Public Health Self-Own

New York City has been ordered to reinstate with back-pay city employees who were fired for refusing to get the covid-19 vaccine. When I first encountered this story, the quote that was bandied from the judge was “Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19” and my initial impression was of a fringe anti-vax judge. But the judge meant this literally, as in “the vaccine is not 100% effective” and what he writes in the decision is much more nuanced and generally in support of vaccination.

I am not philosophically opposed to vaccine mandates. Vaccines are easily one of the greatest inventions of mankind, and I don't find it unreasonable to impose a cost on individuals to the extent it can potentially mitigate negative externalities. I'm also not someone who opposes other public health mandates in general, and I was OK with mask mandates for the most part, up until we had widely available vaccines. What never made sense to me was the incoherent overall set of rules. For example, some time around mid-2021, my gym instituted a vaccine passport system whereby you could show proof of vaccination and thereafter be able to work out without a mask. I was totally fine with this system, especially since it was a private entity finding a way to accomodate the needs of a varied clientele. A few months later however, the government ordered all gyms to require masks no matter what and I was fucking pissed. I had to now wear a mask at the gym despite being surrounded by vaccinated people, but meanwhile I could go maskless for several hours at a time at restaurants surrounded by unknown quantities. It didn't make any sense, and it just needlessly burned up whatever credibility public health authorities had. I made the same point at the height of the BLM protests/riots, when social distancing somehow magically did not matter anymore.

So back to New York City, in October 2021 the city ordered all public employees to be vaccinated. The judge in this case found the order to be “arbitrary and capricious” largely because of how nonsensical the implementation was. If the purpose of the mandate is to increase vaccination with the goal to decrease the spread of a deadly contagion, why exempt certain professions like athletes, artists, and performers? And why allow city employees who are appealing the mandate to continue working full-time as their appeal is pending?

The term “pretextual” comes up sometimes in legal contexts, and it's where a false reason is provided as a bid to hide the true motivations of an action. For example, a cop can say they stopped a vehicle only because the car was speeding, but their true motivation for the stop is to create an opportunity to investigate something else entirely. In Whren v. United States, SCOTUS unanimously decided that pretextual traffic stops were legal (they call them “mixed-motive stops” which is lol) and to date Washington and New Mexico are the only states that prohibit the practice. Because it is virtually impossible to perfectly comply with traffic rules at all times, the practical effect of allowing pretextual stops is that a cop can pull over basically any car they want to. They just need to watch them long enough.

New York City may claim their goal is purely public health related, but it's perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of their stated reasons when the implementation does not align with their goals. The judge in this case wrote:

The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance. If it was about safety and public health, unvaccinated workers would have been placed on leave the moment the order was issued. If it was about safety and public health, the Health Commissioner would have issued city-wide mandates for vaccination for all residents.

Perhaps they can overcome this suspicion by providing a damn good reason for how art protects against transmission, or how pursuing an appeal makes one less contagious, but I have not been able to find one. In the absence of a good reason, I can conclude their stated goal is pretextual. Despite their claims otherwise, it's obvious that the stated goal of public health was not always an overriding priority. I’m not ready to claim it was about compliance necessarily, but the city was indeed willing to let the Very Important Goal be subsumed by comparatively trivial concerns, like not pissing off Very Important People in the entertainment industry. So next time New York City or similar claims they are doing something in furtherance of public health, it's reasonable to assume they're lying until you see evidence otherwise. If the public trusts these bodies less, they can blame themselves.