In his Feb. 2 guest column (“We dismiss freedom of choice at our peril”), James Boddy asserts that people who choose not to get vaccinated and thus help end the pandemic should not be blamed for the consequences of their decision to prolong the pandemic.
Two broad fallacies, one logical and one ethical, underwrite this suggestion. The logical fallacy is the red herring claim that because some vaccinated people test positive, they are just as responsible for contributing to the continuation of the pandemic and its effects as unvaccinated people. This is the same as claiming that because sometimes people who wear seatbelts get injured in car accidents, nobody should wear a seatbelt.
Underlying this fallacy is the factually erroneous claim that the vaccine doesn’t work. It does. Indeed, if you look at actual numbers, it works profoundly. The odds of being hospitalized or dying of COVID if one is vaccinated are a tiny fraction of the odds for the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated people are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized with and 20 times more likely to die from COVID than vaccinated people. The odds of contracting the virus if you are unvaccinated are up to 29 times higher than if you’re vaccinated.
And the assertions of any widespread dangerous side-effects from the vaccine are false; the evidence of widespread dangerous side-effects from the disease are far more compelling. The truth is clear to anyone willing to actually look at the data: those who choose to be unvaccinated are overwhelming our health care system, prolonging the social and economic cost of the pandemic, putting other people at risk of illness or death, and driving up the cost and risk of regular health and emergency care for others.
The ethical fallacy is alluded to by Boddy himself. In his optimistic estimation, we will only end the pandemic “when love and reason prevail.” This is certainly true, but not in the wildly abstract sense that he presents it. As he notes, there are many people who simply cannot be vaccinated for health reasons; there are also others who cannot yet be vaccinated because they are too young or for whom vaccination does not sufficiently mitigate other risk factors (age, immunocompromization, etc.)
We show love for these people when we get vaccinated because, like wearing a mask, regularly testing, and maintaining social distance, we do it for other people — our family, neighbors, co-workers, and even strangers, who cannot get vaccinated — not merely for ourselves.
Boddy asserts that telling those who choose to remain unvaccinated that they must face public, social consequences for their decision is “hate speech.” It is not. It is recognizing that certain people in our society are willing, out of a sense of obligation to others, to do what it takes to actually end the pandemic and that certain people in our society are unwilling — out of either a misinformed sense of self-interest or a plain misunderstanding of the science — to do the same.
Nobody should, through the deliberate choices they make for themselves, get to put the very lives and health of other people at risk without accepting that there will be costs for that choice or that they should be held accountable for that choice. Boddy is correct that “freedom of thought and expression” are “principles of this nation,” but that does not insulate anyone from facing consequences if they exercise their thoughts and expressions in a way that impacts upon others.
Boddy is also correct that “love and reason” will end this pandemic, but not because of some abstract appeal to the ideal values of “the Valley” but because “love and reason” both impel us all to get fully vaccinated for the sake of others.
Dr. Matteo Pangallo lives in Shutesbury.