How we think about COVID-19 vaccine mandates

Only 8% of constituents responding to my recent survey* view note were categorically opposed to vaccine mandates, but that is enough to make me want to further explain my support for vaccine mandates in appropriate circumstances and generally my thought process on public health issues.

Defining “Vaccine Mandate”

I define a vaccine mandate broadly as any rule under which people face exclusions from roles or venues for choosing not to be vaccinated. A “vaccine mandate” is therefore different from “forced vaccination,” a term that I would reserve for a system in which people are held down and bodily forced to submit to injections. Nobody is advocating forced vaccination.

Vaccine mandates include a broad range of possible arrangements, varying widely as to the severity of the consequences for people who choose not to be vaccinated. I would put Mayor Wu’s recent announcement at the lightest end of that range: preventing unvaccinated people from entering restaurants, gyms, and theaters imposes only a very minor limitation. Everyone has other ways of eating, staying in shape, and entertaining themselves that do not risk exposing crowds of others. Vaccine mandates for attending school or keeping a job are more serious. At the furthest end of the severity spectrum would be vaccine mandates for leaving the home — nobody in the United States is proposing mandates at that level of severity.

Factors to weigh in considering a vaccine mandate

For me, decisions about vaccine mandates are judgment calls based on a number of factors, none of which can be perfectly known. The factors include:

  1. The infectiousness of disease.
  2. The effectiveness of the vaccine in reducing transmission of the disease.
  3. The effectiveness of the vaccine in reducing severe health consequences.
  4. The personal health risks associated with receiving the vaccine.
  5. The public health benefits of keeping unvaccinated people out of a particular venue — high in a crowded restaurant, low in a desolate forest.
  6. The expectation that the mandate will actually change behavior — either by reducing high-transmission behaviors or by increasing vaccination.
  7. The harm of the mandate itself for individuals who will not or cannot comply.
  8. The economic consequences of the mandate — negative or positive.
  9. The capacity of the health care system and the extent to which the system is overburdened or appears to be on a curve to being overburdened.
  10. A sense of the politics of the mandate — we are a democracy, so if government overreaches, it will defeat its own goals.

The first five of these — the health cost-benefit metrics — lend themselves to scientific evaluation. Not that we can expect crisp answers. The answers will usually be probabilistic and subject to change as the virus and our reactions to it change.

The next three factors — about likely behavior change and consequences for the individual and the economy — inevitably involve more guesswork. People will tend to apply their biases to evaluating these factors. Especially as to likely compliance, people will be influenced heavily by the attitudes of people close to them.

The ninth factor — capacity of the health care system and the trajectory of the health care burden — may be the crispest of the factors, although the trajectory involves guesswork. In Massachusetts, we have good shared information and collaboration among the hospitals and public health leadership. Hospital utilization is the metric that many leaders watch most closely as they consider the development of new COVID programs and the imposition of new COVID rules.

The final factor — the politics — has to be part of the equation. We are not China where the government can get away with shutting down a whole region for months. Government has to continue a dialog with people about their views and maintain a sense of the political limits of governmental power.

Making decisions about vaccine mandates

Some would like to make decisions about vaccine mandates on a principled basis, suggesting that the answer should be ‘no mandates’ as a matter of principle. This is not a viable legal argument — the power of public health authorities has long been recognized as legally legitimate in this country. It is nonetheless a compelling philosophical position — most Americans support personal liberty, especially as to the physical body of a person. However, I think that most people who take a principled position would back away from it if the decision factors were strong enough — a perfect vaccine with no side-effects for an invariably fatal, highly infectious illness that needs to be extinguished before it can mutate. I believe that for most people the vaccine mandate decision is a judgment call, either explicit or implicit.

So the question is: how should we a society make the judgment calls about vaccine mandates? I basically think we have the right process for these decisions at most levels of government: By legislation, we have created boards that include experts and often lay people. Those boards seek input, deliberate, and make decisions. Those decisions may or may not be subject to the political approval of elected executives. For example, we have the CDC and the FDA, state boards of health and local boards of health. The multi-layered approach allows local authorities to take stronger action when national or state action feels inadequate to their local circumstances. The decisions cannot be left entirely to experts. Experts can offer privileged opinions on the more scientific factors, but some of the other factors may be judged equally well or better by lay people. Our system allows for dialog between experts and lay people in defining public health policy. And, of course, elected executives are ultimately accountable for all of the decisions. It is appropriate that elected executives — Mayors, Governors and the President — apply their political judgment as to the sustainability of burdensome mandates.

How one feels about our public health system depends on which parts of it one has touched in life. Some people have had bad health care experiences and perceive health authorities to be corrupt or incompetent. My own experiences have led me to have some faith in the process. I’ve been fortunate to get to know many physicians, many public health professionals, some pharmaceutical researchers and executives, and some elected executives. I’ve ended up having a generally high opinion of them. So, when, after some deliberation, they make a recommendation about a public vaccine policy or mask policy, I’m generally prepared to accept it.

The legislative role on vaccine mandates

Sometimes people who feel that the public health authorities are being too aggressive or not aggressive enough want me to pass legislation to force their hand. I am deeply hesitant to attempt legislation about specific vaccine mandates, mask mandates, or social distancing decisions. Legislation is simply too cumbersome a process for public health decision-making. It is feasible for a board of a few people to make a thoughtful public health decision in matter of days or weeks, but almost nothing happens that fast in the 200-person legislature. Pandemic conditions — and our scientific understandings of those conditions — are constantly evolving. The legislative process simply cannot keep up with realities that change daily. We have to leave these decisions to the executive branch and the authoritative public health boards that we have created and empowered by statute.

I am nonetheless occasionally willing to speak out on public health issues and offer my lay perspective — like other people commenting on this post. I spoke out very early in the pandemic when I felt the executive branch hadn’t stepped into gear strongly enough. At this point, I feel that we have an ever expanding body of knowledge about the virus and what works and what doesn’t and I respect the professionals whose job it is stay on top of that body of knowledge.

Summary View

As a lay person, I support Mayor Wu’s recent mandate decision for recreational venues. I similarly support the decisions of public agencies and various institutions to require vaccinations of their employees or students/customers. These decisions make sense to me as judgment calls. But, more importantly, my experience has given me some confidence in the public health consultation processes that led to those decisions. As a legislator, I have to respect the public health process that we have created to sort out the diversity of available opinion. That said, I always appreciate hearing from constituents who feel we are doing too much or not doing enough.


* Note on the Recent Survey (back to top)

Using MailChimp, I sent a survey email to my office news list of about 4000 people, most of whom are constituents and all of whom elected affirmatively to be on the list. The survey email contained two links. One was titled “I do NOT support COVID vaccine mandates in any circumstances.” The other was titled “I DO support COVID vaccine mandates in appropriate circumstances.” The email stated that the survey was not anonymous.

Both links led ultimately to the same Thank You page. MailChimp offers complete click-through tracking — a link included in a MailChimp email is actually a link back to MailChimp. The link contains codes which identify the addressee of the email and which link is being clicked. MailChimp records the click codes and instantaneously redirects the person who clicked the link to the expected ultimate destination. MailChimp offers the email sender a report as to which email recipients had clicked which link.

The email was sent at 9:25AM on December 31, 2021. By 11:30AM on January 1, 2022 (26 hours) 1244 had clicked only the support link and 99 had clicked only the oppose link. (36 clicked both links and their votes were not counted either way.) Open tracking is less reliable than click tracking, but it appears that as many as 1000 opened the email but did not click either link — as easy as the survey was, some may not have felt comfortable responding

On January 1 at 12:28PM, A second email was sent notifying people of this post and offering them a second opportunity to respond to the survey. By 6:30PM on Tuesday, January 4 (4.5 days all together, combining responses to emails) 1609 had clicked only the support link and 140 had clicked only the oppose link. (75 had clicked both links and their votes were not counted either way.)

For my summary responses to themes in the comments below, please see this post. Please notes that comments posted before noon on Januaary 1 were originally posted on the survey “thank you” page and transferred to this thread. Comments were closed on this post on January 31, 2022.

Published by Will Brownsberger

Will Brownsberger is State Senator from the Second Suffolk and Middlesex District.

294 replies on “How we think about COVID-19 vaccine mandates”

  1. I agree 100% with your statement. I would add, though, that we should consider a booster to be part of such mandates. Two shots of mRNA or 1 of J&J is better than nothing, but it’s not great.

    1. Suddenly everyone is a scientist. Too bad the irony of that seems to be lost on most people. It would be funny if it wasn’t sad.

      Why should anybody’s control over their body be subject of a mass popularity contest — where the contestants are primarily parroting out what they see/hear in the far-from-objective mainstream media?

      1. Right on Eva- mandates cause people to lose employment, and add things to their body they oppose. If you are concerned get your own shots. They dont stop covid from a practical standpoint anyways. I have had 3 shots and just got covid last week myself

        1. Right! a mandate for vaccines that do not prevent a disease is ridiculous… it’s equivalent to a flu shot, you can still get it and pass it on, so mandates for this vaccine just doesn’t make sense.

          1. Julie, I am vaccine injured, and I can not safely take any vaccines. I got covid and lived too. It was like a regular “cold” for me.

            I’m not against informed consent. If people want to take these new shots, that’s their business. But they (our Federal Government Officials) figured out early on during the roll out that these shots do not prevent transmission and infection.

            They also knew from the beginning that there was an approx. 99% survival rate for nearly all who became infected, except the elderly and patients with several comorbidities. Why force a novel technology like that on people??

            Especially when we already have other treatments, both long existing and EUA approved, that can effectively treat and even prevent infection.

            I’m against coercion and/or force, for ANY medical proceedure. The mandates Will is supporting are being implemented ruthlessly, and with impunity. Here’s just ONE example of many. Will could do something to help this woman. I posted her story a few days ago on his blog. But when I spoke to him last night, he said he still hadn’t looked at it. Will, please read this story and help this woman if you can!!

            https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus/2022/01/massachusetts-is-on-the-verge-of-firing-a-partially-covid-vaccinated-state-worker-who-sought-medical-waiver-after-suffering-allergic-reaction-to-first-shot.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=worcester_sf&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2Y35AB0jC8z0rhpjBZRC9iIONBqVlNDyIruSRGROoL86n6jRMVU1uQYUE

      2. Remember when Fauci told us not to wear a mask in March of 2020?? My husband and I watched him tell us that on tv. Many of the crew that got infected at the biotech conference at the Marriot Hotel were already being treated at The Brigham. My husband works across the street, in a facility at Longwood Medical Center. That morning, before he left, I said “John, are you going to wear a mask??”

        He said PJ, OF COURSE I’m going to wear a mask.

        When he got to work that morning, one of the brilliant PHD’s he supports (my husband is in IT) saw him with a mask on and said “John, are you sick??” My husband has to access patient clinics sometimes. And the brilliant scientists couldn’t figure out why he was masked up.

        They sent my husband home to work full time remote the following week, for the next 12 months.

        My husband may not have a college degree (he served in the Navy), but he has common sense. It is one of my favorite things about him.

      1. The spread of communicable disease is not just an individual matter. One person’s decision to get vaccinated or not affects everyone around him or her. John Doe may feel that he won’t catch COVID-19 or that he will easily survive it without lasting effects. While he has the right to believe anything he wants to, that doesn’t change the fact that if John does get infected, he will have become a vector to spread the virus to others. So, deciding not to get vaccinated is also a decision to possibly infect other people. Those people might be family members or complete strangers – it doesn’t matter. A life is a life.

        Think of it this way. When you come to an intersection with a stop sign, is it your individual right to decide to ignore it? Of course not. The stop sign is there to protect you – but it also protects the people in another vehicle that may be approaching the intersection from a cross street. The outcome of the potential collision may be that they die and you live. Would you want that on your conscience? Of course not. Same thing goes for getting vaccinated to protect against COVID-19.

        1. I’m one of the approximately 1,000 email addressees who have chosen to refrain from checking either option. If I had voted “yes, mandates!” my name would soon have been added to the list of “domestic terrorists” who are currently being monitored by the Biden administration. And if I had voted for “no mandates!” my name would eventually be added to the same list of “domestic terrorists” when Trump takes over again in 2025. Bear in mind that Silicon Valley and its surveillance state partners keep records of all our online communications. Which they store in a huge well-guarded high-tech warehouse out in Utah. The heating and cooling requirements in that structure (to ensure that the records of our thought-crimes will be preserved forever) cost the taxpayers a lot of $$. And the electricity used in that never-ending HVAC process quickly results in more CO2 being discharged into our already overburdened atmosphere. Then providing sophisticated security for the place runs up the cost by an order of magnitude. Government picks our pockets to pay for it. So I crave your indulgence and hope that you all will understand the reasons for my unwillingness to go on record as supporting either the Democrips or the Rebloodlicans in this particulr controversy. The pandemic will be almost entirely over within a few weeks in any case. Certainly by the end of February. Measures taken (or measures foregone) at this late stage won’t really make much difference. Save the intertribal bickering for the next national emergency….there’s sure to be one. And the various levels of government are sure to be unprepared for it. There will be lots of opportunity for internecine finger wagging and vituperation when that day comes. In no time at all, we peasants will choose up sides and will be at each other’s throats again. While the billionaire multinational corporate donors who own “our” government will be laughing all the way to the bank. Happy New Year, everyone.

          1. Ooops! Meant to say a “no mandates” vote would get me in trouble with the Biden bunch and a “pro mandates” vote would earn the disapproval of the Trump crew. Sorry for the error. Been watching some corporate-owned media over the weekend, with the usual adverse effect…a temporary drop of around 20% in my IQ. I wish there were a vaccine to give full immunity against that sort of infection. Whether acquired from Fox or from MSNBC. Walking around in fresh air and sunshine, while paying close attention to actual reality, seems to help alleviate some of the symptoms. As does avoiding close contact with the monitor screen whenever Hannity or Maddow happen to be on it.

          2. Ha! Yes to mandates gets you on NO list but No to mandates would get you on Biden domestic terrorist list. You have it exactly backwards. BTW- vaccines neither prevent you from getting Covid nor passing it to others. Natural immunity does though. Do more research.

            1. You are quite right that I got it reversed in my original comment. Hence my self-correction. Made within 4 hours of my first garbled post. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply… 2 days after the fact. Better late than never!

            2. “The Hyper-Transmissible SARS-CoV-2 Omicron
              Variant Exhibits Significant Antigenic Change, Vaccine Escape and a Switch in Cell Entry Mechanism”. Paper recently published by [lead authors] Thomson and Willett of the Medical Research Centre, University of Glasgow, Centre for Virus Research, UK. While their work does show that 2 vaccinations give less protection against Omicron than does previous infection without vaccination, they found that 2 vaccinations plus a booster give even better protection than natural infection alone. This paper came out just in the last few days, so I’m not surprised if you haven’t had a chance to study it as yet.

