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The United States has a long history of vaccine mandates--and subsequent backlash. Between 1989 and 1903, according to the New York Times, angry parents marched on schools and demanded that their children who were unvaccinated against smallpox be admitted. Cities and towns all over the United States also faced backlash over the mandates, but somehow they didn't gain much traction. Resistance proved futile and smallpox was eradicated in the US in 1949 and globally by 1980.

In the 1940s, the spread of polio, a debilitating virus that often left children paralyzed, began to increase. In 1955, Jonas Salk invented a vaccine to prevent the disease and, thanks to a successful campaign often involving giving children the vaccine in sugar cubes at school, the US was polio-free by 1979. Unlike today, there was hardly a widespread backlash to the life-saving vaccine.

All of which is to say that vaccine requirements are not new. Proof of having been vaccinated against measles, tetanus, and yellow fever, to name a few, are required for travel, certain jobs, and admission to public schools and universities. And when it comes to COVID, the mandates have widespread support. A September 2021 Gallup poll found that 58 percent of people are in favor of the mandate that requires businesses with more than 100 employees to vaccinate their staff.

United Airlines, one of the first major companies to implement a mandate, announced that only 600 people out of its 67,000 employees would be terminated after refusing to get their shots (for a little perspective, that's less than 1 percent). In North Carolina, the Novant Health hospital system, which has more than 35,000 staffers, fired only about 175 workers for noncompliance (again, less than 1 percent). Many colleges and universities required students and staff to be vaccinated--after all, most universities already require that students receive several other vaccines before they enroll. 

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