Elizabeth Mooney

Ladies and Gentlemen....I am old enough to know people who have had polio and suffer lifetime disability, who have died of influenza and Covid, who are nearly deaf because their pregnant mother contracted rubella (German measles), who have rebounding, horrific episodes of pertussis (whooping cough), whose faces are permanently scarred from varicella (chicken pox)...all because vaccines were unavailable at the time. Do you want to take us back to those good old days? If viruses just affected people who chose not to get vaccinated, that would be fair. Live free or die, and all that. But this is not the same as allowing people who ride motorcycles to decide against wearing helmets. The very real public health problem with this notion of religious exemption or any exemption is that viruses spread viciously and opportunistically, We are not about to enforce quarantines of everyone who decides against vaccination. The erroneous public perception is that eradication of a communicable disease - as the medical establishment unfortunately terms it - means the virus just when Poof! and vanished. A better term would be that these diseases are under control, but only because of herd immunity due to widespread, population-wide vaccinations. it's not just ourselves, you know. We are our brothers' keepers, as the Good Book says.