No one will be strapped to a gurney and forcibly vaccinated. Each of us has a choice. But now there may be more tangible consequences associated with the choice not to minimize one's risk of needing a scarce ED/ICU bed, of putting a coworker in one, or of filling another body bag.
On the bright side, there will be plenty of employers refusing to mandate vaccination, and the job market is great. It didn't have to come to this (mandates), and I wish it hadn't, but better to work with like-minded people than with participants in the vaccine effort, right?
My company just mandated COVID vaccination by Dec 15 for all employees, contract workers, students, residents, fellows, interns, and volunteers.
It didn't have to come to this.
When enough of us take responsibility for the collective good, as previous generations of Americans did by being vaccinated for smallpox, polio, measles, etc., we can afford a small percentage of "free riders." But with too few pulling the wagon up the hill, it rolls backward and kills people.
Again, no one is being held down and vaccinated against their will, any more than anyone is forced to take a drug test for employment, get an annual flu shot to work in a hospital, get a TB test to attend college, or get MMR vaccination to attend kindergarten.
As always, those who don't like the rules are free to find places to work/study where the rules are more to their liking.
We can disagree about whether employer mandates are good policy, but let's not pretend they're new. Even government vaccine mandates have long-settled legal precedent (see Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 1905).