During the COVID-19 crisis, people who were not vaccinated faced all kinds of social discrimination, and health authorities went so far as to take drastic measures against the unvaccinated due to their alleged irresponsibility. This included private healthcare, which is heavily regulated by the state and where COVID-19 paranoia was also deplorable, irrespective of the right that private owners have to take discriminatory measures. In any case, a lack of common sense was the order of the day, and many unvaccinated people were denied adequate healthcare due to their vaccination status—even though vaccinated people continued to fall ill or die from COVID-19.
Becoming infected by a pathogen is normally accidental and very different from engaging in self-destructive behavior. In fact, one could argue that public health authorities should treat chronic self-destructive behavior in adults differently from genetic disorders in young children, given that most people would likely agree that the costs associated with such behavior are not as easily justified as those associated with the latter. Yet, this actually shows that the discriminatory possibilities are endless and highlights the arbitrariness of the public health system. For a start, this system redistributes its overall costs as a burden for those most responsible for their own health and as a benefit for the most careless. That is, it socializes the costs of irresponsible health behavior. The only solution to this inherent flaw is the total abolition of the public health system.
Now, if the principle regarding COVID-19 vaccines were applied similarly, for example, to motorcycle helmets, the absurdity becomes more evident. People without helmets would not be treated the same as those wearing helmets. This would mean that people who, in fact, may have been at fault for an accident may be treated anyway, while others who were in no way at fault may not. The helmet here plays the role of a certificate for healthcare. Note that wearing a helmet protects oneself but does not prevent people from doing harm to others. Like not wearing a helmet does not imply doing others harm. So why mistreat those with no helmet? The same applies to vaccines, as they are claimed to bring protection. If not getting vaccinated is irresponsible, is it the unvaccinated person’s fault that they contracted the virus, even though it is something beyond their control? As is obvious, this line of reasoning is absurd, just as it is absurd to blame a motorcyclist for being hit by a car simply because they were not wearing a helmet.
Thus, such contradictions and absurdities on eligibility for healthcare can be reflected even when people have had absolutely no control over what someone else did. Nonetheless, in the case of an infection, the pathogen is not even a human actor. Its carrier may not be aware of it, much less able to control every chance of transmission. Therefore, everyone must personally assume the risks and consequences of infection. And if someone is claiming to have gotten infected by another spreading the pathogen on purpose, the burden of proof lies with the accuser.
In any case, although there were many reasons to oppose vaccination—just as there were reasons to support it, according to its proponents—there were also various ways to compel those who refused to comply. This was explained brilliantly in real time by the Spanish economist and libertarian writer José Hernández Cabrera in 2021:
“The most direct approach would be to mandate vaccination, just as is done with livestock, but this measure violates fundamental individual rights. There is an indirect route that amounts to a circumvention of the law: enacting regulations that impose on the unvaccinated requirements that are either unbearable or very costly to meet (a negative PCR test) in order to carry out everyday activities: traveling, staying in hotels, dining in bars and restaurants, attending shows, playing sports, etc. The COVID-19 passport or certificate is used precisely to discriminate against and infringe upon the rights of the unvaccinated. In effect, these practices amount to a form of health apartheid whose purpose is to socially segregate the unvaccinated minority.”
“To make matters worse, the government is imposing unreasonable obligations on business owners and employees in certain sectors—such as hospitality, restaurants, and entertainment: a) It turns them into ‘health inspectors’ for their customers, forcing them to verify who is and who is not vaccinated; b) It turns them into ‘health police,’ forcing them to turn away those who have not completed the vaccination regimen (and do not present a negative PCR test). And if they refuse to carry out these tasks, they are fined. The entire system is coercive.”
Beyond these points, there are a few simple questions that easily expose the logical flaws in the measures implemented during the COVID-19 crisis. If masks worked, what was the point of social distancing? If social distancing worked, what was the point of masks? And if both worked, what was the point of lockdowns? That said, focusing on the public health system, this series of COVID-19 restrictions were disparaging and unfair to unvaccinated taxpayers who, even though they did not get vaccinated, continued to fund the vaccines. But to cap it all, there was no legal basis for denying healthcare to the unvaccinated, as government constitutions have never been characterized by discriminating against people in this regard when providing healthcare services.
