Patriots Day – COVID – And A Revolution of Law and Science

Every year in Massachusetts, we celebrate Patriot’s Day –when Paul Revere mounted his horse and rode to Lexington and Concord to rally fighters. After British troops rowed to Cambridge (landing across the street from our office!) and marched to confront the rebels at Lexington’s Common, the first shots were fired in a war which would turn the world upside down.  The Minute Men stood shoulder to shoulder on that green, each supporting the other, because they knew their freedom depended upon their acting together to repel a foreign invader.

While the Revolution was fought, Massachusetts was plagued by another invader, this time microscopic — an epidemic of smallpox, caused by a virus.  Smallpox had plagued Europe for centuries, and was often thought to be God’s punishment for lack of sincere belief and for sin.

Doctors in Boston thought better, and adopted a new practice; vaccination, or exposing healthy people to small doses of smallpox to train their immune system to fight the disease.  Millions were saved by this practice, which led eventually to the development of vaccines.  Vaccines led to the eventual eradication of both smallpox and polio, and also controlled lethal diseases such as measles, the mumps, and eventually influenza through regular vaccination.

The Founding Fathers were great believers in the power of reason over superstition. They were children of the age of science, and wished to detach faith from the science of governing as well – hence the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment, which banned the creation of an official religion. 

The Founders knew their history, and that oppressive rulers had used religion, recognized by their kingdoms as “true faith”, to oppress independent thought and to impose their will on their people.  The Establishment Clause represented the Founders’ faith that logic and science, not superstition and fear, would be the guiding principles of a new age. 

Our courts and Constitution have embraced this concept over the last two centuries.  Constitutional law requires that every statute passed by Congress and local governments have a “rational basis” – in other words, based upon real evidence, and not upon blind faith and superstition.

Why am I mentioning this in such detail?  Well, timing is everything.

April 19th is now also nationwide “vaccine day”, the day on which COVID vaccines are avaliable to all over the age of 16, regardless of medical history. Over a million people in Massachusetts  have already made the decision to be vaccinated, wear masks to avoid infecting others, and to continue social distancing. 

These vaccines are a medical miracle. They were developed by private companies with support from our government in a fraction of the years developing a vaccine ordinarily required, using cutting edge genetics to activate immune systems to defend a person from a COVID infection in an entirely new fashion.  They have been proven by reliable scientific study, verified by independent government and private scientists,  to be both safe for use and effective.  They have also been made available to the public through enormous logistics innovation and governmental action in an equally extraordinary way.

The Pandemic has killed over a half million Americans, devastated people’s workplaces and businesses, and closeted us in our homes and away from ones we love.  The vaccines have given us a chance to take our lives back.  They may not totally eradicate this lethal disease, which is the “flu on steroids”.  Like the flu, this virus and its variants may be with us for a long time. But vaccination will prevent you from becoming fatally ill or disabled, and recent research is starting to indicate that it may also inhibit transmission of the disease, which has been frighteningly easy, to others.  With the vaccines, we also may build up “herd immunity”, which may hold out the hope that we can eliminated the disease longterm, or control it the way we do any other flu on a yearly basis.  This is a good thing. 

So, with all of this evidence, all of this effort and innovation, why isn’t everyone getting the “Fauci Ouchy?”

Because some in power are cynically rejecting the logic and reason that our Founders fought for.  They are mixing up “responsibility to our fellow citizen” with “governmental control”, in the same superstitious way that organized religions in the service of the aristocracy did nearly three hundred years ago.  These “antivaxxers” and “deniers”, inspired by a former President who thought that COVID-19 was less of a threat to people’s lives than a threat to his need to be re-elected, argue in the face of advice from independent scientists that  refusal of mask wearing and refusing vaccination  is a gesture of defiance to “political correctness” and a rejection of supposed thought control.  The leaders of this movement are playing upon fear and superstition to retain power.  Sounds familiar, no?

We at MALIS|LAW say differently.  As lawyers, dealing with the rights of wrongfully injured people, we honor the rule of law, and advocate for our clients using logic and an understanding of science, particularly medicine.  And we know false prophets, and deniers,  when we see them, and fight against them to help our clients.

So this year, we urge our friends and clients to treat Patriot’s Day like a Patriot should.  Reject superstition, like our Founders did, and accept the rule of reason. Take care of your fellow Patriot, wear a mask; keep distanced; and get the vaccine.  The first battle in Lexington was fought by men who were willing to give their lives to save and free others.  Now, you can be a Patriot and  save and free others from the oppression of this Pandemic by saving your own.