Here’s a letter to Todd Zywicki, a long-time friend, sometimes co-author, and colleague over in GMU’s Antonin Scalia School of Law:
Todd:
Good luck in your lawsuit against GMU officials who wish to compel you – despite your earlier case of Covid-19 having given you much natural immunity against the disease – nevertheless to be vaccinated.
Your case has been strengthened by GMU’s newly announced requirement of indoor masking of all people including the fully vaccinated. One necessary condition for this masking requirement to pass any reasonable cost-benefit test is that vaccination be not very effective. So you can infer from this new masking policy that GMU officials are not confident in the vaccines’ effectiveness. These officials’ skepticism of the vaccines’ effectiveness has, as it were, been unmasked by their own new masking policy. And if these officials themselves doubt the vaccines’ effectiveness, they have even less business than before in insisting that you subject yourself to whatever risk might be posed to you by receiving the vaccination.
You (and Jenin and Jay) have likely already thought of this point that identifies the actions of GMU officials themselves as further tilting the balance of the case in your favor. But I mention it in the off-chance that you haven’t.
Again, much good luck!
Sincerely,
Don
…..
Let me be clear: I do not doubt that the vaccines are largely effective. But GMU officials cannot reasonably have matters both ways: insisting on indoor masking even of the fully vaccinated and insisting that the vaccines are sufficiently effective to justify even the small risk that vaccines pose.
