OPINION:
Filmgoers of the 1970s were told that “love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
They were misled. Half a century later, it is clear that the force requiring no forgiveness is a government decree. President Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandates have given Americans a closer brush with raw authority than they would have ever imagined.
Thankfully, the last of the onerous COVID-19 rules are expiring. And for the years when personal liberty was trampled, Americans deserve an apology.
With the U.S. pandemic health emergency set to expire on May 11, the White House on Monday announced it would cancel rules requiring proof of vaccination for international airline travelers and federal contractors. Head Start teachers, certain health care sites and border-crossing immigrants will soon receive a reprieve from vaccine obligations.
Like a bully who suddenly realizes he is alone in a fight, the president has finally acknowledged that it makes little sense to cling to his vaccination policies when most nations around the world have abandoned theirs. Perhaps a shameful repeat of the refusal to grant unvaccinated Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic entry for tournament play in March finally snapped his stiff-necked rule-mongering. Bringing the rear is not a good look for the “progressive” cause.
To be sure, the inoculations proved their value in lessening rates of hospitalization and death. But with 1.75 million U.S. adverse health events reported through April 21, including 22,913 deaths and 24,456 life-threatening maladies, simply “safe and effective” they are not.
Of course, it is only through the phenomenon of mass vaccination over the course of three years that evidence of unwelcome adverse effects has emerged. But emerge it has, laying bare the rashness of providing pharmaceutical firms with government-issued exemption from liability for death and injury associated with their wares and of compelling Americans to participate in a novel scientific experiment.
Retired White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci recently conceded a wisp of regret over his role in promoting uniform vaccination, telling The New York Times, “Man, I think, almost paradoxically, you had people who were on the fence about getting vaccinated thinking, why are they forcing me to do this?”
Dr. Fauci also correctly asserted that the “sometimes-beautiful independent streak in our country becomes counterproductive.”
Indeed, growing weariness of vaccine mandates that don’t stop transmission has resulted in a U.S. inoculation rate of 81% for the original doses spiraling down to 17% for the newer, bivalent jabs. Americans, after all, carry common sense — in addition to a compulsion for unfettered liberty — in their DNA.
Granted, there is no reason for the government to apologize for muscular efforts to safeguard human lives from deadly diseases. But diktats that strong-arm citizens — sickly and healthy alike — to accept minimally tested vaccines while allowing millions of unvaccinated migrants to overrun the southern border unlawfully have damaged trust in the government medical establishment.
Now that the pandemic has dissipated, Mr. Biden should own up to the folly of clinging to rules long past the limits of their efficacy and take from the experience newfound respect for Americans’ authority over their own well-being. Apology accepted.
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