BILL PRESTRIDGE, San Clemente
We need a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and we need it now.
Rachel Walters in her letter said that the vaccine does not prevent people from getting or transmitting COVID. She is right, but if she was reading the newspaper, she would learn that 85% to 95% of hospitalizations for COVID are people who are not vaccinated and that people who are vaccinated are not dying (as often as the unvaccinated).
This is putting a tremendous stress on doctors, nurses and hospital staff, and keeping people who need medical treatment from non-COVID issues from getting help. COVID is not endemic; if everyone was vaccinated, COVID would eventually disappear, just like polio.
Does “personal freedom” mean not getting a child vaccinated for polio, rubella, measles, whooping cough, mumps, chickenpox, diphtheria and other diseases when they enter public school?
If this is the case, we as a society are in real trouble.
