COVID Vaccine Mandates and Selfishness

The meanings of so many words have been undergoing revision recently, and perhaps “selfish” should be added to the list. How can someone be selfish by acting against their own best interests?

We have all heard that those who refuse to be vaccinated are selfish, right? Don Lemon says so, and (to pick on other networks equally) so does Geraldo Rivera. I could list pages of quotes from nurses, physicians, epidemiologists, pundits, politicians, or your next-door neighbor.

We also hear constantly that the benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the side effects and risks, even for people who have natural immunity by virtue of previous COVID infection. While the vaccines are tremendous technological achievements and have been responsible for saving many lives, they indisputably give rise to many side effects, including rare cases of serious side effects. Natural immunity appears to provide at least as much protection as the best of the vaccines, and in the only large study to date that directly compared vaccine-derived immunity to natural immunity by matching the timing of immunity onset, natural immunity was found to be substantially more protective than vaccine-derived immunity. That same study also found that supplemental vaccination of people with natural immunity provided additional protection, a finding that has been replicated in other studies.

Selfishness can be generally defined as an extreme elevation of one’s self-interest and relative disregard for the interests of others. If we stipulate that the risk/benefit analysis for COVID vaccines is as favorable as proponents of vaccine mandates insist (although you may disagree with that stipulation), then by definition, the act of refusing to be vaccinated cannot be selfish.

Let’s assume that I have natural immunity, but you support vaccine mandates that would prevent me from keeping my job (or going to the local pub or grocery store in some cities). Basically, you’re telling me that by getting the vaccine, I would be less susceptible to COVID myself, and far less likely to transmit the disease to my family or anyone else who might be vulnerable to COVID. In other words, it is in my best interests to get vaccinated (note that I am only discussing my health interests here; obviously there are non-health benefits of being vaccinated, such as keeping my job).

As someone with natural immunity, I would already have as good or better immunity against COVID than most people on the planet. While being vaccinated would provide a modest boost to my already strong immunity, I would prefer that this vaccine dose be given or donated to someone who does not have immunity yet, perhaps in Bangladesh or Ivory Coast or anywhere else where people can’t run out to the nearest CVS for their choice of vaccines. If the idea is to reduce COVID incidence, transmission, and emergence of dangerous variants, then it is undoubtedly better for that vaccine to go to a person who has no immunity rather than to someone who already has immunity as good as or better than vaccine-derived immunity.

In contrast, from all I hear, you are a good person acting selflessly when you choose to take that third shot of Moderna for yourself, bumping up your relative protection a little bit, and making it a little safer for the people around you. All the while, that person in Bangladesh or the Ivory Coast is still waiting for a first shot, and remains at 0% protection, and at high risk for passing along the disease to others.

Let me recap. According to you, I will be better protected myself, and at less risk to the people I love the most in the world, if I take this vaccine, but by giving it to someone who needs it more than I do, then I am being selfish. But if I take the vaccine, and as a result, your local environment becomes a little safer (since my immunity would be increased and I would be less likely to transmit the disease to you), then I am no longer acting selfishly.

In an Orwellian manner, I think I’m beginning to understand. Apparently, all my life I’ve had the definitions of selfish and selfless mixed up. See Mom, when I took that third slice of cake before my sister had gotten a piece, I should have been praised rather than punished - I was being selfless! I was just ahead of my time.

For the record, I actually have been vaccinated, and was happy to get vaccinated. At my age, I felt it was in my personal self-interest.

I should also add that I don’t think anyone is being selfish for getting a booster shot. If you think you would benefit from a vaccine booster, then by all means, go get one, and no one should call you selfish, any more than getting medicine for any other personal health condition.

But by the same token, give everyone else the same latitude to make personal health decisions according to their own risk-benefit analysis. Because by any pre-pandemic definition of the word selfish, there is a pretty strong argument that it is not the unvaccinated people who are the ones acting selfishly.