Thread by @jonst0kes

Here’s what gives me pause about the comparisons of COVID vax mandates w/ existing vax mandates for school or specific jobs (especially in healthcare): when you decided to be a doctor, or look into public schools for your kids, you knew about the vax rule. It’s part of the deal.

If I signed up to be, eg, an airline pilot, then “take this vax or get fired” wasn’t part of the deal at the time I committed. Also, “we may ask you to take some future new vax as condition of employment” wasn’t in the deal, either. So now you’ve changed my deal unilaterally.

So in all cases where there were pre-existing vax requirements, people who had a problem with them could in theory avoid them by factoring them into their life decisions about what jobs to have, how to school their kids, etc. They were known & the risks were navigable.

If the vax mandate approach were, all new employees must get the vax, but existing vax refusers are grandfathered in, I’d feel differently. But not only is that not how this works, but such an approach is so sub-optimal that why even have a mandate?

The kind of change matters, tho. If you work at strip club, & the management is like “everyone now wears buttless chaps or they get fired,” that’s kinda in the universe of things you agreed to. But if ur a bank teller & management suddenly mandates buttless chaps… 🤷‍♂️

https://twitter.com/brinkwatertoad/status/1450873230718169091

This is surely the most devastating response to righty opposition to surprise vax mandates as a condition of employment, & it’s precisely why this issue has been so divisive in every corner of the right.

https://twitter.com/salemwitchfyndr/status/1450874087904096258

Anyway, 1 thing is really obvious to me & I've never heard a good counter to it: a positive PCR test proving recovery from COVID should absolutely be a substitute for the vaccine in any & all contexts where someone wants proof of vax (fairly or unfairly). That’s unassailable IMO.