Creating your account and immediately posting this isnāt a great start. You say both:
as well as:
Considering fairly basic public health protection measures to be dystopian isnāt helping the divisiveness you perceive.
Vaccine mandates in times of health crises arenāt new, and they havenāt caused issues in the past. School children in the US have generally been required to be vaccinated for over 160 years now (since the 1850s).
Every event Iāve seen in my area that required vaccination, also accepted a positive antibody test as valid. Also, that point might be made moot due to the variants. The vaccine teaches your bodyās immune system to specifically attack the spike protein, which applies to all known variants (although Omicron has yet to be seen, and yes, it could be an issue). Natural immunity likely isnāt as generally effective, primarily providing protection for the same strain that caused the initial infection.
Also, you say ānobodyā, but thatās a point that Iāve seen almost all right-wing publications peddling for nearly a year now.
You made it political as soon as you mentioned āReally glad to be living in America rnā, while calling the rest of the world increasingly scary and dystopian. This forum is incredibly international, and a considerable number of people on this forum live in places with stronger public health protections than the US.
One problem, which came up recently in several areas, is that unvaccinated folks who get hospitalized with COVID take up unnecessary room in the ICU, potentially stopping those with severe injuries from getting the care they need. The vaccines heavily, heavily reduce hospitalizations and deaths, lightening the load on healthcare infrastructure. While you might think that vaccination should be a private decision, everyone shares hospitals with those around them, and capacity is limited.
With the vaccine being incredibly safe, thereās no real risk in mandating it.
(@Pilgrimsmaster, not sure what you want to do here, this whole chain throws the thread off-topic, and overall Iām not sure how useful/meaningful this discussion is/will be)