        2. You talk to people like they’re children. This is a universal characteristic of authoritarians. So is the lack of any actual knowledge of the subject matter.

          Are you fat? What do you weigh? Post a pic for us to evaluate. Because when you Hoover up yet one more piece of pie you don’t need, you’re increasing your chances of developing a more severe case of covid and sucking up hospital resources that I might need if I get heart trouble or have an accident. Let’s see that belly, Debbie.

          Oh. Intruding on other people’s privacy is only okay when you do it?

          1. Stephen, what ARE you talking about? Why should anyone post a picture here? You haven’t. What part of Debbie’s post intruded on your privacy and makes you feel entitled to demand anything of her?

        3. Tell them again Debbie if I had my pom poms I would diffenantly do a split for you because it don’t have nothing to do with science it has to do with protecting folks around you

          1. Hi Althea,
            I am guessing you will never see this because several days have passed, but wanted to write anyway to thank you for your supportive comment. You are absolutely right about the importance of protecting the people around us.

            I posted my original comment in order to reach out to people like you and to people who are undecided about getting vaccinated. Anyone who is unsure that what I said is true should ask their doctor about it. People like you and me are doing a good deed every time we speak with a family member or friend who is not sure about getting vaccinated. We can share our own reasons for getting vaccinated while respecting their own thought processes. There’s no need to be a scientist or to try to explain the science behind the vaccine. Someone who is trying to make up their mind would probably trust what their doctor says about that more than anything that you or I could tell them. There’s a lot of misinformation and disinformation around these days. If people like us do not speak up, there’s that much more chance that more people will be convinced by the falsehoods, endangering themselves and others.

            Thank you again – and best wishes to you and yours for a healthy and happy 2022.

        4. Dr. Robert Malone has a lot to say on this matter. And he is a vaccinlogist.

          This is from his substack today:
          16,000 Physicians Agree
          Read the declaration from the International Association of Physicians and Medical Scientists.

          Robert W Malone MD, MS
          Jan 13

          Comment
          Share
          Consensus is clear among MDs and medical PhDs: following 20 months of exhaustive research, millions of patients treated, hundreds of clinical trials performed and scientific data shared worldwide, they conclude that healthy children and COVID recovered should be excluded from vaccine mandates and social restrictions.

          Physicians also recommend legislative and administrative action, to prevent disruption of physicians’ treatments, or putting healthy children or the COVID-recovered at further risk.

          16,000 physicians and medical scientists recently published the Rome Covid Declaration, to alert citizens to the deadly consequences of disrupting life-saving treatment and suppressing open scientific discussion.

          So, when it makes headline news that less than 300 physicians have signed a letter that went to Spotify, that the podcast that I did with Joe Rogan, should be removed from Spotify, I can only chuckle… After all, it has only been viewed around 50 million times.

          At least the Daily Mail actually did a piece that wasn’t totally negative about what I said. Quotes from the Dail Mail article below:

          In the podcast episode, Rogan talked about Malone’s ban from Twitter, which happened just one day before the podcast was released.

          ‘They removed you for not going along with whatever the tech narrative is because tech clearly has a censorship agenda when it comes to Covid in terms of treatment, in terms of whether or not you are promoting what they would call ‘vaccine hesitancy’ – they can ban you for that,’ Rogan said, adding that Malone is ‘one of the most qualified people in the world to talk about vaccines’.

          Malone responded by questioning: ‘If it’s not okay for me to be a part of the conversation even though I’m pointing out scientific facts that may be inconvenient, then who is?

          ‘Whether or not I’m factually correct or not – and I freely admit no one’s perfect. I’m not perfect. It’s one of my core points is people should think for themselves.’

          ‘And I try really hard to give people the information and help them to think, not to tell them what to think,’ the doctor added, pointing out that ‘no one can debate the dispute that I played a major role in the creation of this tech’.

          Malone later alleged on the podcast that many of the pharmaceutical companies administering vaccines – such as Pfizer and Moderna – have ‘financial conflicts of interest’.

          In what appeared to be an effort to establish his credibility, Malone reassured: ‘I think I’m the only one that doesn’t. I’m not getting any money out of this.’

          Meanwhile, as the creator of the mRNA technology used in Covid vaccines, many questioned why Malone would then speak so strongly against getting jabbed.

          Malone claimed the answer was simply ‘because it’s the right thing to do’.

          He said: ‘For me, the reason is: Because what’s happening is not right. It’s destroying my profession, it’s destroying the practice of medicine worldwide, it’s destroying public health in medicine.’

          He continued: ‘I’m a vaccinologist. I’ve spent 30 years developing vaccine. A stupid amount of education learning how to do it and what the rules are.

          ‘And for me, I’m personally offended by watching my discipline get destroyed for no good reason at all except, apparently, financial incentives, and – I don’t know – political a**-covering’.

          The controversial doctor also offered his expertise on the government’s Covid-19 response.

          ‘Our government is out of control,’ he said, adding: ‘They are lawless. They completely disregard bioethics. They completely disregard the federal common rule. they have broken all the rules that I know of – that I have been trained on for years and years and years.’

      2. Idk seems reasonable. They’re free, with a really positive impact on the society with minimal personal costs. I guess I’m ok with folks objecting to it, but then those same folks shouldn’t be surprised if I vote and support to exclude them from shared public settings. Such is democracy. Such is the free market. If the anti-vaxers want to move to Texas, they have that right.

      3. It’s insanity to mandate these experimental injections, with death, disability and injuries being reported to the CDC’s own VAERS piling up in numbers we have never seen for any vaccine ever.

        VAERS Summary for COVID-19 Vaccines through 12/31/2021 – VAERS Analysis
        VAERS Summary for COVID-19 Vaccines through 12/31/2021
        Vaccination Related Risks of COVID19 Vs. Flu. These set of figures compare the COVID19 vaccine to the traditional Flu vaccines. ‘Risk of Death’ percentages depend on the ‘# of Vaccinations’ data, which is only approximate, and was pulled from the CDC’s report on Flu vaccination coverage for the 2019-2020 season, and from Our World in Data for the COVID19 vaccinations.
        vaersanalysis.info

    2. Boosters “can be done once, or maybe twice, but it’s not something that we can think should be repeated constantly,” Marco Cavaleri, the EMA head of biological health threats and vaccines strategy, said at a press briefing on Tuesday. “We need to think about how we can transition from the current pandemic setting to a more endemic setting.”
      Repeat Booster Shots Spur Europe Warning on Immune-System Risks (bloomberglaw.com)

  2. The importance of mask mandates and strictly following all CDC recommendations should be followed now that figures have been soaring.

  3. The religious exemption for vaccines should be discontinued. Many states do not allow it. Many/most of those requesting a religious exemption are fraudulent. No major religious group is opposed to vaccines.

  4. What happened to HIPAA?
    We don’t ask diners about other diseases they may have. We cannot let those without legal authority impose their will on others.

    1. I agree completely; it’s a slippery slope from here regarding “requirements” to participate in society.

      1. Vaccines have been a normal part of the requirements to participate in society for decades. Nothing has changed.

          1. Steven, which of the 2 statements made by Dan P are you saying is a lie? Or were you responding to someone else?

          2. “Vaccination mandates in the U.S. date back to the 19th century, when many cities and states started requiring children to be immunized against smallpox; the Supreme Court upheld such mandates in a landmark 1905 decision.”

            1. You’re comparing the smallpox vaccine to the covid vaccines. Go educate yourself on the critical differences then come back when you’re no longer wasting people’s time.

      2. This is not a personal freedom or ideological issue. It’s a public health issue. Children have to have a battery of vaccinations to get into school. It’s time for the spoiled children to grow up and act responsibly. Unvaccinated people going to the hospital with Covid should be sent home. They made their beds and they aren’t in the hospital.

        1. The mRNA “vaccines” long term safety (as well as their evolutionary impacts on the human immune system when they are given to millions of people) is not known — and is likely not beneficial. Severe adverse reaction also happen.
          So this black and white approach exhibited here is extremely troubling. Should hospitals turn away car accident victims who wore no seat belts? It makes one realize how whole societies can end up in the grip of a fascist ideology.

          1. Eva, that’s a big leap you make from the first part of your first sentence to the “and is likely not beneficial” part. Where do you get that from? Just like we can’t know for sure that there are no effects years from now, we can’t know that any possible effects are bad (or good). What you said then is just your opinion. Do you say that to justify being against vaccines?

          2. Hi All: I had been scrolling these responses, looking and finally finding something that I was going to introduce as a comment, and Eva nailed it. No one knows the ultimate affect of this “mRNA vaccine.,” if it can be called a vaccine. I am 86 years old, my wife is 80 years old, and we eagerly sought the “jab” and are eagerly awaiting our scheduled booster “jab” on 5 January. We are painfully aware of the so called “break through” cases from the Delta and Omicron variants. Prior to the advent of theCOVID-19 pandemic we had made our “final arrangements,” and had revealed same to the families of our four children and other close relatives and friends. Our eagerness for present for the “jabs” was not to secure any longevity that might accrue from same, rather, it was so that we could maximize whatever possible not be be vectors of the virus and impact our close circle of contacts, and should those circles inadvertently spread the virus to us, that they should not/would not feel guilty of harming us because we had taken precautions. Voluntary precautions. Even knowing that the manufacturers of the “mRNA vaccines” were granted immunity from any legal recourse from harm from said “vaccines.” At this time I want to share that more than 20,000 members of the Armed Forces have been involuntarily separated from active duty due to their non compliance from taking the “jab.” Does anyone realize the costs associated with recruiting, training and processing just one member of the Armed Forces with basic skills, just imagine the costs associated with highly skilled members, and the difficulties of replacing them, at a time when China is threatening Taiwan, Russia is threatening Ukraine, North Korea is launching more than 16 missiles into outer space, Iran is proceeding with development of nuclear weapons, and inflations is beginning to cripple our national defense. Meanwhile, the Commandant of the Marine Corps has eliminated ALL tank battalions and their personnel, along with two artillery regiments and components of air wings, with the idea to replace same with missiles and personnel to deploy and operate same, however, the Congress in their wisdom has failed to provide the funding for same and even it the funds are made available, from where will the personnel materialize that will agree to being “jabbed.” And this is only one very small aspect of how our national defense is being impacted. Is anyone aware of this problem? And what is the lead time to acquire the necessary ships and personnel to man them. I hear a deafening silence.

            1. Excellent points about how this is affecting our military effectiveness. Lt. Colonel Long’s testimony on how this was affecting our pilots was most concerning. The clotting issue is combination with high altitude flying is creating major problems. She recently testified on the subject at a conference set up by Sen. Ron Johnson.
              Many people have pointed out that this seems like a deliberate weakening of our armed forces.

            2. Excellent points about how this is affecting our military effectiveness. Lt. Colonel Long’s recent testimony on how this was affecting our pilots was most concerning. The clotting issue in combination with high altitude flying is creating major problems. She recently testified on the subject at a conference set up by Sen. Ron Johnson.
              Many people have pointed out that this seems like a deliberate weakening of our armed forces.

        2. Spoken like fascists everywhere who leap first to ludicrous appeals to safety to justify their incursions into other people’s civil liberties. Vaccination s have zero impact on public health and that is especially true after omicron.

          1. Well, Steven and Eva, you are dead wrong. Polio. Diphtheria, Scarlet fever. Smallpox. Everyone got vaccinated for those, we wiped out epidemics, and you now have the luxury of being alive and stupid. You have the right to be stupid and we have the right to roll our eyes at your parroting of unfounded conspiracy theories from Fox and so on. I just hope that you support legal abortion as strongly, since you are so concerned about protecting autonomy and civil liberty. It’s a medical decision.

            1. Lauren, the diseases you mentioned were largely reduced and/or eradicated by improvements in sanitation beginning in the early part of the 20th century.

            2. Lauren – I don’t appreciate your insinuating that I’m opposed to all vaccines, or that I’m stupid. It’s so juvenile. You don’t know me. You also have a very simplistic comprehension of this entire issue. mRNA “vaccines” are not real vaccines; they wane after just a couple of months, and being “vaccinated” with them does nothing for eradicating or even containing the covid virus. Who is stupid here?

        3. “Unvaccinated people going to the hospital with Covid should be sent home. ”
          While I agree that this is a public health issue, and support vaccine mandates, this victim blaming approach is explicitly in violation of medical ethics.

      3. I agree you Ed and Mike, let’s get rid of all the requirements to participate. Down with traffic laws! Forget about the need to wear clothing in the summer time! If your employer wants to fire you… let him have at it. If your neighbor wants to put a fence up on your side of the property line, he should be free to do so! At the same time, let’s get rid of these silly usury laws that won’t let the fine banks charge you 50% interest and break your legs if you don’t pay up. These are all slippery slopes! Speaking of which, let’s get rid of any liability laws for ski areas! And why should YOU be required to wear a seatbelt on a plane? For shame, Mike, for shame! I’m sure there’s a nice desert island somewhere that you guys can be happy and live without these ridiculous and oppressively “participation requirements”…. Oh, but don’t call us when the next hurricane passes by… you’re on your own buddy…..

        1. The smallpox vaccine didn’t come out until 22 years later. Washington used the variolation process, therefore his soldiers obtained natural immunity. Read a history book please.

    2. Ed, while I appreciate your concern, I would like to point out that it is already mandatory to vaccinate children against measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, polio, and diphtheria. Unvaccinated children are not allowed in most public schools. These existing vaccine policies have saved thousands of lives, and have totally eliminated the scourge of smallpox from our entire planet. The Covid-19 mask mandates and vaccination requirements have nothing to do with HIPAA or politics, and have everything to do with public health and social responsibility. Vaccine mandates are nothing new.

      1. The argument about all those other vaccines that children are required to take ignores a major fact – namely that the mRNA are not real vaccines. They do not make people immune to the covid virus, and they require repeated injections (which also don’t make you immune to the virus). The impact of repeated boosters is not known. If some people want to subject every cell in their bodies to that sort of thing, it’s their choice – but forcing others who do not want to be a part of this experiment is hugely unethical.

      2. I applaud your ability to quickly summon talking points circulated by people who have already admitted to repeated falsehoods. The comparison to smallpox in particular is utterly specious. The smallpox vaccine is sterilizing. The geographic regions with the highest vaccination rates are experience large spikes.

        Covid is never, ever going away. The vaccines will not stop it. Their only utility is severity reduction in at risk populations. In other segments of the populations they demonstrably do harm than good.

    3. In Danish there is a single word that means (approximately) “for the common good”. During Covid we need to think beyond ourselves and do what is best for our family, friends, neighbors and community. If that means getting the vaccination to protect others, that the morality right thing to do. We vaccinate our children so that they can attend school, get flu shots, and take many other steps to protect ourselves and others. How is this different except that it has become politicized? Often the same people who talk about personal choice and privacy are the same people who feel they can decide the reproductive rights of others. A major disconnect of ideas. People have a right to not get the vaccine, but they should stay far from others, for the common good.

