thing to do, full stop.
> "I am sick and tired of people believing that their "rights" are more important than public health."
You're quite underestimating how quickly sweeping away humans' rights for "the greater good" turns bad. I'm sure China is justifying the Uyghur camps with your exact sentence.
The US has historically had a very strong stomach for legally compelling action specifically to ensure public health, which has somehow not yet fallen down the slippery slope of genocide.
Here's some history... Basically, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that states can take strong measures under the 10th Amendment, and the Commerce Clause can be used for federal interventions.
I'm a little tired of the "slippery slope" argument (in general, and also in this instance). Because, yeah, the slope might be slippery but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go on the slope. It only means we must be (very well) prepared whenever we go on the slope.
> At this point my patience with the vaccine "hesitant" is gone. Unless you have a valid medical reason, if you are refusing to get vaccinated, you are actively inviting great harm on the health of your community, and that needs to stop.
Let me ask you this one thing: if I have antibodies already, do you consider that a valid medical reason?
To be honest, if not, then I feel like you are not arguing in good faith.
I can't say that I've been following Danish news, but I can tell you for sure that for example in Italy hospitals and other institutions have asked for Covid vaccination in order to stay employed.
I wouldn't be surprised to see that Denmark does the same, and more, if vaccinations number don't reach the thresholds needed to prevent healthcare systems from collapsing.
And you should know that Denmark is far from as "laissez faire" as many Americans imagine. For example even before Covid they were enforcing some very harsh social measures targeting self-isolating communities, in order to maintain social cohesion, for example.
And on top of that, countries like Denmark have much higher levels of social trust than countries like the US.