Nursing the situation

One thing I haven't figured out yet is why anybody in the healthcare industry – and particularly nurses – would object to being vaccinated for the highly contagious Covid-19 virus.

You know, the virus that has killed more than 700,000 of us.

So this past Monday, when Winston-Salem based Novant Health fired 175 employees for failure to meet its vaccination mandate – even in the midst of a nationwide nursing shortage – a voice deep inside me shouted, "Yes! It's about time."

The objections to vaccines seem to be extremely counterproductive and flies in the face of common sense. How can an unvaccinated healthcare employee (and this includes orderlies, administrators, janitorial workers, food vendors and others, not just nurses and doctors) be allowed to work in a facility dedicated to healing diseases, not transmitting them?

I'm guessing the real objections are being made in response to having to follow mandates. Nobody wants to be told what to do because, well, we're Americans and we have a Constitution that guarantees us our rights to be stupid whenever we want to be.

Resisting Covid-19 vaccinations might sound good on the surface for some, but how does that stack up against vaccination mandates that have been in place for decades? You can't enroll your kids in public school unless they've been vaccinated for a number of diseases. You must be vaccinated to enter the military. Why do you accept being vaccinated for polio and smallpox, but not for Covid-19?

Why do you not want to be vaccinated when 98 percent of Covid-19 deaths are among the unvaccinated?

Mandates are everywhere anyway. Is it government overreach to wear mandated seat belts? Don't stop signs and speed limits tell you what to do on the road?

Our form of democratic government was given birth through a midwife mandate when Gen. George Washington required that his troops be vaccinated against smallpox in 1777. I don't suppose it gets more American than that.

Some vaccine reactionaries claim our personal freedoms and our own ability to choose what is best for each individual are under (government) assault, but this strikes me as a red herring. We're in the midst of a global health crisis, and because we are, mandates are necessary. They're necessary because we keep spreading the virus. In the middle of a pandemic, it's not about personal freedom. It's about personal responsibility. It cannot be otherwise.

As far as healthcare employees are concerned, taking personal responsibility is the foundation of the Hippocratic Oath, which doctors take upon graduation from medical school. Not legally binding, it's designed to give the rest of us a sense of security in what otherwise could be rampant quackery. One of the Oath's promises is, "First, do no harm." (So, doctor, take the vaccine.)

And nurses take the Nightingale Pledge, part of which reads, "I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous..." (So, nurse, take the vaccine.)

Today's numbers show the virus is receding in many areas, which is good news. That's probably because more and more people are being vaccinated. But winter is approaching and we've been here before. We know what obstinance looks like. Maybe we'll take vaccination more seriously this time around.

Mandates are probably our best way out of this mess. In the end, it could be this is all a trial run for the next pandemic. We better pay attention.