To the Journal editor:

Images of COVID-19-infected infants on respirators should be the last straw. A sane society wouldn’t tolerate it. We must now take effective action to end this pandemic. Preaching to the unconverted won’t do it.

It was different when an earlier generation of Americans eagerly sought to immunize their children from a lifetime of polio disability. So today, where persuasion fails, economic pressure might succeed. Hit people in the wallet.

Private employers must mandate employee vaccination as a condition of employment. Immunization should be required of customers, clients, and students. We who have been responsible should have freedom from fear and risk, knowing that our workplaces, restaurants, and other businesses we patronize are safe. Private medical insurance should also require vaccination as a condition for coverage. Physicians can choose, as some have already done, to withhold care to vaccine refusers.

Mandates should have few loopholes. Very limited provision for testing in lieu of vaccination. Medical exceptions narrowly drawn. As far as religious exemptions, I question how vaccine refusal comports with the First Commandment and the Golden Rule.

Across the board government mandates would take pressure off individual small business owners. These have a sound legal basis. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1905, upheld a state’s authority to enforce a compulsory vaccination law to eradicate smallpox.

This case, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, was relied upon in recent federal court decisions, endorsed by Justice Barrett, for Indiana University’s mandatory immunization program. The court weighed an individual’s claimed Constitutional right to refuse immunization against the broad interest of public health and safety.

The court found that the public interest prevails. It clearly stated that there is no absolute freedom to endanger others. Freedom requires individual responsibility. No society could otherwise be held together. Some restraints on individuals are necessary to protect the community.

Just as I do not have the “freedom” to drive while intoxicated, I should not be “free” to endanger others with a fatal and debilitating disease. We must have the courage to meet this terrible moment and act as responsible people and citizens. Our economy, our lives, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness, require it.