Editor’s Opinion ❘ By BOBBY HALTON
We like to think we are rational people. Shakespeare said, “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason!” But behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely, in his book Predictably Irrational, proves otherwise; in fact, we are not often rational at all.
The fire service does not exist in a vacuum. We are subjected to the same influences, frailties, concerns, and irrationalities as everyone else. Perhaps nothing has been as disruptive to our lives in modern memory as the COVID-19 virus and the various reactions rationally and irrationally to it locally, federally, and personally.
The seriousness of this virus is not in question; tragically, many we know and love have suffered and died from contracting this horrible virus. The point of this editorial is not concerned about the origin, the lethality, or the treatment of cases. This is about devastating social contagion promoting the irrationality of the villainization of those who have freely chosen to not participate in taking a vaccine.
Mandatory or Voluntary; Choice vs. Compulsion | Part 2
The underlyingly nondisputed point is that heathy, noninfected persons pose no threat or risk to anyone. Not being vaccinated does not make you sick or dangerous to anyone. The vaccines are not some kind of magical cure that makes one immune or free of infection. In fact, the rates of infected fully vaccinated persons, who, by the way, are contagious, continue to rise. So, the question is, why are people acting as if unvaccinated healthy persons pose a health risk and vaccinated persons do not? To do so is irrational.
Here is a tragic example of this social contagion of irrationality causing the good folks at the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) to prevent healthy unvaccinated firefighters from honoring their fallen:
Dear Mr. Halton,
On behalf of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, I invite you to the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Services on October 2 and 3, 2021, on the campus of the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland. This special weekend will honor brave men and women of the fire service who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2019 and 2020….
Your safety is paramount. For that reason, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation is requiring everyone assisting or providing support for Memorial Weekend 2021 to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and to wear masks. In the current environment, we understand this requirement may not sit well with some. Please understand that this decision was not made easily, and we must not forget we will be honoring firefighters in October who died from COVID-19. Based on current available information, this decision is consistent with the mission of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Please help us with our goal of having a safe Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend with nothing to distract us from honoring and remembering our fallen brothers and sisters….”
My response:
“Thank you. I would be honored to attend as I have in the past, but I cannot support your efforts that promote a nonscientific decision based on irrational partisan politics. There is zero evidence that nonvaccinated healthy persons pose any threat or risk to anyone. That is an undisputed fact. To think otherwise is a politically promoted irrational position, not a scientific one, and one that is causing incredible pain, loss of income, lost careers, and suffering among an innocent population who are entitled to freely choose their personal medical treatments.
Further, vaccination in and of itself does not mean you cannot be infected; it does not immunize one from getting COVID. Vaccination may reduce the probability of increased severity in the vaccinated. However, vaccinated persons can still become infected and, in fact, carry and spread the infection. As such, you have decided to promote an irrational, politically motivated agenda of punishing the innocent, not a scientific one, a politically motivated conversion effort and one that has the potential to cost thousands of firefighters their jobs as they choose not to comply with mandates.
Further complicating your actions are the post-infected naturally immune, who, according to the largest medical study to date from Israel, are 27 times more protected than the vaccinated. Tens of thousands of firefighters are among this group, and many have chosen to not take the COVID vaccine.
I am sorry to see the further influence of irrational political positions on the NFFF memorial decisions, as such, and I wish you all the best; however, I cannot support any irrational actions that are contrary to firefighters’ civil rights and promote irrational fears regarding healthy unvaccinated persons and this terrible virus.
Sick persons with any contagious issue and infected persons vaccinated or unvaccinated with COVID should not attend as a reasonable medical concern. However, intentionally excluding healthy, noninfected firefighters because of a political coercion campaign that is irrational, divisive, and hurtful is wrong.
I am saddened by the decision and, as such, I will not be attending or supporting this position.
Yours, Bobby”
If “safety is paramount,” test everyone, vaccinated and unvaccinated; we can understand that. We understand how irrational we all can be, no one is immune from it. That is why beloved and revered institutions like the NFFF should seek broader input in all their decisions. The NFFF has some of the finest people I have ever met in its ranks, but all of us can be intimidated, bullied, overwhelmed, and victims of our biases.
The question of morality in decision making is vexing and, as such, the innocent, those who have done no wrong, should always be at the forefront in our considerations. I wish to avoid a holier than thou appearance. I love and respect my friends at the NFFF; they are wonderful people. The point is that a full consideration of the stakes of our decisions, especially those made in the midst of this incredibly charged time, recommends humility on the part of us all.
