Member-only story
Hatred of the Unvaccinated Won’t Do Any Good
How to change minds in a world splitting at the seams.
Someone recently said to me, “If I was a front-line doctor or nurse, I’d refuse to treat patients who were unvaccinated, too.” His comment was in response to some healthcare workers making this decision in the United States.
I was a little shocked by this statement. To my ears, the words were filled with hatred and contempt. The unvaccinated are, after all, still people — some of whom are our neighbors and our friends. They don’t deserve to be hated, do they?
Well, it’s complicated, isn’t it? Although a part of us might care about the unvaccinated, another part of us knows they’re prolonging the pandemic. They’re risking their health, as well as the health of people who can’t (or can’t yet) get vaccinated. From that perspective, their actions seem selfish, ignorant, and needlessly risky.
And, at least in Canada and the United States, vaccines have been readily and freely available for months now. All eligible people could be vaccinated. The problem isn’t due to a lack of access.
We’re walking a strange line at the moment. Most of us have the intuition that medical interventions should be a personal choice. We wouldn’t force any mentally fit adult to get chemotherapy, a kidney…
