Excellent queston, Dan, and thank you for raising. If I hadn't been concerned about the length of my article, I would have addressed this issue.

I think any government should have the ability to take action or implement policies to ensure public safety. Its power to do this, however, depends on the type of government.

In communist China, a country that has relatively little regard for human rights, the government barricaded Wuhan and forcibly trapped people in their homes to contain the spread of COVID-19. As a result, China was able to (purportedly) to control the pandemic much better than many other countries.

In a democratic republic, however, a constitution prevents the government from taking such drastic steps -- even to protect public safety -- unless extreme circumstances necessitate martial law (and I don't think anyone would argue that the COVID-19 pandemic rose to the level of requiring martial law). In all other circumstances, government must respect the rights of freedom and individual liberty.

I believe the government has the right to PREVENT citizens from taking certain action with their bodies: stealing, killing, driving too fast, being intoxicated in public, selling or using drugs, etc. Only in rare circumstances can the government COMPEL citizens to take action with respect to their bodies. Government can't compel us to eat certain foods, take certain medications, drive, or even work. Even in the midst of the worst flu season, the government can't compel the most at-risk citizens to take a flu shot. To my knowledge, the U.S. government did not even compel vacciantion during the 1918 pandemic, which claimed the lives of 500 million people worldwide and 675K in the U.S. (when the population was much smaller than it is today).

Moreover, the U.S. government's ability to compel vaccination in the interest of public safety is limited by one of the outputs of the Nuremberg trials after World War 2, i.e. the Nuremberg Code. Participating nations agreed that voluntary informed consent should be the guiding principle of all medical practices. The Code, of course, was introduced in response to eugenics and other forms of human medical experimentation that took place in Germany.

From the Introduction to the Code: "Amongst other requirements, this document enunciates the requirement of voluntary informed consent of the human subject. The principle of voluntary informed consent protects the right of the individual to control his own body."

The italicizing of voluntary informed consent was the decision of those who created that code. It was the only use of italics in the entire document. We are clearly at the stage of some level of coercion as in, "if you want to go this university, you must have this treatment."

I think what we may be seeing is an attempt to gut voluntary informed consent by enlisting the aid of social influencers (the media, celebrities, etc.) who have the ability to shape our thoughts and beliefs. A couple of weeks ago I tuned in to watch "Vax Live," a "star studded" event clearly aimed at Millennials and Gen Y in an effort to make vaccination seem cool and hip. If Ben Affleck and Jimmy Kimmel are getting vaccinated, shouldn't you join them? Add to this the shunning and shaming happening on a micro level (I personally know people whose friends and family refuse to attend weddings and other gatherings unless attendees are vaccinated), and we end up in a place where people *think* they're acting voluntarily but they're really being pressured to act without their conscious awareness. Recently, attendees at a concert were charged different prices depending upon their vax status: $18 for the vaccinated and $999 for everyone else. At a certain point, "incentives" become de facto mandates for anyone who wants to live a remotely "normal" and affordable life.

In sum, while I certainly think and expect government to take action to guarantee public safety, short of extreme and rare circumstances, a democratically elected government shouldn't be permitted to require citizens to do anything, especially with their bodies, in the name of public safety.

Hope this better explains my position :-)