Stephen Kershnar
Kathy Hochul’s
Mandate
Dunkirk-Fredonia
Observer
January 10, 2021
Kathy Hochul recently required CUNY and SUNY
faculty members be vaccinated.
The state should not protect faculty
against themselves. That is, the state should avoid paternalistic employment
conditions. The state would not be justified in requiring that faculty – or
other employees – avoid divorce, obesity, or gender-transition even if such
requirements were good for the faculty. Here I take no position on whether such
requirements would be good for them. In addition, the state should not
interfere with whether a faculty member gets an abortion because a woman owns
her own body. This is true regardless of whether abortion makes a woman’s life go worse.
The issue, then, is whether the
vaccine mandate protects the unvaccinated from harming others. First, consider
whether unvaccinated faculty endanger students. Students are in little danger
from Covid. John Hopkins Medical School professor Marty Makary points out that
over the last 6 months, the chance of a younger person (15-24) dying from or
with Covid is 0.001%, that is, 1 in
100,000. Because the data does not distinguish between dying from Covid or dying
from something else while infected with Covid, let us assume that the number
overestimates Covid deaths by a factor of 2 (I made this number up). Thus, the
chance of a younger person dying of Covid is 1 in 200,000. This still
overestimates the risk an unvaccinated person imposes on a student because the
unvaccinated person has less than a 100% chance of getting Covid and less than a
100% of passing it on – whether
directly or indirectly - to a vulnerable person. Let us again assume that these
numbers are 33% each –likely an overestimate - and we end up with a 1 in 1.8
million chance that someone choosing not to be vaccinated causes a student to
die. This is too low a risk to have the state require an employee put an unwanted
substance into her body.
By analogy, many people – including
me – think that the state should permit abortion even if the fetus is a person
because the fetus infringes on the woman’s
right to control her body. This is true even if abortion has a 100% chance of
killing a person. In short, we do and should take very seriously a person’s
right to control her body. This applies to unwanted vaccinations in a manner similar
to abortion, although the former involves a less significant impact on a
woman’s body. On a side note, zygotes and embryos are not people, but this is a
discussion for another day.
Second, consider whether
unvaccinated faculty endanger vaccinated employees, for example, vaccinated
faculty. Vaccinated people have a 0.003% chance of dying
from Covid, that is, 3 in 100,000. On campuses, the risk is noticeably lower
because they have fewer people 75 and older than does the
general population. Again, given this low risk and the small risk that an
unvaccinated person transmits the virus to a vulnerable, vaccinated employee, this
is too low a risk to pressure someone to take a strongly unwanted substance
into her body. By analogy, CUNY and SUNY do not require faculty to get a flu,
pneumonia, or shingles shots despite these being contagious diseases. CUNY and SUNY
also do not require that faculty not be obese, get divorced, or gender transition, even though
these have contagion-like effects.
Third, consider whether unvaccinated
faculty endanger unvaccinated employees, for example, unvaccinated faculty.
Such faculty have chosen to assume a greater risk than if they were vaccinated.
By analogy, we do not and should not require that faculty members get the flu
shot in order to protect those who choose not to get a flu shot. Because they
assumed the risk, the unvaccinated have no special claim to state protection,
especially if the protection involves strongarming people to put unwanted
substances into their bodies. In any case, the risk is not all that great
because in the US, the unvaccinated are only 7 times more likely to
die from Covid than the vaccinated and the risk of the former is quite small.
Fourth, consider the public. If
Hochul’s order is designed to protect the public, then it is not
faculty-specific. If Hochul wants to require it of all New York employees, she
should do so. Singling out the faculty is just taking advantage of their weakness
– specifically, their far-left ideology – and is not a principled attempt to
focus on a dangerous group. By analogy, if the New York wants to lessen or
eliminate gun ownership, it should not do so by requiring that CUNY and SUNY
faculty not own guns as a condition on employment. Rather, it should mandate
this for all of its employees.
One expects this sort of virus-related idiocy on campuses these
days. Amherst requires students to wear two masks if they are not wearing a
KN95 mask. Cornell recommends its students wear masks outdoors. Georgetown
requires events be held virtually or outdoors. Princeton requires that
vaccinated students not leave the county unless they are on a sports team.
One objection is that vaccination
provides a public good. A public good is
one that for which people cannot be excluded and for which one person’s
consumption of the good does not make less available to others. Examples
include clean air and nuclear defense. The state should be wary of requiring
important rights be waived in order to bring about public goods. For example, consider
an imaginary scenario in which that contraceptive implants and IUDs in teenage girls produce very good
results because they significantly reduce the number of dropouts, out-of-wedlock
births, and welfare usage. Further assume that these things are a public good
because of their effects on communities. New York still should not require this
for teenage girls who attend public schools. Nor should it require this for girls
whose mothers work for CUNY or SUNY. We should take a person’s right to control
her body seriously.
Disclosure: I had
three Moderna-shots.