      1. Thank you, Kathy. I’m afraid we have lost our sense of “the common good” in this country, and I find it sad and troubling.

      2. This is an experimental vaccine no one knows the outcomes or adverse reactions it may have long term! That’s the problem . And yes the researchers and doctors admit this . They will tell you tge stats haven’t come in yet and to mandate it for kids is ridiculous without knowing if it’s safe long term .

        1. It is NOT an experimental vaccine and has not been for months. Billions of doses have been administered. Adverse vaccine reactions occur within minutes or at most days of administration. Phase 3 trials (with tens of thousands of subjects) started a year and a half ago. Perhaps we should wait until EVERYONE alive today is dead before allowing the vaccine? That’ll be much sooner without mandates!

          1. I have been severely injured by vaccines twice, and it took more than “days” for the adverse effects to manifest.

          2. Shouldn’t people have the right to see the data the FDA relied upon to approve the Pfizer shot? You will have to wait 75 years for the pre-licensure data! And the positive-licensure data – forget about it. But trust the science.

            1. Agree. How does this not concern people that they won’t release the records on how they decided to grant EUA? You would think somewhat important before rolling out gene editing drugs to the entire planet.

          3. We were told that those “vaccines” were 100% effective against covid – and it turned to be a lie. So on what basis are we supposed to trust that they have no long-term negative effects? Also, it is documented that many people have had heart inflammation, blood clots, and other bad reactions to those shots. Apparently, stillbirths in vaccinated pregnant women have also increased. It’s unconscionable to force anyone to take those shots – especially since 99% of us are in no danger of dying of this virus (and the immuno-compromised individuals can undertake special precautions, including taking the jabs, working from home, and avoiding crowds).
            The covid virus mutates, and therefore it will never be eradicated.
            So for the common good we, as a species, need our immune systems to learn to mount quick and effective defense to covid, just as we developed that ability with respect to the common cold corona viruses. Those mRNA “vaccines” interfere with that natural evolutionary process.

      3. “This collectivist mindset is foundational to communism, fascism and socialism: ‘The common good before the individual good,’ proclaimed one collectivism’s most infamous adherents. (Adolf Hitler)?
        The doctrine of collectivism has been put into practice by many dictators such as Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao.
        Death, destruction and suffering on a mass scale was the end-result in each case.”

        1. Thanks for the breath of sanity Steven. I do not support mandates for this new gene therapy that is being mandated to be injected in our bodies, which gives the cells in our bodies instructions for our body to create a pathogenic spike protein, for the following reasons:

          1) The shots are not vaccines in the traditional definition. They do not prevent us from contracting COVID 19, nor do they prevent us from transmitting COVID 19 to others. The CDC recently changed the definition of vaccine, during the course of this ongoing pandemic, to purport that these shots are vaccines, but they are not vaccines according to the historical definition that existed until the CDC just recently changed it. I find this behavior on the part of the CDC that has not been adequately explained or publicized questionable and concerning. This action and behavior on the part of the CDC has been one reason why my trust in them has been eroded during this pandemic.

          2) Neither the FDA nor the CDC have provided the public with any comprehensive reports in regards to the safety of these shots. Where are the safety studies Will? Kindly provide them for our benefit, if you have them. There have been tens of thousands of adverse reactions reported by health care professionals, including deaths, reported to our government’s own reporting system, VAERS (vaccine adverse events reporting system). Many hundreds of thousands of people have experienced debilitating injury shortly after receiving these shots that has led to the following: stroke, heart attack, thrombosis, atrial fibrillation, myocarditis, and pericarditis, and/or death, just to name a few. Over 20,000 reports have been made about recipients of these shots that have passed away within hours and/or days of taking these shots. Making a report out to VAERS is a time and labor-intensive endeavor, requires that a patient’s health records also be uploaded, and studies have shown that most health care professionals do not have the time to do it. (One notable study, done by Harvard Pilgrim Health some years ago showed that, on average, only 1-13% of adverse effects for all vaccines are reported to VAERS.) My husband’s own cardiologist, who has been promoting these shots since they got emergency authorization approval late last year, told us last May that she had never even heard of VAERS. We printed out several reports from VAERS for her review to discuss our safety concerns (reports that detailed sudden death, stroke, heart attack, etc. after injection with these new cv19 shots). She has since told us, a few weeks ago, that while she has never lost a patient to COVID 19, she now acknowledges that she has two patients that have had serious adverse reactions that she attributes to the shots. One developed Atrial Fibrillation, and will now be on medication for the rest of their lives. The other developed non-specific carditis and has been living with chest pain as a result for months. No medications are working to assuage her patient’s carditis.

          3) No one knows the long-term safety or efficacy of these shots. In addition to all of the adverse reactions reported to VAERS https://vaers.hhs.gov/, what are the long-term consequences of administering genetic instructions to the body to create pathogenic proteins? We simply do not know the answer. Therefore, without long term data, everyone who gets injected with these shots is taking an unknown, and therefore uninformed, risk. The bedrock of good medicine is to offer the proposed recipient informed consent. It is not possible to offer recipients informed consent in regard to possible long-term effects of these shots because there has simply not been time to conduct such studies. So, the shots have to be completely voluntary, free of coercion, to be ethical. Mandates to keep employment, dine at a restaurant, visit a loved one in a nursing home, etc. are coercion, and as such, they are unethical. Of further concern is the current attempt by the FDA and CDC to actively withhold licensing data. You can read a recent law suit filed by Aaron Siri in regard to that here: https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/001-COMPLAINT-24.pdf

          4) There have been organized groups of Doctors who have worked tirelessly from the beginning of this pandemic to search for safe and effective treatments that could be used before these shots were developed at “warp speed”. One group is known as the “Front Line Covid 19 Critical Care Alliance”. You can see their suggested treatments on their web site which you can find here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/ They use fda approved drugs and nutraceuticals in a multi-sequence approach, often times tailored to the individual patient and their disease progression, to treat not only active covid 19 infection, but also long-haul symptoms. They have protocols for prophylaxis as well. Another group of physicians, called the “American Association of Physicians and Surgeons” has a similar treatment guide, which you can view here https://aapsonline.org/covidpatientguide/ Sadly, much of “legacy media”, including but not limited to media conglomerates who have signed on as part of the “Trusted News Initiative” (you can read more about that here https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/covid-19-the-shadowy-trusted-news-initiative/ has silenced these groups of Doctors. Other Doctors have also been silenced, such as practicing cardiologist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough (you can listen to his podcast for free here https://www.americaoutloud.com/the-mccullough-report/ who have been sounding the alarm not just about the lack of discussion by the CDC and FDA in regards to existing approved drugs and therapies that can offer treatment, but also about the pathological action of the spike protein that forms in the body once these shots are injected. Dr. McCullough is one among many MD’s that have observed that the spike protein is pathogenic to the endothelia lining in our body, and that the shots give our bodies instructions to create a protein that makes spikes that rough up our endothelia lining, which in turn creates an environment in our endothelia lining that is ripe for clotting.

          5) Steven Grundy, a Nebraska physician and retired cardiac surgeon, presented findings at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association’s annual conference in Boston last month (November). His finding show that “mRNA vacs numerically increase (but not statistically tested) the markers IL-16, Fas, and HGF, all markers previously described by others for denoting inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle, in a consecutive series of a single clinic patient population receiving mRNA vaccines”. An abstract of this study is currently available in Circulation, the AHA’s scientific journal, which you can read below at the following link:

          (SOURCE: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712)

          Abstract 10712: Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning | Circulation
          Our group has been using the PLUS Cardiac Test (GD Biosciences, Inc, Irvine, CA) a clinically validated measurement of multiple protein biomarkers which generates a score predicting the 5 yr risk (percentage chance) of a new Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS). The score is based on changes from the norm …
          http://www.ahajournals.org

          And this Canadian Doctor has similar concerns for micro clotting that is occurring in patients based on her clinical observations, which include elevations in D-Dimer levels post injection with these shots: https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/media-resources/dr-rochagne-kilian-blowing-the-whistle-on-covid-19-vaccines-and-d-dimer-levels/

          6) There is simply not enough known about these shots for the government or employers (or anyone else for that matter) to be in the business of mandating them. RFK Jr. has recently published a book called “The Real Anthony Fauci” which has been trending as a best seller on amazon for weeks now. The book explains in detail the business interests between vaccine makers in this county and our government agencies, including the NIAID, which Fauci is the head of. There is a lot of money being made off of these vaccines, both by the Government and private industry, which creates conflicts of interest, in regard to policy that is being set. I urge people who are interested in learning more about these conflicts of interest to consider reading this new book. I have already mailed a copy to Will for his review.

          7) The only shots currently avaialble to the public in the USA right now are all still under “Emergency Use Authorization.” That means if we are injured by the shots, we cannot sue the vaccine makers. Per the “Prep Act”, passed by congress in the 80’s, and signed by Reagan, the vaccine makers of these shots have complete liability protection. https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/legal/prepact/Pages/default.aspx#:~:text=The%20Public%20Readiness%20and%20Emergency%20Preparedness%20Act%20%28PREP,from%20liability%20%28except%20for%20willful%20misconduct%29%20for%20claims%3A

          8) Natural immunity from those of us who have already been infected has been completely ignored, and I find that to be alarming. You can see a short commentary on why that is of concern to Dr. Marty Makary, Professor Of Health Policy At The Johns Hopkins School Of Public Health, here: https://brandnewtube.com/watch/jim-jordan-and-dr-makary-the-cdc-will-not-study-and-acknowledge-the-superiority-of-natural-immuni_nqzalocml3isibx.html?lang=french

          9) RFK Jr. of “Childrens Health Defense” has been advocating tirelessly for years for more comprehensive and transparent safety studies for all vaccines. It has been documented since the beginning of this pandemic that children are at essentially zero risk of dying from Covid-19. More children have died with the common cold, than have died with Covid-19, since the pandemic began. Japan recently published a study that showed that children were 7 times more likely to die from adverse effects from the cv 19 shots than from cv 19 https://citizenfreepress.com/column-3/japan-study-vaccines-pose-7x-times-higher-death-risk-than-covid-for-young-people/ And yet, Michelle Wu’s new mandate includes injection of children ages 5-12. Robert Redfield, former director of the CDC, never even suggested schools close, because he said they knew from the outset that children were inefficient spreaders of COVID-19, and usually had very mild symptoms. So why is there currently a push from our Mayor in Boston to mandate these injections for children to eat out, go to a museum, or attend a Celtics game? Here, RFK Jr. gives his hypothesis as to what could be contributing to this push to inject children in less than 60 seconds:
          Here’s why they’re going after children by Robert Kennedy Jr. https://t.co/h0ceIKipNo” / Twitter

          10) And here’s what Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA technology, has to say about why he does not recommend these shots for children: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/physicians-scientists-kids-should-not-get-covid-vaccine/

          These are just some of the reasons, and some of the information I have personally considered, to come to the conclusion that I do not agree with these shots being mandated by any private or public entity. I have many more reasons. I have been busy gathering countless articles, documents, studies and opinions written by scientists and MD’s warning of the dangers if our society continues to mandate these shots. I share much of what I have been researching with our Senator Will Brownsberger, and he has been gracious to allow me to meet with him, and to invite experts to speak to him on this topic, a few times over the course of the past year. But he and I are at an impasse of sorts. He remains resolute in accepting, carte blanch, the recommendations of our regulatory agencies, bureaucrats, and politicians. I remain committed to questioning an ongoing narrative being pushed by big pharma and big government via media funded by special interests to perpetrate an agenda that seems, at best, rife with conflicts of interest that prevent these entities from working in the best interests of each of us individually.

          1. Thank you, PJ.
            Excellent compendium and analysis. It is refreshing to read commentary based on specific data versus speculation and lemming-like behavior.

          2. Thank you for taking the time to provide references to support your statements. Everyone should be doing this.

          3. Thank you PJ. You have provided a wealth of information. It’s terrifying how a political entity can subject us to mandates based on these facts, and the list of these ‘rules’ is getting longer and longer. Boston’s new regulations should be a wake up call from this insanity.

      4. There is great misinformation circulating about HIPAA. It has absolutely no application to any individual or business asking you about your vax status – unless that business is “covered entity” like an insurance company or healthcare provide which collects such data to carry on its business. A retailer or employer or an individual can ask you about your vax status – there is no law prohibiting it. You don’t have to answer or you can answer anyway you want. The person or business can take whatever action is permissible under law, including dismissal from employment or not allowing you on premises. I had this very discussion yesterday with a plumber who would not answer my question about his vax status before I allowed him into MY home! How’s that for chutzpah – this fellow wouldn’t respect my right to determine who gains entry to my home. He said I was violating HIPAA by asking him and he refused to answer. I told told him to leave. He called his boss to complain that I was giving him “attitude.” Seriously. After speaking with his boss he said he was vaxxed. His visit was brief. After he left I called his boss, I have been a very good customer of this plumbing business for over 15 years. The talk with his boss was re-assuring and satisfactory. We shouldn’t have to deal with this nonsense and disrespect at this point in the pandemic.
        Barbara Anthony, Esq.
        Healthcare Policy Consultant

        1. Hard to believe people like you exist. Sounds like you need therapy for your phobias and definitely do need to check your privilege and self importance.

      5. Perfectly expressed. I completely agree. We have completely lost a collective belief in acting “for the common good.”

      6. I completely agree with you! It is so bizarre to me that the same people who advocate the death penalty and are against reproductive rights defend their personal choice to harm others – by not being vaccinated and thereby likely to transmit a potentially deadly virus!

        1. What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with anyone’s position on death penalty or abortion. You seem to be unaware that these mRNA shots are ineffective against covid – they don’t prevent infections or stop mRNA-“vaccinated” people from spreading the virus. I just saw it somewhere in the mainstream media that 44% of people who have been diagnosed with covid in Massachusetts had been fully vaccinated. So how does it make sense to mandate those shots? The virus mutates and it is here to stay.

      7. You’re a racist. The single largest demographic resisting vaccination is black people. You think they should stay away from others and keep out of gyms and other place where good clean white people hang out. How disgusting.

    4. Whether or not you are vaccinated has nothing to do with your personal healthcare or record, other than vaccinations, which are an arm of public health, and therefore – I believe – should be part of the public record. Under HIPPA, protected healthcare information includes “demographic data, medical histories, test results, insurance information, and other information used to identify a patient.” Vaccination record is not a test result, and there is a case to be made that COVID test results do fall under the PHI of HIPPA.

    5. Please go and actually google the law. It regards who can access and release your medical information. It is completely unrelated to public health measures.

