Mandatory vaccines

As we brace ourselves for the fifth wave of the coronavirus, one question is becoming increasingly more important: When are vaccines going to become mandatory?

Over the last two years, we watched as the world shut down and stood in fear as the coronavirus took the lives of our loved ones and fellow countrymen. Now, today, with the advent of the COVID-19 vaccines, some of us are able to return to life as it once was.

But with the emergence of the new delta variant, that return to normalcy is threatened. With each new variant, the virus seems to become more infectious and deadly, and vaccinating all seems to be the best solution to preventing more variants. So that begs the question: When are vaccines going to be mandatory? Are we going to wait until a new variant comes along that renders the vaccines useless before we act?

Right now, breakthrough COVID cases are on the rise among the vaccinated due to the unvaccinated, and we need to act swiftly.

The government needs to act by mandating that everyone gets vaccinated. We can no longer put people’s perceived liberties above the lives of others. As the Supreme Court declared in the landmark case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, in 1905, “the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.” OLULEKE FALADE

South Sides Flats The writer is a student at the University of Pittsburgh School

of Medicine