Frigg
My employer sent out a survey that I suspect is a litmus test for mandates. Here is my response as posted in the final “comment” box. It’s my favourite part of every survey.
Let’s expound on the survey questions.
“Vaccination status?”
My vaccination status regarding COVID-19 is private medical information and I decline to reveal that status to anyone other than a medical professional that has a medically relevant need to know, where that need is based on providing care to myself, for instance, if the COVID-19 vaccine is contraindicated with some other treatment.
“Are you part of a vulnerable population?”
No. But I’d like to know that such people are aware and empowered to take whatever voluntary measures they choose to mitigate their actual risk of severe illness from COVID-19, without imposing on anyone else, such as through remote working, which our organisation has supported for all staff for well over a year.
“I feel more comfortable coming to my workplace if vaccinated.” “I feel more comfortable coming to my workplace if my colleagues are vaccinated.”
My vaccination status has nothing to do with my comfort in coming to my workplace, and anyone else’s vaccination status is none of my business. If the vaccine is effective at protecting one’s health from significant decline due to COVID-19, then anyone else’s vaccination status should bear no relevance to one’s health concerns, and if it isn’t then it’s even less relevant.
My preferred mode of work is in the workplace, and I’ve shared it with people coughing and hacking all day long, as well as with their children who occasionally occupy the office. If I feel unsafe on any given day at work due to my colleagues’ disregard for hygiene and obvious display of symptoms of something infectious, I’ll leave and work from home, seeing as they have clearly failed to show any such initiative themselves.
“Any other comments you would like to make?”
Lastly, hear this. I am the sovereign of myself. My bodily autonomy and privacy will not be bought, sold or bartered. I will not participate in any form of medical apartheid, such as discrimination against people based on their vaccination status. Life is a matter of making informed choices and understanding the risks associated with them.
There is no such thing as a right to a risk-free life where that so-called right is exercised through the systematic violence of economic coercion and deprivation at the hands of employers that enforce “no jab, no job” mandates, nor do such mandates mitigate any manner of risk that vulnerable employees couldn’t mitigate themselves through their own voluntary actions.
The only thing such mandates achieve is to clearly signal which employers and enforcers have totalitarian tendencies and a psychological affliction known as cognitive dissonance, whereby they actually believe that they are doing good by enforcing mandates while simultaneously ignoring all the spiritual, psychological, social and economic harm they cause.
I’m extremely wary of working for any employer that displays such tendencies, and as a citizen of a democracy and simply as a human being, I have the power and responsibility to actively oppose any manner of will that attempts to deprive myself or my fellows of bodily autonomy.