    6. HIPAA has nothing to do with it. The act relates to what 3rd parties are allowed to convey about a patient’s health. Answering a question regarding your own health or preventive measures you have taken is just not HIPAA-related.

    7. We would do so if Polio was prevalent, we would do so if Smallpox was prevalent, we do so if TB was prevalent. Requirements become more rigid when the the disease becomes more prevalent.

    8. I have recent concerns about prion disease in the brain after reading 5 articles and having friends diagnosed with prion disease after getting shots. It was a rare disease and now becoming more in the news. MIT professor wrote an article in this and in New Brunswick Canada 5 people recently got diagnosed yikes
      Booster shots only last 2-4 months what are we doing to our bodies?

      1. Exactly! I know of 2 people who had strokes after the shot one died both in their 70s . And don’t forget about the myocarditis in boys and young men . That they don’t mention very often .

        1. Steven Grundy, a Nebraska physician and retired cardiac surgeon, presented the findings at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association’s annual conference in Boston last week. An abstract is available in Circulation, the AHA’s scientific journal.

          (SOURCE: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712)

          Abstract 10712: Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning | Circulation
          Our group has been using the PLUS Cardiac Test (GD Biosciences, Inc, Irvine, CA) a clinically validated measurement of multiple protein biomarkers which generates a score predicting the 5 yr risk (percentage chance) of a new Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS). The score is based on changes from the norm …
          http://www.ahajournals.org
          I shared the above article with my husband’s cardiologist (Harvard Vangard Medical Associates) a couple weeks ago, and her eyes just glazed over. She simply said “this needs more study.”

          In the meantime, she keeps recommending that ALL of her patients take whatever booster du jour is on the table.

          Practicing cardiologist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, while originally supportive of these shots, has changed course based on his clinical observations, and has now been warning for months that these shots inflame the endothelia lining and cause clotting in the body. Here’s a link to his show on “America Out loud Radio”

          The McCullough Report – America Out Loud

          The McCullough Report – America Out Loud
          Sat/Sun 2 PM ET Encore 7 PM. Dr. Peter McCullough is an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist, managing the cardiovascular complications of both the viral infection and the injuries developing after the COVID-19 vaccine in Dallas, TX, USA. Since the outset of the pandemic, Dr. McCullough has been a leader in the medical response to the COVID-19 disaster and has published …
          http://www.americaoutloud.com

      2. There is so much information out there now regarding not only the ineffectiveness of the shots from preventing/transmitting illness, but more alarmingly the poor health outcomes of many that have taken up this experimental drug technology. I believe this year more people have died than last and I think we are now experiencing record high levels of positive “cases”. At some point you have to start to question the lies, misrepresentations, fear mongering and do your own research more widely. Stay clear of the corporate press and the politicized health bureaucrats. They clearly have a different agenda.

        1. On any other social platform, these kind of paranoiac misinfo posts would be taken down as a TOS violation. Let’s hope the admins here follow suit.

          1. How can anyone justify trying to shut down other people’s legitimate opinions and concerns, and still think of themselves as an American? I find assaults on free speech extremely inappropriate, to put it mildly. That’s how freedom is lost, and people find themselves living under oppressive, dictatorial regimes. Please don’t be complicit in actions that lead to that. It can happen here – very easily.

          2. This is a democracy and these voters are communicating with their representative. Leave and find a country better suited to your authoritarian beliefs.

            You also have no idea what you are talking about.

    9. Covid is not a disease.
      It is a knife that a person can unintentionally stick into your lungs and hurt or kill you.
      Just as helmets are mandated for most motorcyclist and seat belts for most drivers, mandates help protect people from unintended or even intended harm.
      To not protect people from a known harm is irresponsible is it not?

    10. I believe that if the United States had a more coherent laws on who owns data like the EU, many of the issues about data privacy, which seems to be a point of the conservative movement, would go away. HIPPA, selling data from social media, Google and holders of data, etc would be less of a wild west I can do with your data what I want unless you are able to stop me and more about is my use of your data something you want me to do because you own it. The would be way less distrust of what large organizations do with data under an EU style data privacy policy and law. And the wild west of extortion websites like mug shot sites, would not be able to function. Debt Collectors, info aggregators, Credit Bureau’s would have to be much more attentive to who the data is about and less about selling it. It could be something Massachusetts could consider modifying the framework it uses in its information and data law. The fundamental concept in EU data law is that the owner of the data is who the data is about, not the holder of the data. The US seems to give the holder of data the ownership of the data.

    11. My view is that this is not about whether you are sick or living with an illness; it is to show you have received a vaccination or a test. Thus is not much different from showing proof of age when purchasing alcohol.

      1. But since showing proof that you are vaccinated is no proof that you are not infected now and able to spread he virus to others – what would be the point of vaccine passports? Honestly, I think that some people have lost the ability to think clearly. It’s scary that fear can lead to that.

    12. There have been vaccine mandates as long as vaccines have existed. In 1905 the right of government to impose vaccines was established by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. In a 7-to-2 ruling, the Court said Cambridge, Massachusetts could require all adults to be vaccinated against smallpox. Schools, daycare and childcare, and the military have required vaccinations since long before COVID.

      1. Do you not realize that mRNA “vaccines” are not regular vaccines that give lasting protection? It’s a pharmacological product that has its downsides, and can harm, and has harmed people (and its long-term impacts on the human population are unknown). Whatever can harm individuals CANNOT be forced on people. It’s fascist to even think so. If we go in that direction, there is no stopping other drugs being forced on us. Totally incompatible with human rights, freedom and dignity.

  5. Some people have had COVID and developed natural immunity. No reason to mandate. The government should not be telling people what they have to do with their bodies. This goes for a Women’s right to choose. A persons right to drink alcohol smoke pot use drugs or pay for consensual sex. We need to be consistent on all matters relating to our bodies. If individual businesses say you can not come into our establishment without a vaccine that is their right and their right to allow it if they please. It however imo should not be a big brother government mandate

    1. Peter Hill – succinctly and perfectly stated. The big brother government is getting out of control. In an effort to control and subjugate us, they’re usurping powers that are contrary to our rights under the Constitution.

  6. I very much support Mayor Wu’s approach. We are all safer, and public health is better maintained, if people who gather publically are required to be vaccinated. I think there should be mandates required of employers as well, so that employees who can’t work remotely are better protected. Vaccine mandates will allow more normalcy in daily life.

    1. Michelle Wu and other mayors are not kings/queens with unlimited powers. She would be within her right to issue an ADVISORY to Boston residents and businesses on recommended actions to reduce the spread of covid (since you cannot stop it, just like you cannot stop colds or seasonal flu). She chose to impose “mandates” which will force people out of their jobs and burden businesses/employers (many of which are barely surviving). It won’t work, and if it does, to some degree, the price will be too high. Tyranny always meets with resistance.

      1. Her authority derives from a decree she issued. Like a tinpot dictator.

        There is a large segment of the professional class that feels an uncontrollable, almost sexual urge, to submit to authority and force there to do so. We have a very badly reared generation on our hands.

    1. COVI( 19 won’t be erradicated by these genetic shots because they are not “vaccines” in the traditional definition. The shots do not prevent infrection or transmission.

    2. Covid vaccines are not sterilizing vaccines. If you don’t know that, you’re well over your head.

  7. Will, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I feel fortunate that you are my State Senator.
    As you know, there is great uncertainty about the consequences of the latest Covid-19 surge. As a physician who is actively involved in treating patients with cardiac complications of Covid-19, I have seen in person the consequences of severe Covid-19 infection. I am fully convinced that we need to minimize risk of exposure by masking indoors in public places, and everyone should be vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible in order to mitigate against the spread of severe Covid-19 infections.
    I wish you and yours a peaceful, productive and a very healthy New Year.

  8. We need an end to this pandemic and MUST give consideration for our exhausted health care workers and for others whose lives have been up-ended. Since when has a virus been driven by politics??? It is utter nonsense and frankly selfish. Merry

  9. I believe that mandates are very important to control the spread of the virus, especially on the federal level. How else are we going to do it?

  10. We already require Hib, DTaP, polio, Hep B, MMR, and varicella vaccines for children entering school, plus meningitis vaccines for older children. Vaccine mandates are part of normal life, and indeed part of what makes normal life work.

  11. I believe that it is best for public safety, given the virulence of this virus, to have vaccine mandates in place in appropriate venues – gyms, entertainment venues, restaurants, and any indoor situations where large crowds are to be expected.

    1. Jill – showing proof that you are vaccinated is no proof that you are not infected now and able to spread he virus to others – so what would be the point of vaccine passports? We all know or have heard of scores of vaccinated people who came down with covid nevertheless. So please explain the logic behind mandating vaccine passports.

  12. What ever happened to the
    common good? Mandatory vaccines and immunizations have been a part of our health care system since smallpox. We all sacrifice some freedoms in many ways every day for the good of all. And local government taking the authority away from health departments is a recipe for health care chaos.

    1. I think the “common good” fell out of favor with the fall of the Soviet Union. Looks like it’s been resurrected in our fine community.

  13. I support vaccine mandates, but without vaccine passports they are much more cumbersome to enforce and, therefore much less effective. I’d be interested in a separate survey on vaccine passports and an update on whether the legislature is even thinking about them.

    1. Showing proof that you are vaccinated is no proof that you are not infected now and able to spread he virus to others – so what would be the point of vaccine passports?

  14. You can’t drive drunk, not because of the injury you may cause yourself but because of the injury you may cause others. If you choose to not get a vaccine for covid you are endangering others in public settings. You can not smoke in public settings for the same reason. Your personal habits or beliefs do not outweigh public health concerns. Living in a society means compromising some of your beliefs or preferences for the public good.

    HIPPA has nothing to do with this issue. Nobody is forcing you to divulge your medical information, you can do it and get to enjoy the company of others or you can refuse and stay home.

    1. “Nobody is forcing you to divulge your medical information, you can do it and get to enjoy the company of others or you can refuse and stay home.”
      Not if your paycheck depends on it – which is what Mayor Wu has just instituted for city workers, and other employers are emulating. Does anyone care about the impact of those draconian measures on our economy? Especially since covid vaccine mandates are NOT preventing infections and spreading.

    2. These are not sterilizing vaccines. Do you people know anything at all about the virus??

  15. “Elective despotism is not the government we fought for.”
    ~ Thomas Jefferson

    Reading skills and comprehension abilities are prerequisite for understanding the ‘Constitution of Massachusetts,’ Article X, specifically sentences #1 and #3.
    Sentence 1:
    “Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty and property, according to standing laws.”

    Sentence #3:
    “In fine, the people of this Commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.”
    SOURCE: malegislature.gov

    Is it me Senator?
    .

    1. The Preamble to our Constitution also states that “The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.”

      1. Read sentence #3 again Jim.
        These aren’t laws, they are commands.
        Please post a link to the elected representative body law that was passed, and is within our Judicial system as prescribed for in the Massachusetts General Laws. I’ll wait.

        “Laws repugnant to the constitution are null and void.”
        ~ Marbury v. Madison (1803)

  16. I am all in favor of the mandates. I view getting vaccinated and masking as a civic responsibility. In another universe doing the needful (being socially/civically responsible) would not be a political mine field. The COVID pandemic affects all of us – the virus does not distinguish between political affiliations, race or creed.

    1. It’s not a civic responsibility in the least if those “vaccines” are ineffective, will not eradicate covid, and have adverse effects. Please, just think before you get behind what doesn’t make sense.

  17. I am vaccinated but I oppose mandates, and favor testing.

    It seems a lot less invasive and a lot more effective to use rapid tests to enter, rather than vaccinate.

    The vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID: they *greatly* reduce the probability of the worst outcomes in individuals, but statistics show a 30% reduction in risk of infection with Omicron, and we have empirically demonstrated that breakthrough cases are as contagious as infections in the unvaccinated. Individuals with breakthrough cases shed the virus at the same rate as sick unvaccinated individuals.

    So if we have the ability to test for COVID, why are we not doing this?

    The MWRA wastewater data shows that Omicron has already dwarfed last years peak, and this is in MA where rates of vaccination are highest in the nation: https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm .

    As an individual with a chronic illness, even a mild infection could result in lifelong disability. We do not know if the vaccines protect against long COVID, so vaccination mandates, with their promise of a “new normal” instead sounds to me like a society I can no longer participate in, a society that would rather risk the death and disability of millions than take meaningful precautions against the pandemic.

    Requiring a vaccine that reduces your rate of infection by less than a third, and does not reduce spread once infected, seems like a gross violation of my body, an abandonment of the disabled, and an ineffective solution to the pandemic.

    1. thank you Sarah, those are excellent points, and ones that I wholeheartedly agree with. I also suffer from chronic illness, due to a very severe vaccine injury I received 30 years ago.

    2. It’s horrifying to see what happens under these regimes to people with compromised health who cannot be vaccinated. There’s a woman in Australia, the land of concentration camps, who no one will vaccinate because she’s near certain to provoke anaphylaxis. But no doctor will write her an exemption because they’ve been threatened with their liecenses.

      A quick glance down this comment thread shows that without a single exception the pro-mandate side knows literally nothing about either the vaccines or the virus. This is common. I’ve been told I’ve been spreading misinformation for saying children don’t die of covid. None of these people deserve a vote on what other people do with their bodies, and not one has the brains to understand the weapon you allow to be used against your fellow citizen will inevitably be turned against you.

  18. As I have a relative who runs a facility for frail elderly yet refused to get vaccinated until mandated, I am absolutely in favor of mandates. They work and are essential to keep safe those at risk.

    I have a few other relatives who I wish had to face mandates, one running a “healthy” cafe, and one over 80. They are not only a risk to themselves but to their customers and close family who take their lead.

  19. The survey was too vague as ‘appropriate circumstances’ can be different for everyone. For me, it includes hospital employees (which happens to include me), nursing homes, etc. Not restaurants and gyms. Thank you for asking though.

  20. If the price of ‘freedom’ is the certain illness and/or death of those around me then it is certainly too high a price to pay. I fully support vaccine mandates where appropriate even if they do curtail ones ‘freedom’ to mindlessly socialize .

    1. Where appropriate? Should we allow these unclean people to have access to food at the grocery store? Or are you satisfied by just financially bankrupting them and making them social pariahs in their community?

      1. My brother is unvaccinated and I know many others who I hold in high regard to have also declined the shot. You completely misjudged me by implying that I consider them ‘dirty people.’ I don’t. I do, however, think it appropriate in certain settings(healthcare, entertainment venues, gyms) where transmission is highly likely, that we require as safe a situation as possible.
        Grocery stores can only be made as safe as all patrons are willing to make them including those who think this is all some fascist conspiracy. I certainly resent your characterization that anyone should be denied basic services like food shopping because of their vaccination status.
        Let’s at least, attempt, to minimize the spread where it is possible and makes great sense for the common good. If you find that offensive then what’s your solution?

