What’s up with this vaccine?

OPINION:

Dr. Anthony Fauci said it would be a good idea to have more local mandates for the coronavirus vaccine. Geraldo Rivera said the unvaccinated should be barred from going to their places of work, going to school, going to stores to shop. Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary under then-President Barack Obama, said those who refuse the shot should be confined in their travels, limited in their contact with children.

“You may not access to a situation where you’re going to put my grandchildren in jeopardy, where you might kill them,” Sebelius said on CNN.

And that’s just a tip in the iceberg of radical, despotic, draconian and chilling clamps on freedom the fearful have been calling for lately.

Which leads to the question: What’s up with the vaccine? The more the tyrants push, the more it seems like the resistors have a real reason to resist.

It’s one thing to call for people to get vaccinated. It’s one thing to present the evidence for getting people vaccinated. It’s one thing even to vehemently insist on the need for people to get vaccinated.

But this — this atmosphere of insisting on shots or imprisonment — this is something that’s really rather remarkable. It’s actually feeding the suspicious, fueling the suspicions. As if a good percentage of America weren’t already reluctant to take a shot that’s still only authorized for emergency use — meaning, still experimental, still needful of vetting — now come the tyrants. Now come the overzealous, demanding those who simply want to exercise their American rights to choose actually stifle those rights and obey. Now come the dictatorial types who insist that rightful, proper questions about the safety of the shot are out of line, unAmerican and downright criminal.

What’s up with this shot?

If it’s a good thing — if it’s such a good thing — people would line up and take it by the masses. No need to entice. No need to dole out freebies. No need to threaten.

No need to send out the government reps, door-to-door.

No need to get all North Korea-y on the American people.

“We’re in a situation where we have a wildly effective vaccine, multiple choices, lots available, free of charge, and we have folks who are just saying I won’t do it. I think that it’s time to say to those folks [that] it’s fine if you don’t choose to get vaccinated — [but then] you may not come to work. You may not have access to a situation where you’re going to put my grandchildren in jeopardy, where you might kill them, or you might put them in a situation where they’re going to carry the virus to someone in a high-risk position,” Sebelius said, Breitbart reported.

Doesn’t the shot work?

If it’s indeed “wildly effective,” wouldn’t those who’ve been vaccinated be protected against those who choose not to be vaccinated?

What’s up with this vaccine, anyway?

It started out as a choice. Now it’s being sold as a choice — but with the threat of punishment for those who choose not to get it. Those who say no are being branded as criminals. But it’s still a choice. It’s still a personal decision. 

Seriously?

There’s a fine line between persuasion and coercion, and obviously, this coronavirus — whether by fear or by the smell of political opportunity — has pushed many into the latter camp of intimidation and over-the-top threats. But their self-righteous indignation only plays into the uncertainties of the thinking types — the ones who believe strongly in the ideals of individual choice and who don’t need people with numerous college degrees to tell them how to read a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning about the vaccine’s side effects of heart inflammation in young males.

What’s up with this shot, anyway?

Why such ridiculous pressure to get it?

It’s really starting to make people wonder. More than that, it’s really starting to seem even more sensible to wonder.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.