Vaccines, assets and liabilities

The recent front-page article describing the protest opposing vaccine mandates for medical personnel illuminated some interesting thoughts. Pushback against vaccines and other procedures designed to protect society have occurred since disease raised its ugly head.

A new book by Kari Nixon, “Quarantine Life from Cholera to Covid-19” provides an interesting history. The choice has always been the struggle between individual liberties and the collective good.

Religion has often joined the struggle suggesting the lack of faith promotes contagion and disease is a deities’ test for the righteous. Science and religion have often joined hands, with Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, a prime example. Science has come a long way since the early 1800s when simple surgeries often resulted in infection and death.

Louis Pasteur’s germ theory was considered laughable by many of the world’s surgeons until Joseph Lister was introduced to the concept in 1864. Lister desperately wanted to reduce the incidence of infection after surgery and developed a method of sterilizing equipment and room air with a solution of carbolic acid. Sterile techniques were further developed by Koch and others.

Based on Koch’s research, sterile gowns, shoe coverings, gloves, and masks were adopted to make surgical success what it is today. Surgeons in every hospital in the world wear masks on a daily basis. Masks don’t make them sick, but they do prevent their patients from getting sick. There are those who would suggest that mask wearing is damaging to the health of the wearer and an infringement on the wearer’s freedom.

If I believed masks were dangerous to my health and an infringement on my freedom, I would be compelled to compose a hold-harmless document that would absolve my surgeon from any repercussions, should he or she elect not to wear a mask while exploring the vascular plumbing of my heart. It would be the only fair thing to do. How could I expect a surgeon to wear a mask if I firmly believed it would be damaging to their health?

Vaccines aren’t required in Idaho. Other states are beginning to require vaccines for medical personnel, assisted living employees, and other select groups. There is strong political pushback within Idaho to prevent a vaccine mandate.

Kootenai Health is canceling elective surgeries due to the huge influx of Delta variant Covid-19 cases. Somewhere near 98% of these new cases are people who elected to avoid vaccination and exercise their freedom of choice.

If you read the above-mentioned book, “my body, my choice” isn’t a new concept. Humans are a social animal. People live with and work for other people. If an individual with freedom of choice makes a decision that damages the social network (hurts others), the constitutional concept of “Justice for All” is abridged.

My wife and I started an analytical laboratory fresh out of college. We ultimately hired more than 20 employees and performed research all over the world. The company was privately held and employees were advanced based upon their ability to perform in continually changing environments. The basic concept for advancement or termination was based upon the question: Is the employee an asset or a liability?

Management at Kootenai Health or any other company must continually ask that same question of their employees to maintain their competitive edge in servicing the community.

Let’s assume that I suddenly had a medical problem that required surgery, and further assume I could actually find a bed at Kootenai Health that wasn’t occupied by a COVID patient. If I had a choice between a vaccinated nurse and an unvaccinated one, which would I choose?

Well, I already have a medical problem. If I choose a vaccinated nurse, it is likely I’ll just have the original medical problem. If I choose the unvaccinated nurse who may have a circle of like-minded unvaccinated friends, I have a chance of contracting COVID on top of my original medical issue.

Back to the question: Is the nurse an asset or a liability? When the COVID-19 pandemic began there were no vaccines. Health care workers gave their skills and lives to the treatment of patients who contracted COVID through little fault of their own. These health care workers were heroes in the finest sense of the word and still are.

Things have changed since the beginning of the pandemic. Multiple vaccines have been developed and all of them have proven remarkably safe and effective. We no longer need to add to the 600,000-plus dead members of our great nation.

In my company, I advanced employees based on their ability to respond to new information and a changing environment. In last Friday’s paper a nurse wondered at the fairness of being a hero last year to being terminated this year. I wouldn’t want her treating me because she is a liability to my health.

People seem to be able to embrace concepts and beliefs without vetting the source of the information. We can stop this pandemic if the members of our society get a vaccine. The longer the viral reservoir is maintained the greater the chance of mutations occurring that are more contagious.

Vaccines work with the variants we have now, but it’s a running target. What is especially curious is the way individual freedoms can so quickly become society’s problem.

Unvaccinated people are getting information from political, religious, and other sources that stop them from getting a shot. The message is science is wrong, dangerous, or otherwise faulty. Yet, the moment they can’t breathe, a frantic call is made to 911 and a trip to the hospital is expected.

The first call isn’t made to our lieutenant governor, a pastor, a particular political party, or pundit who provided the information that suggested they would lose their individual freedom if they acquiesced to a vaccine or mask. No, the call is made to our 911 social service network and suddenly the hospital with all its newfangled science is the last hope of cheating death.

This sudden enlightenment and all the hospital beds it sucks up is at the expense of some member of society who was vaccinated, but had the bad luck to have a medical issue with no bed available for treatment.

• • •

Doug Albertson is a 40-year resident of Coeur d'Alene.