        1. Patrice, you wrote you fully support vaccine mandates. How can you reconcile that with the fact that those “vaccines” are ineffective (don’t protect you from covid), will not eradicate covid in our environment, have immediate adverse effects on some people, and we don’t know their long-term effects? You’re putting your trust in something that may end up irreversibly harming mankind in the long term. For what? Something that 99% of people can beat. Those shots should not be mandated, just as flu shots are not mandated, but are available to those who want them.

        2. I am a personal trainer and I have looked into the data on areas of transmission, since I suspected that gyms did not represent places people are getting sick. Gyms have much stricter cleaning protocols, and already did “social distancing” because of how equipment is set up. Gyms are not areas of high transmission. They extremely low. Infact, most transmission are from close family gatherings in the home. People going to gyms spend on average 1-2 hours, They have good ventilation already due to people exercising. Widespread generic mandates do not work and they do take in account all the data. Tracking cases over the past year has shown gyms are extremely low transmission. I’m going on about the gyms, but in all seriousness I don’t see the point of segregation on the vaccine issue since being vaccinated DOES NOT prevent transmission. The best way to take care of your health is to get plenty of sleep, exercise, get good nutrition, drink water, and manage stress. Those who are overall healthier (inside and out) have lower viral loads of any virus and therefore lower possible transmission. Health is extremely individual. Muscle mass has shown to be very protective on all fronts including outcomes for COVID.

    2. Hysterical drivel. Get hold of yourself. You’re not saving anyone from certain death by getting a vaccine that only modestly reduces transmission for only a short amount of time. You’re not a savior and this isn’t all about your feelings.

      And by “mindlessly socialize” do you mean live like a normal human being? Try getting your own life and stop trying to control others’.

      1. My goodness. Savior? Hysterical drivel? That sounds more like you. Vaccinations are the only tool we currently have to mitigate the damage this virus is doing. And you’re right, there are no guarantees that it will ‘save’ anyone. Is it better for us to just stick our heads in the sand and hope we don’t get sick?
        Have you lost anyone to Covid? Did you wonder at all if they were exposed to it by someone who could care less about taking steps to protect themself and others?
        It is mindless to not try to protect yourself and more importantly, the most vulnerable among us.

  21. I strongly support vaccine mandates. I strongly support “vaccine passports”. I strongly support mask mandates. I strongly support the facts & science behind any & all public health measures to end this pandemic.

    1. None of the measures listed above can eliminate the covid virus and stop it from mutating and erupting every year, just as cold and flu viruses do. This is a scientific fact. So are we supposed to live with “covid passports” for ever?
      Every person is free to exercise any anti-covid protections they want to impose on themselves. Imposing them on the entire population as part of general, draconian mandates is wrong, and only prolongs the pandemic — as it reduces the numbers of people who would have had a chance to acquire natural immunity, but instead remain vulnerable (vaccinated or not).
      The scientists have discovered (heard this on NPR) that wild deer have almost all been infected with covid, but are not dying from it because they achieved natural immunity.
      At this point (with the Omicron variant being dominant and not deadly) healthy people who normally don’t bother with a flu shot need to start living normal lives – while more vulnerable folks need to take extra protections. The sooner we shift attention from the numbers of covid infections (most of which are mild) to testing and effective treatments, the sooner we will finally achieve “herd immunity”, as Fauci said is the ultimate goal (also a scientific fact).
      Our immune systems need to learn how to effectively and naturally respond to covid viruses. The mRNA “vaccines” are only undermining this natural and necessary process.

  22. This is a difficult issue with which I have had to engage personally as a physician with administrative responsibilities. It is my view that we have a responsibility to each other to make sacrifices for the common good. Vaccination is an important and proven public health measure. Sometimes it goes awry, and causes bad complications for a few people. Accepting that risk is our patriotic duty, and the price of living in a technologically advanced and nominally civilized society.

    1. Yes we know “as a physician” your peers supported maskless, socially undistanced mass gatherings as a public health measure (although only those in service of a specific political agenda). So what you say “as a physician” carries just a little less weight than it used to.

      The vaccinations do not cause problems for “a few people.” Most Americans do not know it, but Moderna may not be administered to males under 40 in plenty of civilized societies including the UK because the benefits do not outweigh the risks.

      Covid is one of the most clearly risk-stratified diseases in memory yet authoritarians want to insist on a single mass solution. “First do no harm” has clearly gone out of fashion among those speaking “as a physician.”

  23. It’s important to include questions on vaccine mandates in healthcare facilities. Hopefully, you can also question people on the desirability of a statewide mask mandate, which would help stem the huge surge in COVID cases

  24. Many vaccines are already mandatory — I’ve been boosted for all of the childhood diseases many times, as I work in pediatric healthcare. I’m also required to test negative for TB. To me, the COVID situation isn’t very different from this. That said, I personally would also be happy providing people in certain professions or situations the option of showing an appropriately recent negative test.

    To those who view mandatory vaccination as an infringement on their freedom, I agree. It is also an infringement on people’s freedom to have to risk illness or death to participate in society. So the debate isn’t about freedom vs. tyranny, it’s about what kind of freedom, for whom, and when. The debate will need to be nuanced and involve balancing these restrictions and freedoms. That’s why I also support providing people options such as testing negative or moving to different jobs within an organization when feasible for employee and employer, as we do with people who work with ionizing radtion when they become pregnant.

    I think there are lots of ways we can approach this complicated situation. But we do need to clarify and be honest about our goals, so we can know whether we’re achieving them or not.

  25. The push for vaccination has gone as far as it can—I am skeptical that mandates will convince the holdouts. And marginalizing those holdouts cannot be good for public health. Since the vaccines do not prevent transmission for more than a few months, they are an important personal good but not a public good. As we enter year 3 of the pandemic, we need more faith in public health. Coercion never helps that cause.

    1. Actually, mandates are very effective at convincing holdouts. I’ve read numbers of over 90% of holdouts eventually get vaccinated when faced with the prospect of losing their jobs. Look it up!

      1. But what’s the purpose of coercing and breaking people’s will as it pertains to their bodies (which is a terrible communist, if not fascist way to govern), if mRNA-“vaccinaetd” people can still catch and spread the virus, while they also risk possible immediate and long-term adverse reactions?

  26. I agree that mandates for COVID vaccinations and masking are entirely appropriate, just as with the vaccinations that have been mandatory for many generations for smallpox, pneumonia, chicken pox and measles. The only exceptions should be medical, i.e. provable potentially fatal reactions to the vaccine or an underlying medical condition that would be severely compromised. But even in those cases the unvaccinated cannot mingle with the general public. Religious or political opposition are not valid reasons to avoid vaccination because reasonable measures to protect public health and safety must take precedence over individual rights in order to preserve the common good. That is the reason that no-one has the “right” to falsely shout “fire”’ in a crowded theatre or to send kids without the required childhood vaccinations to school.

    1. So what should we do about mRNA-“vaccinated” people who still get sick and spread the virus? (and some of them die as well, despite being vaccinated). How is forcing everyone to be mRNA-“vaccinated” – even if they already have immunity due to having had covid, and even if they work at home and their risk is very small – going to change that?
      The notion that only un-vaccinated people catch and spread the virus is not true. We should be approaching this epidemic in a smart way – and that is testing people for covid anti-bodies, and letting those who have them live as they did before the pandemic. We also need to start emphasizing early and effective treatments, which exist, instead of needlessly terrifying people, and deluding them that those ineffective “vaccines” will rid us of covid – because they are not going to.

    2. Build all the concentration camps you want. Put up a sign, “Moderna macht frei”. You aren’t going to do anything to significantly slow the spread of omicron. Vaccines confer a slight reduction in transmissibility, maybe, for a very limited period of time. That’s it.

      Omicron will still burn through your masked, boosted, smug lite brunch table crowd like a Colorado wildfire hitting a diesel station. Up the flames will burn, and when your friends call up their representative and tell them maybe we should isolate virus carriers for the greater good, how funny that will be.

  27. The biggest problem today is that most people have never seen nor experienced the severe consequences of common diseases (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, small pox, tetanus, etc.) In the past, those who had that knowledge/experience enthusiastically got vaccinated and had their children vaccinated too. Many anti-vaxers have not personally seen or experienced Sars-CoV-2 infection or its complications. It’s a sad decline in our sense of civic duty and common good.

    1. Being against vaccine mandates is not the same as being anti-vaxer. I’m all for vaccines — especially the traditional vaccines that impart lasting immunity against deadly diseases (which covid vaccines don’t), but I’m against mandates and any forms of coercion. Vaccine mandates can easily evolve into more sinister things. The era of bio-weapons and gene engineering is not far away.

    2. You’re continuing the thread’s perfect streak of authoritarians knowing literally nothing about the topic at hand.

  28. I think we need to use all the tools at our disposal and a vaccine mandate is one more. In fact I am just waiting for a health club that only admits members with verified proof of vaccination.

    1. It is sad. I never thought the people who surrounded me would harbor such authoritarian viewpoints. This is what non-stop propaganda produces.

      1. Yes but people are accountable for their own actions.

        I guarantee you all of them in a year or two will insist they never said any such thing. Just watch Heads explode if Trump wins again and imposes vaccine mandates lol.

  29. The degree of brainwashing is astonishing. I know of so many people who became sick with “Covid” after being double/triple injected. This is the 1st time a drug’s ineffectiveness is being blamed on the people who choose not to take a drug. It may very well be that the injected have destroyed their innate immune system and are more prone to all kinds of illness. Also, why is there no discussion about the 20k+ dead (millions injured) according to the CDC’s own VAERs reporting system. More alarming is that most experts agree VAER’s only represents a small fraction of people injured. Doctors and hospitals are disincentivized to report such injuries as they will often come under medical board scrutiny or be fired by the hospital system.
    In my opinion the biggest issue we have is mental health. The media, politicians, health bureaucrats, behavorial scientists have created a population that is afraid of everything and everyone. This is not sustainable. I’m afraid it’s too late to have a course correction. As they say…History may not repeat…but sure does rhyme.

    1. Mark,
      What you say is not accurate. Here is a useful analysis of the VAERS numbers
      https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-usa/fact-check-vaers-data-does-not-suggest-covid-19-vaccines-killed-150000-people-as-analysis-claims-idUSL1N2R00KP

      And yes, people who have been vaccinated can contract COVID-19. However, the vaccine still provides much more protection than not being vaccinated. An overwhelming majority of deaths and hospitalizations for COVID are unvaccinated people.

      1. Lisa,
        I read through the article and it’s a great example of these “fact checkers” trying to put spin on the narrative. You should realize that the same people who sit on the Board at pfizer also sit on the board at Reuters. Many of these press outlets and fact checking groups are owned by the same people profiting from the established narrative. In any case, I read the article and see lots of references to the FDA refutes or the CDC disagrees. This proves my point….these agencies are completely captured by industry and should not be trusted. You should look to people like Robert Malone, Dr McCoullough, Dr. Luc Montagnier for credible information not the very same drug companies pushing their product.

        1. Wrong! Totally bogus misinformation perpetrated by people with an agenda. The “alternative” health care industry pushes many billions of dollars of untested, disproven, sometimes dangerous “cures” with virtually no regulation. These “cures” are often based on nonsense, logical fallacies and disproven, prescientific conjectures like homeopathy (“water has memory” and “like cures like”) and naturopathy (“natural is always better”), which are out-and-out false.

          VAERS data is not controlled or verified, anyone can post anything there, and is not intended for that purpose. It’s purpose is to discover unsuspected side effects, like the blood clotting issues that occur in 1 in a million J&J recipients. The CDC DID discover this issue, any undiscovered problems must be MUCH rarer than that.

          1. Robert Malone is one of the key inventors of the mRna technology. Are you saying you he’s an alternative health person? VAERs is an important indicator that something is wrong. Once again, the CDC is not impartial…they are a captured agency which pushes the products of drug companies and along with FDA do everything in their powers to suppress information outside the official narrative.

          2. You’re an idiot. You’re calling some of the most prolific authors of peer reviewed published research and leading vaccine developers purveyors of alternative medicine. You talk a lot but you know absolutely nothing.

  30. I see no discussion regarding proof of vaccination requirements for indoor gatherings such as restaurants, bars. Why is that? Too simple? Too effective?

    “Masks” are highly variable and most leak, a lot. Their use outdoors is comical. Do what works.

    This is 2021, not 2020.

    1. They don’t work. Your cloth mask is a virtue signal and token of willing compliance. That’s it. Only surgical masks and N95 equivalents do anything. I think maybe we should put people wh wear cloth masks in cams for the greater good.

  31. Covid vaccines (and boosters) should definitely be required for all students and staff in public schools. Most vaccines are, I don’t understand why it’s not required for this vaccine. We need to keep our schools open!!

    1. There is no reason to be closing schools following a discovery of one or a few cases of covid among children. Covid is not a disease that kills children. But we don’t know what administering multiple nRNA shots may do their developing immune systems. What parent would want their child to develop life-long dependency on frequent mRNA shots to be able to defend against future covid variants?

    2. The way you open schools is to open schools. Do you have any idea how many otherwise healthy children have died from covid? Do you know the incidence of myocarditis in children who are vaccinated?

  32. I support strong vaccine mandates with significant fines for violations. This is excellent practice for the next, even more lethal pandemic.

    1. I see no MD next to any of the responders’ names. Doctors, people who understand the nuances of science, have said that the mandate would go a long into irradiating COVID. So I say yes to vaccine mandates. The human species has survived using competition and co-operation. Competition alone just puts us back in a state of nature, and I rather not live in that. Freedom does not exist in such a state, only chaos does.

    2. How about we cross that bridge when we come to it? How about we not make our natural immune systems into guinea pigs when 99% of people infected with covid recover, and the rest may greatly benefit from earlier effective treatments?

    3. Some day a disease may turn middle-aged male internet commenters into dangerous brain-eating zombies so we better get rid of them now.

  33. As respectfully as possible to say: this is tiresome, enough “me me me” people!
    This American thing, so much blather about “we the Americans” yet when push comes to shove (and the vaccines are SAFE!!!), everyone runs to their corners.
    This is not a government intrusion, people!
    If your body can not take a vaccine, then OK — but that is it, only exemption that should be permitted.
    This is a “we against the virus” — or, well, stop complaining about the consequences.
    If you were ever wondering, reading, thinking — what would it be like if we actually faced global imminent disaster, how would we react — well, this is it: viruses do not stop, they only end when stopped. Step up, people!
    React to me as you wish — but, remember, I am calling out to you to look beyond your micro space, and whining at me does the exact opposite…
    Can we join together, or are we incapable of seeing beyond our own breath?