The mere fact that a vaccination certificate did not prevent someone from carrying the virus was enough to show that COVID-19 discrimination lacked any logical basis from a healthcare perspective. COVID-19 vaccines have generated by far the highest volume of adverse event reports of any vaccine in history, far exceeding those of all previously mass-distributed vaccine put together. To top it off, emergency authorizations enabled mass vaccination over such a short period of time that it increasingly ran counter to the basic scientific principle of a control group for evaluating vaccine safety and efficacy. Since the risk of death from COVID-19 was virtually nonexistent for children, even if the arguments against vaccination had been wrong, refusing to vaccinate children would have had no significant impact. Instead, the fact that the reality was basically the opposite had serious negative consequences for many children.
During the crisis, COVID-19 passports became widespread in many countries. These passports required holders to be up to date with their COVID-19 vaccine doses so they could participate in activities that were once routine for all citizens, such as sitting in a café. Fortunately, the black market offered the opportunity to purchase fake passports that allowed holders to circumvent the vaccination requirements. Some might say that these fake passports offered a solution to the problem. But it was only a temporary escape, as long as people were not caught. Instead, the real solution was for those passports to cease being mandatory altogether. So, the black market did not solve any structural problems, which are, in fact, the most important ones—and keeping many people content in this way discouraged the fight for the real solution.
Of course, fake passports were valid as a defense against the restriction. But they posed no threat or pressure to the requirement; rather, in a sense, they were helping the very system. The authorities continued to impose the measure, and both holders of valid passports and those with fake ones continued to comply and incur costs they would not have had to bear if not for the restriction. This shows that idealizing black markets can be counterproductive in the struggle against statism. And as much as libertarians must defend the legitimacy of evading, circumventing, or outwitting state oppression, it can never be good for social energy to be diverted away from popular resistance and the search for solutions to systemic problems created by statism.
The COVID-19 crisis taught us several lessons—for example, that the medical community could be just as despicable as the political class. How did that happen? To begin with, unlike politicians—from whom most people hardly expect much anyway—healthcare professionals have always enjoyed a high level of social respect. In the eyes of many, this came to an end with the COVID-19 crisis, during which most healthcare professionals, brimming with arrogance and mediocrity, systematically supported and promoted measures that destroyed the lives of millions of people and the freedom of all. Not only that, but they were also active accomplices in the most harmful and irresponsible mass vaccination campaign in history. Meanwhile, as if in a science fiction movie, the mainstream media hailed the entire healthcare profession as heroes.
Nonetheless, there is a specific lesson that, incidentally, escapes most of the public: the one suggesting that there was no pandemic at all, given the numerous accounts surrounding us of substandard medical care, deliberate negligence, and deaths falsely attributed to COVID-19. And, for that matter, it was already reported years ago that up to a third of positive PCR tests were false positives and that some COVID-19 vaccines could also produce false positives. All of this suggests, along with vested interests and political and corporate corruption, that the pandemic designation is riddled with inconsistencies in so many ways that it can be reasonably discarded.
Punishing unvaccinated people and others for defying state-driven paranoia—by denying them healthcare or reducing it—will go down in history as one of the most widespread and atrocious displays of inhumanity of all time. At its core, there was nothing but malice or stupidity. And in this way, millions of people around the world, despite having paid their taxes, were denied healthcare or provided with reduced care without any coherent justification.
COVID-19 paranoia was also one of the reasons why most people had such a hard time realizing how wrong and insulting it was for governments to prevent so many people from working while allowing others to do so during the crisis. Governments everywhere ignored their own legal limitations and adopted measures that were clearly and unequivocally unconstitutional, and virtually no one has been held accountable for all the hardship and chaos caused. This demonstrated once again that, despite constitutions and checks and balances, the institution of monopolistic government cannot cure itself of its own inherent diseases.
