Unvaccinated must accept consequences

The Daily Herald's recent "Our View" column got it all wrong. Rep. Carroll's decision to withdraw his bill to require unvaccinated people to assume their full medical treatment costs should they contract COVID is to be mourned, not celebrated.

In order for society to function, we all need to abide by a social contract that includes duties and responsibilities as well as rights. People who refuse vaccination are in violation of the social contract and are causing grave harm to others.

Thus, actions need to be taken both to try to effect changes in their behavior to conform with pro-social ways and to sanction their choice to break the social contract. Rep. Carroll's bill would have done just that.

Not getting the vaccine is not merely a "personal choice" that puts just the person making this decision at risk; this selfish action hurts all of us.

It is, quite frankly, unconscionable that people who choose to refuse vaccination are taking hospital beds away from people who are ill through no fault of their own.

The attempt to draw a parallel between vaccine refusers and smokers or sky divers is a weak analogy. Smokers have an addiction; people refusing the vaccine do not. Smokers harm themselves, not others, since indoor smoking is not permitted in most venues. Smokers have not wreaked economic havoc, nor have hospitals been flooded with patients needing treatment for heart or lung disease. While sky diving is a risky activity, again, the potential harm accrues to the sky diver, not society.

People who refuse vaccination are the reason that we cannot return to a normal way of pre-COVID life. Not only should Rep. Carroll's bill be re-introduced, passed and enacted into law; other measures should be taken to place increased burdens on the unvaccinated who refuse to assume their responsibilities to society.

Kim Freitag

Elgin