    1. We should all be for unity and sacrifice if the fight makes sense and is winnable. But this is a call for a united response that involves coercion and destroying people’s personal freedoms when the battle is NOT winnable (and we my even make ourselves weaker, more susceptible to illness with the endless mRNA injections).
      Those shots do not eliminate covid – just as flu shots don’t eliminate seasonal flu. Covid easily mutates (so vaccines are useless), and is here to stay. The sooner we accept it, the better – so we can be smarter about it.
      The only way we can win against covid is if humans acquire natural herd immunity, when our immune systems learn to deal with covid variants the way we deal with cold viruses (which are also corona viruses, and used to be deadly, but no longer are). The jabs that are forced on us make gigantic profits for Big Pharma, but are not taking anyone, or the humanity as a whole, in the direction of badly needed natural immunity.

  34. I wonder whether those who almost invariably invoke the word “freedom” to object to a requirement or limitation on what they can do or how they can behave think about rules of any kind in general. Your (my) right to do whatever you (I) want regardless of how it affects me (you). Your (my) freedom to, versus my (your) freedom from. This question necessarily involves not only the rules themselves but who should have the right to establish and enforce them. In the US there are perennial controversies about the relative roles of states and the Federal Government, judges and elected officials, legislatures and regulatory agencies etc. I would appeal in addition to the litigious interpretations of legal statutes ( what is the meaning of “is” ?) to a mix of common sense and decent respect for the needs of our fellow human beings to help us evaluate alternatives concerning the rules we are prepared to accept and support. But unfortunately common sense has become an oxymoron. Respect for the needs of others (and expectations that they will respect yours) and that none of us will act with careless, or worse callous indifference towards the health and well-being of others seem to be diminishing within our society if the strength of the opposition to mandates designed to protect the health of all of us and more fundamentally to reform our morally repulsive and financially insane procedures for access to health care are any indicators
    Mask not which will do for your country; Mask is what you can do for your country.

  35. Apparently none of the above commenters can read. From Bill’s posting:
    *please use this page only for comments or concerns about the survey methodology or questions.*

    1. I’m kind of glad that we all misread Bill’s posting. This cross section of opinions is much more interesting.

      1. Bill doesn’t want any nuance or true debate. That would too closely resemble real science. Bill wants to tell eveyone what to do. One size fits all medical treatment is Bill’s goal. Even if that medical treatment injures or maims, or doesn’t work and still results in infection with cv19. And transmission. Because the shots don’t stop either.

      1. Will intended to post his position on this subject first, as always, and then let people comment in response to that. But by then the horse is out of the barn. It’s better when people stating their opinions comes first — at least from the constituents’ perspective. It allows Will to see in detail what people think — which exposes him to a variety of arguments/opinions – before he writes his platform. As constituents, it gives us a feeling that we have a chance to influence the thinking of someone who represents us.

  36. We recently traveled to Quebec City where you have to show a vaccine card to get into almost every public place, and everyone is masked. Quebec’s province is far bigger than Massachusetts (over 8 million people) yet they have 1/7th of the cases in our state. That policy is clearly the reason they are healthier and have fewer deaths.

    1. I encourage every citizen of the Commonwealth to read Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “The Real Anthony Fauci”. Well researched and meticulously annotated!

      1. Great book indeed. Unfortunately, most people will not as they could never question their dear Lord Fauci.

    2. Interpreting the fact that Canada has less covid infections than us as a positive outcome assumes that we should be preventing those infections from happening at any cost. But that’s not how pandemics end. The more infections a population gets, the closer it gets to herd immunity and the end of the pandemic. Right now one in six Massachusetts residents has already had covid – so they are all set; the remaining 5 in 6 to go. We should not be worried about infections going up — only about making sure that they don’t happen all at the same time (as it could overwhelm the healthcare system), and that people are diagnosed early and get treated with proper monoclonal antibodies and other effective antiviral drugs. That’s the way out of this pandemic. Not the vaccines that don’t work.

  37. Agree with “A”. For me, appropriate means municipal and healthcare contexts: police, fire, other first responders, public schools, healthcare settings. I do not favor mandates for non-essential settings such as restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, etc.

    It does not seem off-topic to situation the question in a larger context. I’m angered, dismayed and disappointed by our nation’s continued weak, uncoordinated, unscientific response to the pandemic such as: starting to talk about a 4th vaccine dose in the U.S. while withholding the publicly-funded vaccine technology from less developed nations; the high-price and lack of availability for rapid-test kits, the anemic research and data suppression regarding alternate treatments such as efficacy of safe, existing antivirals, the continued politically-motivated guideline flip-flops from the CDC and Anthony Fauci. We’ve had plenty of time to do better.

    I’m also bewildered, ashamed, outraged and afraid to live in a nation that – even in the face of this pandemic – suppresses dialogue (let alone action) regarding:
    – Our rapacious, inefficient, unjust healthcare system
    – Our gargantuan, exploitative, corrupt military expenditures
    – Our continued pursuit of gain-of-function research
    – The promotion of disaster capitalism that efficiently funnels wealth & resources to the top 1% while millions in our nation cannot meet even basic needs.
    – The acceleration of dangerous practices that have achieved a corporate/government totalitarianism, including massive surveillance, expansion of the “police state” (e.g. the Capitol Police expansion, the Postal Inspection Service Internet Covert Operations Program and many others), widespread censorship by the media and tech giants, crackdown on dissents (notably the persecution of Julian Assange and Steven Donzinger).

    All this is happening in plain sight while the corporate/government elite keep us confused and fighting with each other over basic public health measures and multi-faceted culture wars.

    1. Bravos!
      Except one thing – the military is actually weak right now, distracted with enforcing proper pronouns, designing the ranks based on “equity” instead of meritocratic achievement, and other such things. The morale is very low. But even with all those issues, it is still the only thing that stands between the US being an independent (sort-of) country, as opposed to “Lebensraum” for China.

  38. From an economist’s perspective, the unvaccinated impose a cost or externality on our community. They pose a greater threat of passing on the illness, getting sicker, requiring hospitalization, and requiring more scarce care and drugs in the hospital. Those additional imposed costs should be born by those who create them.

    We all have freedom to act as we wish, but that right also comes with responsibilities to the community. Mandatory vaccinations, as well as vaccination requirements to participate in certain activities, impose a cost or exclusion on those who exercise their rights, but ignore their responsibilities. Economists call that “internalizing the externality”. In other words the unvaccinated now bear some of the cost of their selfish actions. Such behavior becomes less attractive and wide-spread.

    1. ps – when are we going to start imposing mandates on smokers. They should be refused cigaretts. Lets just take those off the market. And why don’t we require proof from people who want to purchase junk food that they are not diabetic, or even pre-diabetic. They should carry a card approved by the CDC to prove that. If people are obese, I think they should be forced to order off the “skinny menue” (each restaurant should be required to have one, something that the city of Boston should also be mandating of local restaurants). We should definitely not be allowing people with a plethora of health problems to be eating french fries!! And all canceer patients should be denied sugar, as it is well know that sugar comprimises the immune system, and feeds cancer cells. And if people have cardiac problesms, we should require they perform cardio before they enter their place of employment each day We could put a chip in them to monitor the rigourousness of their employer mandated workouts. These measures would go a long wat to reducing costs for a plethora of other “selfish” behaviors!!

  39. If one believes in the common good, does that mean Flu shots should be mandatory? It is obvious that Covid jabs are similar to the Flu shot as neither are vaccines in the common understanding of vaccines like polio and smallpox etc. The Covid shot is a therapeutic and it is adapted as the virus changes. All that said, I believe in getting safe protection and am jabbed and boosted but I oppose forced action.
    There is a longer conversation about the long-term effects of mRNA technology but this is not the forum nor do we have enough evidence.

  40. I strongly support Mayor Wu’s mandate.
    Get a vaccine and get boosted to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death.
    Mask to stop the spread. (Vaccines reduce, but do not stop the spread)
    Use effective masks and wear them properly over mouth and nose.
    We need to stop the spread before we get even scarier variants.
    Do this for your family and neighbors.
    It is really pretty simple.

  41. This is a difficult situation where individual freedoms are at odds with the greater good. In our society My view is that there are three main entities. Science, Politics and Religion. The idea was ( I think) is that they all should be independent of each other. However in recent years religion has infiltrated politics and is now influencing science. The accepted notion that Science is based on Truth and Religion is based on Faithhas deteriorated and “alternative truths” have arisen with no hard facts to support them. This puts society in a dangerous situation.
    By having a vaccine mandate the government is not trying to protect individuals who for whatever reason do not want to be vaccinated but the rest of society. Science tells i=us the unvaccinated people who get sick give the virus a chance to morph into yet another strain. It should not be an individual freedom to spread a deadly virus. Society needs to be protected from such events and it is the responsibility of government to protect the general population and allow life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and not worry about being infected and possibly dying from a virus when there is a solution for stopping it. I do not remember when the Polio vaccine was introduced any wide spread hesitation or politicizing of the vaccine. Instead everyone was lining up to get their jabs and help erratic ate the disease. The politicizing of science to avert the truth is a very dangerous action that has been used for the sole purpose of winning votes. Establish the mandate!

    1. I have an issue with this statement: “Science tells us the unvaccinated people who get sick give the virus a chance to morph into yet another strain.”
      There is no science, except for the usual politicized propaganda in the media, that points to the unvaccinated as the sole reason the covid virus develops into different variants.
      This is very likely happening in response to the lame vaccines as well, and as part of the on-going process of natural virus evolution — because the virus naturally seeks to change, just like all other living organisms that are subject to evolutionary forces.
      This habit of blaming the pandemic on the un-vaccinated is grossly mistaken and unfair. It is perpetrated by Big Pharma and their minions that are making huge profits on those ineffective “vaccines”. It’s like blaming seasonal flu (different from the previous season’s flu) on those who didn’t get a flu shot. (Maybe that’s coming too. Another big money maker in waiting – whether it’s needed or not.)

  42. I support vaccine mandates if and only if they are a substitute for other mitigation measures. In my view, the vaccine provides great protection against hospitalization and death, and the “point” of the vaccine is to get back to living our lives to their fullest. I was happy to get the vaccine to protect myself and my family, but I am now annoyed at the seemingly endless parade of other measures that are imposed regardless of vaccine status, and seemingly regardless of their actual effectiveness.

    Does anyone actually think that a mandate to wear a mask in a restaurant during the five minutes before you are seated, after which you take it off until you leave, is effective in preventing spread? It’s just a Sacrifice To The COVID Gods that doesn’t actually help anyone.

    In my view, vaccine mandates should be a substitute for this crap. The point of these interventions was to buy us time until we could get vaccines and treatments. We have them now. Unlike getting the vaccine, masking, distancing, quarantine mandates, school closures, capacity limits, etc really harsh my ability to live my life and we need to ask ourselves, if we are buying time with these burdensome measures, what are we buying the time to do? Increase vaccination rates? Everyone has had a full opportunity to get vaccinated and while it’s important to keep trying to reach people we need to be realistic and accept that some people aren’t going to get it unless forced.

  43. It’s as simple as this. The vast majority of people who are going to the hospital are unvaccinated. The unvaccinated are spreading the virus and undermining our health care system. You have a responsibility to the community and society you live in. Either get vaccinated or stay home. You don’t have a right to endanger other people either directly or indirectly.

        1. A quick google search will show that what Anthony Kelly is saying is accurate. The majority of deaths and hospitalizations are of the unvaccinated.

        2. You are the person spreading misinformation. Since when does wanting to protect public health during the worst pandemic in over a century constitute hate? I would argue your sociopathic disregard for other people’s lives is the true exemplar of “hate” here.

          1. In countries like the UK, Israel and South Korea it is clear that the injected are having severe illnesses. In the US, the narrative has been very tightly controlled by a corrupt media and traitorous political class (both sides). Along with dividing people, they are creating a hated class of people as an organizing principle. I wish you peace and pray the hate is released from your heart.

          2. I don’t support mandatory vaccines and I never have. People have the right to refuse anything that is injected into the body. At first I thought it was because pharmaceutical companies had politicians in their pockets, which I still believe, and were selling their wares and everyone, politicians and pharmaceutical companies got super wealthy. Oh, and communication companies sending out fake news constantly about covid status daily, which influence the vulnerable. After 2 years of this, now I believe that a human cleansing is taking place by some very big international group of elites. The vaccines don’t stop the spread and the vaccinated are getting sick with the different varients, so they don’t work. What is concerning me is the ingredients in the vaccines that are medically proven by real medical doctors, that’s correct, medical doctors, that injure and kill people. If you have taken the vaccines and booster, I will pray that nothing happens to you while I pray for safety and love for of all the people of this world. I believe you are ignorant of what is going on around you.

    1. Regarding this statement: “Either get vaccinated or stay home. You don’t have a right to endanger other people either directly or indirectly.”
      People also have a right to leave their home. We’re not going to keep healthy unvaccinated people in house arrest on the chance that they can catch covid. The supposedly protected (but not really) vaccinated ones can also catch covid, and give it to someone (including their vaccinated brethren) when they are out and about. The vaccinated people may even lack any symptoms and still be danger to others. So can we stop the finger-pointing?
      And if staying at home is such a great idea, it applies to the vaccinated as well. You will also avoid any danger to yourself and others if you stay home. So does it work for you?

      1. Hi, Eva,
        (so it is understood to which note I am commenting)
        If you leave your domecile without protecting yourself, you are a biohazard if you are either (a) infected or (b) ignorant of whether infected or not.
        If you are a biohazard — meaning, your mere presence is a biological risk to others — then you are liable for any damage you cause.
        This is the basic idea of societal responsibility v. personal liberty: you own your responsibility to society.
        If you choose knowingly, willingly to abdicate your societal responsibility, society (i.e., our government of our people) has the permission to remediate the situation. This can mean any number of measures to correct your behavior.
        Please, all of you that think our country is asking too much of you, consider this idea as you promote your idiosyncratic perspectives to others.
        Thank you for sharing!

  44. Thank you Senator Brownsberger and Mayor Wu.

    For all transparency, I work in the vaccine industry, but do not produce any of the Covid vaccines, so I have no financial gain but do have a lot of insight from all the scientists that I work with. My companies leadership understands viruses, especially this one, you must be vaccinated, boosted and wear a mask in order to return to work.

    Personally I endorse vaccine mandates for most circumstances. If you’re going to be out in public in close proximity to other people and indoors you should be vaccinated and boosted and wear a mask. If you do not feel well you should stay home. America‘s leadership and it’s people need to wake up. We are in a pandemic, this is a crisis, healthcare workers are burned out, people that need to go to hospitals are being denied because there’s no room, mostly due to space being taken up by non-vaccinated people, selfish.

