> 1. If COVID sticks around, ... we'll be getting into that 'vulnerable' category. When that happens, how will you feel about large groups of 'kids' ... protesting getting vaccinated against a disease that may be very mild for them but fatal for you?
1. I, personally, would not care about it in the slightest. If the current "response", dictating that I should fixate on this one thing, and, more importantly, strictly controlled and prosecuted if not fixated enough, holds any longer I simply won't be around in 10yrs. My "life score" is satisfying to me as it is, any day of life under lockdown, curfew, mask, vaccine mandates only subtracts from it. So I'm looking to "cut my losses" soon, so to speak.
2. It may also mean that "we" failed to give these "kids" proper upbringing. I, certainly, did fail. When the panic started our son, 16 at the time, one day wanted to casually go to the shops to buy some junk. Suggestion that maybe it is better to minimise the cumulative number of shop visits because of this new unknown virus out there, and get your chips and coke once a week in bulk rather than on whim, was met with "I don't care, I need my fix". Did we get emotional after that. Sure we did. Did we berate or disown him, or even forced him to not go? Not at all. Love is not conditional on absence of inconsiderate behavior. As it stands, my chance of dying within a year at my age is around 1/300. Covid, if caught, about doubles it. No point in losing respect to those respected before over such numbers. We will all die anyway.
3. Our kids were always accurately immunised according to the recommended schedule. Did it ever come to mind that "freeloaders" must be forced to do so by mandates? Quite the opposite, my thinking was always - isn't it a wonderful side-effect of vaccination that people can act according to their conscience. These childhood vaccines are so good now that everyone refusing them must have very good (for them) reasons to do so. I have absolutely no interest in knowing the reasons of their choice, but I was always very pleased that we were able to contribute to their ability to make such choice. (Although my expectation to be afforded the right to define my own "validity", "eligibility", "vulnerability" and "essential" status turned out to be naive. But that's on the society conscience, not mine). No medical procedure, however beneficial on a population level, must be forced upon people. I'm fine with myself dying for this principle. Maybe not quite so for my loving ones, but there is no escape from the fact that everyone is mortal. I'll hold the fort for my kids until they are 14, but after that I cannot do much more - they will have to settle their own scores and live with their conscience. It is far better to live a short but free life than a looong but thoroughly mandated and controlled.