COVID Vaccine Mandates Are Not Like MMR

The FDA has finally given formal approval to the Pfizer vaccine, and this will likely pave the way for more widespread adoption of mandates, as there was more legal gray area about mandating vaccines that were only authorized for emergency use. The news comes as New York City announced vaccine requirements for all public school teachers and staff. As the debate over mandating vaccines has come up, one analogy I keep hearing is to the mandates that schools have for the MMR vaccine. Mandates for MMR virtually eradicated measles, with pockets of outbreaks connected to anti-vaxxers. So that has led a segment of the population to argue that similar tactics should be employed to get COVID-19 under control. However, whatever the arguments in favor of COVID-19 mandates, MMR doesn’t make for a very good parallel, for a number of reasons.

For one thing, widespread mandates for measles shots did not begin until 1977, well after the release of the first measles vaccine in 1963. In contrast, COVID-19 vaccines have been with us for less than a year. While there is good reason to believe they are safe given that billions of people have now taken them, trepidation is more understandable for a vaccine that is less than a year old (and for which long-term effects aren’t yet knowable) than for one that has been around for decades.

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Philip Klein

Philip Klein is the editor of National Review Online.

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The FDA has finally given formal approval to the Pfizer vaccine, and this will likely pave the way for more widespread adoption of mandates, as there was more legal gray area about mandating vaccines that were only authorized for emergency use. The news comes as New York City announced vaccine requirements for all public school teachers and staff. As the debate over mandating vaccines has come up, one analogy I keep hearing is to the mandates that schools have for the MMR vaccine. Mandates for MMR virtually eradicated measles, with pockets of outbreaks connected to anti-vaxxers. So that has led a segment of the population to argue that similar tactics should be employed to get COVID-19 under control. However, whatever the arguments in favor of COVID-19 mandates, MMR doesn’t make for a very good parallel, for a number of reasons.

For one thing, widespread mandates for measles shots did not begin until 1977, well after the release of the first measles vaccine in 1963. In contrast, COVID-19 vaccines have been with us for less than a year. While there is good reason to believe they are safe given that billions of people have now taken them, trepidation is more understandable for a vaccine that is less than a year old (and for which long-term effects aren’t yet knowable) than for one that has been around for decades.