Between various recent court rulings pertaining to President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine executive orders, as well as the work of the state legislature in November, several citizens have somewhat of an early Christmas present. For a variety of reasons, many people are not interested in receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Likely the most common reason is that it is a new type of vaccine, and we don’t know the long-term effects. That statement, very simply, is fully accurate and cannot be refuted. For that reason alone, people ought to be able to decide whether they believe the benefits outweigh the risks of the vaccine.

For much of the past year, many people believed that one should get the vaccine not only to protect oneself, but to protect others. We were told it was the proper thing to do, the courteous thing, the compassionate thing. Those that didn’t want to be vaccinated were described as hateful, and not caring one iota for the rest of their community. What we have found, however, is something vastly different. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated people contract and transmit the virus. The unvaccinated are not specifically the source for new variants. The unvaccinated are not specifically responsible for the ongoing nature of this disease. The one thing that may very well be true, however, is that the unvaccinated who have not previously been infected are more likely to become severely ill or die after contracting COVID than the vaccinated or the unvaccinated who previously had COVID. What that all boils down to is that it really is a personal decision which primarily affects only you. That is exactly why vaccine mandates are a nonsensical and intrusive policy.

North Dakota state legislators heard their many constituents who did not want vaccine mandates, and introduced several pertinent bills for consideration. In the end, one bill passed the House and Senate with veto-proof majorities. This was quite substantial, considering the Governor was not in favor of such a bill, nor were the various compliant, play-ball lobbyists who signed a letter asking the legislature not to pass this type of legislation. It is true that the bill was originally stronger in some ways before going through various amendments by the committee, nevertheless it has come to pass that many North Dakotans are now positively affected by this new law.

The portion of the law dealing specifically with the vaccine mandate plainly states that any employer who requires the vaccine as a condition of employment must allow people to be exempted by nothing more than signing a statement that they are morally or philosophically opposed to it. This means every single person who chooses not to be vaccinated would not risk losing their job. (In my opinion, it’s effectively the same thing as saying there is no mandate.) There is a very large exception to all this, and that is a clause that says these easy exemptions from the vaccine mandate don’t apply if the Federal government has a law or rule that requires vaccination.

At the time the bill was considered in the legislature, President Biden had three Executive Orders dealing with vaccine mandates. One was for all Federal workers and employees of contractors for the Federal government. This included a great many organizations, including UND. Another was for any health provider such as hospitals and clinics, which was very counterproductive considering how short-staffed many of the hospitals are. The third applied to all private employers with more than 100 employees. (I’ll digress here for a moment to point out how irrational it is to suggest that a vaccine mandate is truly necessary, but then arbitrarily assign the mandate based on the number of employees.) Because of these mandates, it seemed the new North Dakota law didn’t accomplish a whole heckuva lot. Since the special legislative session one month ago, the courts have vindicated the proponents of the bill, by way of putting these three orders on hold, the most recent of which was on December 7. With all three executive orders not currently in effect, and due to the action of the state legislature, many North Dakotans no longer need to choose between their livelihood, and a vaccine they believe is not in their best interest. I think that’s a nice, little Christmas present.