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No right to others’ health

We have lost two dear friends to COVID-19. Maybe that helps explain my impatience with people refusing vaccination. Policies that allow for “personal or philosophical” exemptions make no sense, even if they are not based on such wackadoodle fears as computer tracking chips in the vaccines. Your personal or philosophical notions regarding vaccines do not give you the right to put the health of others at risk any more than is the case for driving while drunk or smoking in a restaurant.

As far as religious exemptions, none of the three great Abrahamic religions have spoken against vaccinations, so it is hard to see how such exemptions that endanger public health could be justified.

If 90% of the population were vaccinated, conditions would be much less restrictive and the pool of viruses available for mutation into the next variant (and for sure, a next, dangerous one is on the way) would be much smaller.

Unvaccinated and upset about COVID restrictions or your business’s bottom line? Look in the mirror. Please patronize businesses who are requiring proof of vaccination for admission.

R. Steven Heaps

Spokane Valley



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