    Freedom? What does freedom really mean? We live in a free society but what does that mean? Can do whatever we want in the environment we share if it could cause harm to others? I think in the case of Covid the needs of the many outweigh the wants of the few.

    VARS? Recognize that this is reporting system for anyone who has been vaccinated and then has a serious adverse event from any cause, until each case is investigated no one can say that the vaccine caused them harm. On average in the US five people die every minute. And yes the death rate has increased by 17%, from all causes, including people that could not get care for their disease because Covid took over the hospital capacity.

    Experimental? The Pfizer vaccine is no longer experimental but fully approved. If we get exposed to viruses all the time in our bodies build up natural immunity. These vaccines just kickstart the immunity response without infecting you with Covid, so that when you do get sick you have an arsenal full protect you.

    1. Very typical argument. Credentials followed by a tissue of unsupported assertions. Argument from authority instead of fact.

      Boosters do not prevent transmission. Sorry. You should be familiar with the literature due to your job.

    2. Well spoken.
      May I add — to those who bemoan the suddenness of the vaccine appearances and the corollary conspiracy theories — please look up “Human Genome Project” and CRISPR.
      These incredible advancements are over 30 years old! There is almost nothing new about this development of these 2 mRNA vaccines — the work that has resulted in these miracles has been in progress since the 1990’s.
      For what it’s worth.

    1. We have a choice, and it’s the only one that will put an end to the pandemic – and that is to ride the wave of infections (though controlling the pace as much as possible to avoid work interruptions and overburdened hospitals) – until we have achieved natural herd immunity. That’s the only thing that has ever stopped a virus or diminished its ability to sicken large numbers of people. The belief that those lame vaccines are going to eliminate the covid virus is a delusion, a cruel joke that the Big Pharma and their bought allies are perpetrating on the world.

  45. I very much want both mandates and passports, and I want signage in front of every shop, theater, restaurant, gym, and other public gathering space as to what their rules are.

    I cannot keep my loved ones safe if I don’t know the risk I’m taking. And I will not go anywhere that puts them at risk.

    I want very much to go out to dinner, see a movie, and shop without worrying that I might be the vector that brings COVID-19 to someone who cannot survive even after being vaccinated.

    1. You are asking for something that is not possible because the mRNA “vaccines” — even if 100% of people were vaccinated — cannot stop the covid virus from mutating and replicating in the infected person, even if vaccinated.

  46. 1. Current mRNA vaccines are based on technology that has no long-term safety proof. They do work on an original strain of COVID to a certain extent, but in the long term, they can cause more harm, especially in children, than good. That opinion was recorded by FDA Dr. M. Curilla in the respective approval ruling.
    2. As publically admitted recently by Pfizer, the current vaccine is ineffective against Omicron, and the adjusted version won’t be available till spring. Also, my household members took it but got COVID (Delta?) regardless.
    3. Adenovirus-based vaccine tech (J&J/Janssen) is somewhat more established, but not widely available anymore. It appears that it is more effective against the Omicron version according to the South Africa research but somewhat discouraged for use by the CDC due to several cardiovascular episodes. Personally, I took it (and still got COVID).
    4. Vaccines based on a more traditional tech (Novavax, Sanofi) aren’t available in the USA (yet or ever?). They might be useless too, but at least won’t cause any obvious harm in the long run.
    5. Omicron variant appears to be not any different than common cold (~30% of which was caused by other flavors of coronaviruses).
    Considering the above, I do not see ANY science top back vaccine mandates, just the “feel good” act to show that something is done.
    Following the science at this moment would be protecting the vulnerable, and leaving the healthies be. Anything else will just prolong the public hysteria and societal pain.

    1. Wrong on all counts. mRNA vaccines were originally developed for the original SARS epidemic, but that petered out before the vaccine could be deployed. There was extensive testing, and much more testing last year (2020), followed by literally billions of doses being administered in 2021 with extremely few (rates of 1 in a million or less) serious side-effects.
      Current mRNA vaccines are not as effective against Omicron as they are against the original strains (95%), but are still 85% effective against Omicron, and are very effective at preventing hospitalization and death. Your second point is flat-out wrong.
      The common cold does NOT cause millions of deaths and 10s of millions of hospitalizations every year. Stop calling Covid a cold. Tonka trucks are trucks. 18-wheelers are trucks. You are claiming that getting run over by either is equivalent.

  47. I am fully vaccinated and in a higher age bracket. I don’t think soneone should lose their job because they are not vaccinated. Maybe a job which may exposed others, they can do one of the following: vaccinated, testing, or recovered and in the time period where they have natural immunity. ( Similar to the time perion after vacations. )

    I have eaten in a few restaurants during the pandemic. I don’t think customers should be checked by the restaurants as this may bring up all types of issuse. I try to use restaurants in off peak hours.

  48. I do not endorse a mandatory vaccine which efficacy is just about 3-4 months. Will we be required to get 4 vaccines/year? With a vaccine whose effects in the long run are not yet known. And I talk as a scientist. Different would be getting a protein vaccine like the Novavax, as the technology is the same as the classical flu vaccine. When they will be able to produce it, which I hope is ASAP, I will be the first in line for the 3rd dose (having got the first two) . And like me, other people who got severe adverse events from the mRNA one (which unfortunately were as well under-reported from people).
    I am in favor of other measure like obbligatory masks. I do not understand why, in terms of freedom, people are in favor of mandatory vaccines, but not in favor of mandatory masks…

  49. A vaccine mandate has been shown to:
    * diminish the spread of Covid-19
    * keeps the economy working
    * lessens the overwhelming need for constant testing
    * saves small business owners in particular, the expense and time needed to monitor un-vaccinated employees.

    This is a global pandemic, that will not be solved by one state’s governor or legislature – it requires everyone to sacrifice something temporarily today for freedom and health tomorrow.
    This is not a slippery slope, it’s like WWII, when people sacrificed a great deal more personal freedom and convenience then, to guarantee us our freedom today. Post 1945, wartime laws and regulations that limited individual freedoms were amended, repealed or allowed to expire, because we live in a democracy and we still do.

    1. Jeffrey – is this a joke or something? How can you say that a vaccine mandate has been shown to:
      * diminish the spread of Covid-19
      or
      * keeps the economy working
      or
      * lessens the overwhelming need for constant testing

      Have you read the papers or watched the news lately?

  50. Will,
    I don’t support mandatory vaccines and I never have. People have the right to refuse anything that is injected into the body. At first I thought it was because pharmaceutical companies had politicians in their pockets, which I still believe, and were selling their wares and everyone, politicians and pharmaceutical companies got super wealthy. Oh, and communication companies sending out fake news constantly about covid status daily, which influence the vulnerable. After 2 years of this, now I believe that a human cleansing is taking place by some very big international group of elites. The vaccines don’t stop the spread and the vaccinated are getting sick with the different varients, so they don’t work. What is concerning me is the ingredients in the vaccines that are medically proven by real medical doctors, that’s correct, medical doctors, that injure and kill people. If you have taken the vaccines and booster, I will pray that nothing happens to you while I pray for safety and love for of all the people of this world. I believe you are ignorant of what is going on around you.

  51. Thanks for trying to get a sense of how your constituents are answering this question.

    I had trouble with “appropriate” as did others who commented here–that’s a pretty nebulous category. I doubt that everyone would define appropriate in the same way. However, I do feel there are circumstances I would deem appropriate for the implementation of a mandate.

    Most, though not all, of us accept the battery of vaccinations mandated to attend school and undertake various other activities. These vaccinations have rendered several terrible diseases nearly exterminated. I am old enough to remember the polio epidemic–and how much illness and death the (then relatively new) vaccine prevented. For those who worry that the Covid vaccines are untried over the long term, and may cause side effects, I could offer testimony from several friends suffering from long haul Covid that it can cause serious long term side effects, which seem well worth avoiding.

  52. Will: You asked for comments about survey methodology (and look what you got!). I do think your question is lopsided on balance between “in some circumstances” vs “under no circumstances” and that phrasing tends to push the undecided responder towards the former. “Maybe under some imaginable circumstances it’s OK after all.” It’s also not clear whether private rules (a business or a restaurant independently demanding that their employees are vaxxed) would fall under your “some circumstances” category.

    More specific phrasing would be better.

    1. 1. Correction – your question used the word “appropriate” instead of “some”. But the gist of my complaint still stands.
      2. To elaborate on my second point – for example – I might support the right of a company to require its employees to be vaccinated. But I might oppose the whole state mandating such a rule across all companies in the state. Not clear at all if that fits your “mandate” definition and which way I should respond.

  53. I voted a second time in order to re-access this page. I’m sure it’s not counted twice. What is the survey methodology? Pro/con of constituents only? MA residents? How do you know residency status? Do you cross-reference, or normalize against other current related/informing opinion surveys? This is very important, but the urgent issue is do I allow my unboosted (well over 6 months post 2nd dose) child into school on Monday, 1/3/22? Monday should be a testing day.

  54. Well, these vx mandates continue to be such a “hot topic”, I am actually glad to get the opportunity to hear from my fellow constituents on your blog regarding their current points of view on this topic.

    I think in general, in regard to comments supporting mandates for these new shots, both yours and those of your constituents, my main concerns remain that those that support are “parroting” what they hear from the mainstream media and government officials. There is so much other valid information from MD’s and scientists from around the world that is being ruthlessly suppressed, information that includes peer reviewed studies which continue to be summarily deplatformed and discredited by the media, at the direction of the government and sponsoring corporate entities, without due process. There is currently no level playing field when it comes to people having ready access to important information about the pros and cons of mandating these genetic shots. Uninformed comments from your constituents abound as a result. And policies are being implemented that will have disastrous consequences as an ongoing result as well. Your continued support of these mandates is completely baffling to me. Unless you are just doing it for political expediency, to appease both the “mob”, the corporate interests, and the interests of the Democratic party. If that is the case, then your support for these ongoing mandates makes perfect sense.

    1. I wish everyone had to pass a test before answering this survey or voting. Simple verifiable facts based on the contents of peer-reviewed papers, materials unearthed via FOIA, statements of current and former government officials and the like. 100% guarantee that not a single mandate advocate could pass that test. These posts sound like they were written by children.

  55. I agree with others that the survey was too vague. I can’t evaluate whether or not I agree with “appropriate circumstances” without understanding the goal of the mandates, whether those goals are realistic, and whether the specific circumstances are an effective means to achieve those goals.

    I’ve heard many goals from different stakeholders. From protecting the health of vulnerable, high-risk people to encouraging more people to return to businesses to protecting the health care system from overload to achieving “zero covid”.

    Will, what are the “appropriate circumstances” where you support vaccine mandates? What goals do you believe can realistically be achieved through vaccine mandates?

  56. The debate is exhausting. I have compassion for people who do not get vaccinated–be they scared, or pregnant, or recovered and naturally immune, or other. The best course of action is to encourage vaccination AND to help the unvaccinated (counseling them, not shaming them). The vaccines are great at reducing serious illness but not great at reducing transmission. So what exactly do mandates get us? And what is the plan on how to keep the unvaccinated engaged in society? How does firing and isolating 20% of adults improve public health? And “public health” is not just Covid

    1. Dear Jane,
      *Compulsion* is part and parcel of the Left’s philosophy.
      So everyone can be equal and live in Soviet style cement block buildings.
      Except in Belmont, of course.

      1. I guess you have no trouble with growing economic inequality and how it harms some segments of our population more than others. You have a sadly warped conception of what people on “the left” stand for. Tarring them as soviet sympathizers is agitprop. I lean left on most issues (identity politics excluded) because we live in a society with institutions that have evolved to promote the “public good” like schools, first responders, and public clinics and hospitals, all of which powerful forces on the right would like to privatize and make profits from, believing there is no such thing as society (to quote Margaret Thatcher), only consumers.
        It is a mirage to believe corporations care for customers the way public institutions do for constituents. They answer to shareholders, not the public and when they screw up are rarely held accountable and have the resources to deflect criticism and legal challenges.
        When a company whose product or service I use demands I agree to a multi-page terms of service document in order to use it, giving me no say, is not that tyranny?

  57. I don’t support mandatory vaccines and I never have. People have the right to refuse anything that is injected into the body. At first I thought it was because pharmaceutical companies had politicians in their pockets, which I still believe, and were selling their wares and everyone, politicians and pharmaceutical companies got super wealthy. Oh, and communication companies sending out fake news constantly about covid status daily, which influence the vulnerable. After 2 years of this, now I believe that a human cleansing is taking place by some very big international group of elites. The vaccines don’t stop the spread and the vaccinated are getting sick with the different varients, so they don’t work. What is concerning me is the ingredients in the vaccines that are medically proven by real medical doctors, that’s correct, medical doctors, that injure and kill people. If you have taken the vaccines and booster, I will pray that nothing happens to you while I pray for safety and love for of all the people of this world. I believe you are ignorant of what is going on around you.

      1. Yes. It’s most unfortunate. People expose themselves selectively to those propaganda outlets, and become totally indoctrinated (notice how they completely ignore strong arguments that are not in line with their thinking). I guess it gives them comfort, similar to religion. But that group-think is very much on its way to destroy our country.

  58. I am old and I lived through Scarlet fever – my mother and I were there when the doctor diagnosed me as having it – I was 3. My father was not home so he was quarantined out – he could not enter and my mother could not step out the door. It was accepted because it saved lives. I lived through the Polio epidemic – we were thrilled to get vaccinated and maybe not get this disease that was putting children in the hospital. I don’t understand people willingly put others at risk because “I won’t be too sick so I’m not worried” We know more about this illness and about the vaccines effectiveness than we have ever known about any previous vaccinations. How can anyone be so selfish that they are willing to let anyone become sick or die because they might have a sire arm or other mild reaction or because it’s inconvenient. I believe that we, as a society have a responsibility to protect the weakest among us. Considering all the things people wear and do is it really so horrendous to ask that you wear a face covering when you enter a space where you might spread germs to others from your breath or cough? When do we become so self-rightius or selfish that we can;t do something because it helps others even if it doesn’t seem to help ourselves?

    1. So much self righteousness. So little knowledge. Is the myocarditis risk greater from the vaccine or from covid in any demographic cohorts? Which ones? Do the different brands present different risk profiles? To whom? What are the long term oncological impacts? How much spike protein is produced, and where, and where does it circulate in the body, and for how long, and to what effect? You know more than scientists do, if you know all these things. Or, let me guess, you’ve never considered a single one of these questions nor any other.

      1. So smug. These questions and doubts won’t be sorted out by people like you. You are free not to get vaccinated, but do you then take appropriate measures? You seem to believe you have no responsibility not to transmit a disease without knowing or caring what might happen to those who get it from you, and so make the consequences of your action or inaction someone else’s problem. Stay away from me.

