Well, even if you have no plans to simply forget about the vaccine mandates, Joe Biden probably will. (If he hasn’t already… *rimshot*) A big date is coming up quickly. On May 11th, the federal vaccine mandates for federal workers, contractors, and international travelers will come to an end. As Jim Geraghty pointed out in the Morning Jolt today, this “marks the end of an era.” But will we have learned anything from this entire debacle? Don’t bet your last nickel on it. Jim also reminds us that Joe Biden changed his tune on mandatory vaccinations a couple of times.

In some ways, the long national ordeal of the federal government attempting to force people to get vaccines they didn’t want represents a perfect example of Joe Biden’s decision-making.

Back in December 2020, before Biden took office, he said, “I don’t think they should be mandatory. I wouldn’t demand it to be mandatory.”

But less than a year later, Biden changed his mind. He announced the vaccine mandates on September 9, 2021, more or less blaming the continuing Covid cases on the unvaccinated

In an interesting twist to the announcement about May 11th, vaccine requirements will also end for “noncitizens at U.S. land borders.” That would be hilarious if it weren’t so enraging. Since when were all of the 3.5 million illegal migrants being vaccinated? I’m pretty sure we would have run out of doses by now if they were. The vaccine requirement for illegals was ignored just as our immigration laws were.

As Jim points out, it’s generally accepted that the vaccines did reduce the risk of death or the most severe effects of the virus in most (though not all) people. But he also reminds us of all the times that Biden, Saint Faucci, and all the rest assured us that the vaccines were not only “safe and effective” but that they would prevent people from catching or transmitting the virus. We were assured that this was “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” repeatedly, including by Biden himself.

That, of course, turned out not to be true. But nobody ever apologized or took responsibility. They just kept on chugging along as if the past was irrelevant.

Then there was the legal side of the matter. In addition to federal mandates, various states and cities issued vaccine mandates all across the country. Except for the mandate for healthcare workers, most of them wound up being shut down and tied up in the courts. Many remain in limbo to this day. And yet somehow, more than 99% of us managed to survive.

So what happens next time? (Because you know there is always going to be a next time.) Will we shut down the country and crash our economy again? Will we lock people in their homes and keep the nation’s children out of school? Will the government make the next vaccine mandatory before it’s been thoroughly tested on a large sample of people? Will there be mandates at all?

We can’t allow these mandates to simply disappear into the history books. If we didn’t learn anything from this debacle, we will be doomed to repeat it. And that simply can’t be allowed.