Vaccine mandates are working. Let’s make them the norm.

When people are confronted with a stark choice — whether to have a job and vaccine immunity, or neither — most will chose the job and the shot. A proper option for exemption for health or religious reasons is essential, but it is irresponsible for people who have no legitimate reason to refuse vaccination. The unvaccinated are filling up hospitals, morgues and prolonging the pandemic.

The next step is for mandates to become a norm. In the 1970s, schools were a major site for measles, a highly-contagious illness, but subsequent imposition of mandates and provision of free vaccines proved highly successful in eradicating sustained school outbreaks. Influenza is another highly-contagious virus; vaccinating health-care workers can reduce illness and save lives of patients. When BJC HealthCare, a large Midwestern system with 26,000 employees, mandated vaccination in 2008, more than 98 percent of its workers got the shot. This is the kind of vaccine uptake — willing and widespread — that we need. In the year 2000, the United States had the highest immunization coverage and the lowest rates of vaccine-preventable disease ever documented. It’s a goal worth striving for once again.