        If you doubt the efficacy of covid vaccination in preventing death from covid, please regard this infographic:
        https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/12/30/briefing/03-MORNING-COUNTY-DEATHS/03-MORNING-COUNTY-DEATHS-articleLarge-v3.png
        “Low” vaccination rates mean under 30% of a country’s residents are not fully vaccinated; “high” means more than 60% are. It doesn’t show the middle group, but you get the picture.

  59. People who don’t want to protect themselves and others in society by getting vaccinated should be prepared to go and live on their own, outside society. It’s not a question of personal freedom, it’s a question of the common good.

  60. Happy New Year. Sorry your comments section is a bit of a dumpster fire. A number of people are categorically wrong, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t need to be taken into account as members of society.

    Anyway, if it helps, I have a master’s degree from Boston University School of Public Health in Infectious Disease Epidemiology, I work for a nonprofit that runs long term residential facilities, and I absolutely support vaccine requirements. Or testing requirements with vaccine opt-outs, which is perhaps more doable, if we can get enough rapid tests. (Rapid tests determine whether someone is infectious rather than infected, but for situations like seeing a movie or going to a restaurant, they would be sufficient.) I also agree that we need to add the booster to the requirement sooner rather than later. The US Army is making good progress on a universal coronavirus vaccine, but we aren’t there yet, and until we are, we’re going to have to get regular boosters for Covid-19, much like we get annual flu vaccines. It’s frustrating, but I’d rather have an achy arm for a couple of days than die. (Actually, pro-tip — do 10 pushups or similarly strenuous arm exercise right after getting a shot and it really helps reduce the arm pain!)

    1. “…we’re going to have to get regular boosters for Covid-19, much like we get annual flu vaccines.”
      Most people do not get annual flue shots and live. Ditto for those who refuse mRNA covid shots.
      The current covid shots are based on an entirely different technology than flu shots – and the long-term impacts of repetitive mRNA jabs on our immune systems is not known. Anyone who feels comfortable accepting that risk is free to do so. To deny others their right to control what goes into their body is just unconscionable. It has happened to so many people. I can’t imagine living in some institutional and being forced to do what I don’t want to do — being treated like an enslaved animal. And have we beat the pandemic by doing that? No. Because the road to that is not via the leaky “vaccines”. The countries with the highest mRNA vaccination rates also have the highest rates of infections. Go figure.

    2. Lmao. “I have credentials I win” isn’t a scientific argument, and if you think it is, we need to be much stricter giving out credentials. In any case the senior vaccine experts at the fda have much better credentials than you.

  61. I, personally, find interacting with Senator Brownsberger and his constituents on this site to be much more productive when I have the ability to filter out the comments of individuals whose contributions I find consistently unproductive. To that end, I’ve published a Chrome extension which anyone can use to do that. Perhaps others will benefit from it as well:

    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/willbrownsbergercom-filte/ocddkabnknofagjjbpdhncbgkcfmhbpd

    1. This only promotes close-mindedness. A waste of time too. Would have to filter most so many, incl. this one.

  62. If the point of vaccine mandates is to allow us to get back to pre-Covid activities, the jury still seems to be out on whether they work. At my father’s employer, a major Boston-area university, a vaccine mandate has allowed him to get back in the classroom teaching 80-plus students with little disruption. At my office, a Boston-area research center of the federal government, 99.97% compliance with the federal employee vaccine mandate has still not succeeded in getting management to bring everyone back. I don’t doubt that vaccines are helpful, but do realize that mandates create a lot of strife among the workforce and an awful lot of pressure on managers negotiating a sensitive and ill-defined process, and they’re not a cure-all. A more nuanced approach to risk, taking into account the negative health and social effects of isolation and – yes, dare I say it – the fact that we can’t really provide the same service for the taxpayers doing our jobs from home – eventually needs to come into the mix.

  63. Will, thanks for soliciting residents’ opinions and for your thoughtful response. I find it helpful to understand the factors that need to be considered, and the process(es) for making decisions in an imperfect world.
    I and most people I know fly in airplanes at 36,000 feet; drive on highways at 70 mph; ride in elevators; eat foods that have traveled thousands of miles. So on reflection, I frequently trust my life to science and engineering. I and most people I know also try to speak and act in ways that don’t harm others. When I add it all up, vaccines and other recommended health measures seem to be the best ways to protect myself and other people.
    While different issues will surely come forward, I’ll be glad when Covid recedes from our private lives and public discourse.
    ——————————–

  64. I shouldn’t waste my time on it, but it’s Jan 1st, so why not?

    Wrong on all counts. – Oh really?

    # mRNA vaccines were originally developed for the original SARS epidemic,
    – No. It was H5N1, if I remember correctly, as a Proof of Concept and never made it beyond Phase I.
    # but that petered out before the vaccine could be deployed.
    – It was never intended to be deployed (see above), hence no human safety readouts, beyond “it didn’t kill anybody outright”.
    # There was extensive testing,
    – Yes. In animals. So was Vioxx. Remember what happened next?
    # and much more testing last year (2020), followed by literally billions of doses being administered in 2021 with extremely few (rates of 1 in a million or less) serious side-effects.
    – a) Miocarditis is nothing, I guess. Hence Scandinavs stopped offering it to their youngsters. And there is more, but I am not here to dissect VAERS data. 1 in a million is a totally made-up number (unless you can show me the reliable source) as aspartate sweetener has a higher side effect rate.
    b) It’s not even 3 years since mass dosing. Wait a couple more years for proper assessment (as they did with prior vaccines).
    # Current mRNA vaccines are not as effective against Omicron as they are against the original strains (95%), but are still 85% effective against Omicron, and are very effective at preventing hospitalization and death.
    – Sure. That’s why “breakthrough cases” are everywhere. Outstanding efficacy. And don’t feed this “hospitalization and death” mantra. You have no and can’t have any proof of that. I can say that decrease in hospitalizations and deaths is due to the early death of the susceptible (vulnerable) population back in 2020. and those who pulled through will be OK. At least it would be consistent with previous epidemies.
    # Your second point is flat-out wrong.
    – Really?
    # The common cold does NOT cause millions of deaths and 10s of millions of hospitalizations every year.
    – It depends on who and how counts. It would if you count all dead people with a cold virus(es).
    # Stop calling Covid a cold. Tonka trucks are trucks. 18-wheelers are trucks. You are claiming that getting run over by either is equivalent.
    – I got Delta and it wasn’t even a cold. I wouldn’t even know I had it if not for the loss of smell. Omicron, according to all accounts, is indistinguishable from cold (unless you do PCR). And, as they’ve admitted that that Antigen Tests (not surprising) have a high false-negative rate to it. So… see no evil, and pandemics is no more.

    1. Intelligent reply by you, Alex.
      Very unusual and very refreshing.
      This entire Covid question is important because it points up a contradiction we see in society these days.

      Reminds me of people who decry Jan. 6, 2020 but not the entire year of Leftist riots which saw billions in damage, scores of deaths and killings, and utter, senseless ruin.
      Thank you.

  65. I voted NO on the survey, the 1 in 13 mentioned. Because the truth is being suppressed. We are being lied to. For support of my position, I offer you to an article in this mornings Western Journal about Dr. Malone, recently banned from Twitter. Please read and watch the three video clips in the article that supports my reasoning opinion: https://www.westernjournal.com/scientist-behind-mrna-lost-platform-twitter-censorship-days-later-speaks-front-millions/?ff_source=gab&ff_medium=westernjournalism&ff_campaign=manualpost&ff_content=2021-05-08

  66. Although many of us were not around during enforcement of public health laws in the USA during TB, Polio and measels
    epidemics, the laws on the books had teeth and you could self report to a tb hospital, or have constables come to your house to forcibly bring you to a public health sanitarium. Signs would be posted on the door to your home when measels outbreaks happened. Young children were committed to children’s wards during the polio epidemic. Foreign nationals, particularly Africans, were prevented from travelling to the US during the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. As Americans we are blessed with many rights. The flip side of that coin is responsibility, which we seem to have forgotten, or have never been taught. “Freedom is Not Free” does not only apply to the individual rights we have earned because our of our brave military men and women. It also applies to our collective rights and responsibilities to each other as a community and an nation. It has nothing to do with politics. A vaccination is a small price to pay to protect the greater good, the health and safety of our nation.

    1. “A vaccination is a small price to pay to protect the greater good, the health and safety of our nation.”
      This is useless pontificating. The covid vaccines don’t work and will not eradicate the virus, for goodness sake; plus repeated boosters my be harming our immune systems’ ability to fight corona viruses. Is that good for our nation?

      1. Just FYI, Eva,
        when vaccines were introduced, they did(!) have transmissibility prevention as well as extreme-illness prevention.
        only since the “personal liberty brigade” has rejected vaccination in that time period have the mutations proved more progressively vaccine-resistant – this is how nature works…
        “the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one” — why are these not words to heed?
        so, please, persist in your objections.
        is that good for our nation?

    1. Why? Is it because some posts challenged the prevailing “wisdom”, and were therefore painful?

  67. Will, thanks so much for delineating so clearly the elements at bay – and the specifics challenges for the legislature.
    If there is some optimism, it is that our community is using those last 2 years challenges to learn and get better at dealing with community-wise (and beyond) threats – as a group. It might not be obviously apparent just right now yet … Well we have to nevertheless… evolution take care of this…

  68. One can say the exact same thing for the flu vaccine.
    Shall we make it as mandatory for adults just as Baker did for all students last year to attend school?
    Even adults are not required to get a flu vaccination but if it’s OK for students why not for adults to hold jobs etc.?
    Shall we exclude and segregate people on such a flu vaccine basis?

    Shall we make preventative anti-HIV drugs (yes, they exist) mandatory for all LGBTQ persons of a certain age so that they don’t spread by sex what is still often a fatal disease, namely AIDS?
    Even if not mandatory, would you carry around a card or a certificate on your smart phone to get into a bar or singles club?
    Would local boards of health decide this?
    **It would save lives**
    Requiring a shingles vaccine and other types of vaccines would also reduce disease and hence hospitalizations and total health bill to all of society.

  69. Should not one of the ten factors be the mortality and/or impact of the disease? Covid is not equal to Smallpox, Polio or TB yet the fear around it is.

  70. I am tardy coming into this conversation and have not yet read Sen. Brownsberger’s summary above. However, I do believe that: 1) This is a public health crisis; 2) Thus it imposes a compliance mandate that bypasses personal inclinations of choice or definition of “freedom”; 3) It imposes a responsibility to the community-at-large; 4) It cannot be compared to whether (albeit the law) one declines to utilize a seat belt or bike/motorcycle helmet, which when resulting in tragic accidents, has a narrower impact – on the individual, that person’s family, and insurance rates; 5) The responsibility of the individual to the greater community (part of any social contract human beings have with opting in to be governed by laws and their disparate parts) does not diminish just because the problem is ongoing beyond anyone’s fervid wish for a safe and healthy conclusion. What to do? By all means follow scientific guidelines, which do change as scientists learn more about the coronavirus, its manifestations and thus recommendations for vaccine protocols and measures to safeguard individuals as well as the general public. So, since masking has proved efficacious in halting or ameliorating the spread of the disease, regardless of vaccine status, then masking mandates are perfectly reasonable, especially in public indoor settings or in close settings outdoors. And proof of vaccination should also be mandatory (unless proof of a bona fide medical exemption can be proffered) before entering any public space. I do not believe our health care providers nor hospitals should have to be strained beyond human endurance or physical capacity to care for any non-vaccinated person. Yes, it is a choice: Comply with reasonable public health measures (vaccination, masking) to protect both oneself and the greater community or suffer the consequences alone if felled by the virus.

    1. “And proof of vaccination should also be mandatory”
      Do you not realize that covid -“vaccinated” people also catch and spread the covid virus? A proof of being vaccinated is no proof that you are not contagious. That’s why we’re having the current surge, and will continue to have them — no matter how many people are forced to be vaccinated. The countries with the highest covid vaccination rates also have the highest infection rates. What does it tell you?

  71. so much fun (and yet so disturbing) to read these comments.
    so sad, that all the little objectionist creatures inside us, really from fear, surface to…
    1- criticise governmental over-reach — do you all recall, we all are the government? we vote, we serve, we legislate? criticizing government is like yelling at a mirror — take responsibility, vote responsibly, and so be it!
    2- bemoan science as imperfect, incomplete, unreliable… yet, when we could have(!) taken vaccines against version alpha, we did not – so, scientist-citizens, WE are responsible for the mutations which may ultimately lead to our demise. re-read that: WE are responsible.
    3- blame everyone else, and claim individual freedom from societal participation. to those who wish to “return to normal” and yet remain unparticipating critics, my request: please leave, please go away, please live somewhere else, where you can have your isolated reality; if you wish to join society, play by the rules we all must accept.

    Please remember, humans have attempted to manage, negotiate with, avoid, etc. the realities of nature. Not this time. Nature wins — unless we band together (as PEOPLE).
    If we do not, well, twas the pleasure reading your posts. : )

  72. Thanks for this list of nine considerations related to vaccine mandates. One additional consideration is missing and deserves illumination — our personal and political rights only exist and thrive in a democracy if they are balanced with our personal responsibility to society and to our country. Getting vaccinated is a personal responsibility that enhances and secures our individual rights. In addition, our public and individual health standing has been partially built on the contributions of millions before us who were vaccinated against polio and other illnesses that we now only have minimal possibility of contracting. We owe them our gratitude and are a healthier society with more secure individual rights for their willingness to be vaccinated. This is our generation’s opportunity to advance both individual rights AND public health for ourselves and for those who come after us. Thank you for advancing those goals on our behalf Will.

    1. So sorry that you don’t realize (since the media you listen to haven’t told you) that Covid “vaccines” are ineffective. Your entire position is based on the false assumption that they are effective. Will’s position also ignores that truth — because tha delusion is so popular that it could make democratic politicians lose support if they admitted their party’s covid policies have been a massive failure – and has harmed the country on many levels.

    2. I really see this as irrational fear and cowardice created by relentless propaganda. People masquerade these authoritarian policies as being virtuous and good to appease their inadequacies. What politicians like Will are creating with these segregationist policies has been done many times in History. It always ends badly. Will is now on record for what he supports.

  73. Sir Will,
    I can only hope you are giving as much credence to the materials shared here as you do my posts (minimal-to-none).
    Please discount credence by the number of posts per poster.
    There is a vast silent majority (or interested but non-participating mass) for whom surveys show their preferences and positions.
    Please do not let the vocal few outweigh the vast quiet masses.
    Thank you for your work, for your sharing, and for your advocacy!

  74. Will, I agree with you comments. Vaccine requirements are not new, and I think they are appropriate, whether for employment or to enter venues like gyms, theaters, restaurants, and planes. It is very clear that the vaccines can prevent infections for many, while lessening symptoms and the need for hospitalization for most. Our health care system is being damaged by vaccine refusers.

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