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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 magically didn't 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:
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. The city was apparently 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.
I don’t find the judge’s reasoning persuasive, but I’m also not familiar with the laws that bind the hands of city officials. You can have a legitimate public health interest in vaccination, while having an overriding “sum total good” interest in keeping athletes and others in your city (who bring in money, which in turn increases sum total health via taxation, and other aids in other interests). An obvious example of such a rule is speed limits. We can save more lives on the road by making everyone drive 10mph, but the increased efficiency of 60mph actually saves lives in the end. Similarly, the counterbalancing interest of retaining unvaccinated city employees engaged in an appeal is so that those with a legitimate reasoned grievance can argue their case; this is a safeguard against negative consequences if it turns out the ruling is wrong, sort of like postponing an execution sentence during an appeal.
So from a simply rational perspective, I’m not persuaded with the Judge’s snippet. I do however find the vaccine mandate to be utterly irrational, given the sheer novelty of mRNA lipid nanoparticle injections. Rationally, it’s a good idea to not have the entire population take a novel and questionable injection that has not been tested long term. Especially when we know that COVID has such a low mortality rate in young people. Like, 40 year olds developing fatal heart issues because of consequences of this new injection is not at all impossible. They essentially gambled all of western civilization (life itself for the vaccinated) on the theoretical beliefs of some scientists who mostly studied cancer patients (no long term trial) and mice (very limited trials) and who had a strong motive to push their product. This is just dumb. This is as dumb as editing coronaviruses in a lab to make them more lethal. It is utter hubris given the history of humanity’s propensity for getting things wrong (cigarettes good, bottle milk for babies good, roundup good, prions in uk cattle, etc)
I don't really understand this. The exemption applied to all athletes, artists, and performers, even the completely useless ones that brought in no money to the city. You can make this argument for exemptions about anyone who worked in "essential" industries, especially medical and sanitation.
It's entirely possible to make a good decision in one area, and a bad one in another area, while genuinely intending the good decision. Maybe the entertainers had political capital, maybe there was an internal power struggle over it, in general local governments are often incompetent and make dumb decisions.
True, but it doesn't change the fact that credibility is tarnished. How are we supposed to know which decisions are good and bad in the future? Being lied to once before means we can't accept it on a good faith basis.
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