I would like to make one amendment to the following statement:
“Deblasio announced you need to be vaccinated in order to participate in society starting next month.”
Got it so no freedoms taken away. Except the freedom not to be vaccinated, but I am not really familiar with this freedom.
I think the freedom that is being taken away is the freedom to willingly infect people with a potentially deadly or, in many cases, debilitating illness, which shows a high level of disregard for human life IMO. Living in a society does not give you the “right” to do whatever you like. Society has the right to make rules for people to live in it. If you don’t like the rules, go live in a different society.
COVID is a new illness and not much was known about it in the beginning. Not what symptoms it caused, not what treatments would work, and also not what could help prevent it. As more research and experience has been developed over the last year and one-half, more is known about all of these various issues and the responsible health professionals are able to say with more certainty what symptoms are caused, what treatments work, and what can help prevent it. But because we are so afraid to deprive people of their “rights”, so the professionals are reluctant to make mandates, but rather make strong suggestions. In the beginning it wasn’t clear if these suggestions would really work, but they couldn’t just stand around doing nothing. Some type of effort to fight the disease was necessary. It has only come through trial and error and experiment. So sorry to those of you offended by your loss of rights as being part of the potential errors that have been made along the way. But if you don’t like the society’s rules, go live on an uninhabited island.