Louisiana Medical School's Vaccination Rules Temporarily Blocked

But the decision turns heavily on Louisiana law, and on the nature of this particular set of rules.

In Tuesday's decision by Judge Terry A. Doughty (W.D. La.) in Magliulo v. Edward Via College of Osteophatic Medicine (VCOM), the judge issued a temporary restraining order against applying the VCOM immunization rules to plaintiffs, who had religious objections (see this letter and this msn.com story that it links to, as well as this document, which the letter doesn't cite but seems to support some of its assertions). VCOM, a private college that is nonetheless on the campus of the public University of Louisiana in Monroe (and appears to be entwined in various ways with ULM) had a shifting set of rules:

At first, VCOM gave at least one of the plaintiffs "a deadline of July 19, 2021 to either defer school for a year or get a COVID-19 vaccine"; but it then changed the policy on July 16 to provide that students could also have the option to "be accommodated by completing all requirements except patient care duties or be placed in an alternate education pathway that defers clinical involvement." Then on August 7 VCOM changed the policy further to provide religious objectors another option—they could attend under these conditions:

1) Their religious exemption was time-limited until one or more of the vaccines currently under Emergency Use Authorization received full and final approval for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. At that time, they would either need to be vaccinated or apply again for an exemption;

2) Complete the COVID-19 module and the COVID-19 vaccination modules and pass those portions in their Microbiology or Immunology course by the end of the block;

3) Correctly wear an approved mask at all times on campus, except when eating or drinking, and to stay six feet away from others when eating or drinking. Failure to wear a mask would result in suspension;

4) Must not come to campus, or any VCOM event, if ill, or have symptoms of an illness, which also must be reported on MyHealthTracer.com, notify the COVID officer, and have a COVID-19 test if having any common COVID-19 symptoms;

5) Read and follow the additional guidance set forth by the CDC regarding safety protocols for institutions of higher education campuses;

6) May attend the Principle of Primary Care labs and OMM labs; however, must identify a student who agrees to work with a student who is not vaccinated, as the labs involve touching and close contact with another student;

7) May complete all educational requirements for your academic year except those activities where you are acting as a medical care provider including, but not limited to, Standardized Patient Examinations and Early Clinical Experiences, which will be deferred until the threat of COVID-19 has subsided or the vaccine is approved ….

The court concluded that this new policy violated Louisiana law:

All 50 states have mandatory vaccination laws requiring their citizens to be vaccinated. Three types of exemptions from mandatory state vaccination laws exist: medical, philosophical, and religious exemptions. California is among the states with the strictest vaccination exemption requirements, while Louisiana is on the opposite end of the spectrum, allowing all exemptions.

In Zucht v. King (1922), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed state's rights to impose their own requirements regarding vaccinations. Louisiana has done so. La. R.S. 17:170 E. specifically states that any school or facility listed in Subsection A [which includes colleges and universities] cannot require a person to comply with R.S. 17:170 if the student, or the student's parent or guardian either submits a written statement from a physician stating the procedure is contraindicated for medical reasons, or a written dissent from the student or his parent or guardian is presented….

This Court agrees with Plaintiffs' argument that the word "dissent" in R.S. 17:170 E. covers both religious and philosophical exemptions….

La. R.S. 17:170 F. provides the mechanism for an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease at VCOM. VCOM is authorized to exclude from attendance unimmunized students and clients until the appropriate disease incubation period has expired or the unimmunized person presents evidence of immunization.  However, the mechanism requires the recommendation of the Louisiana Office of Public Health.

VCOM does not have a recommendation from the Louisiana Department of Public Health to exclude from attendance unimmunized students. Therefore, under Louisiana law, students at VCOM are not subject to VCOM's mandatory vaccine requirements if the student provides a written statement from a physician that the procedure is contraindicated for medical reason or presents a written dissent from a student or student's guardian.

La. R.S. 17:170 does not provide a method for VCOM to judge or restrict the student dissent. A Court is to interpret law, not write it. If the legislature of Louisiana had intended for a college to be able to restrict students' dissents, it would have put that language in the statute. Student dissent can be based upon religious beliefs or any other reason. By voting to accept, but place restrictions upon the Plaintiffs' student dissent, VCOM has violated the provisions of La. R.S. 17:170. Rather than restrictions, VCOM's only options are either to allow the dissenting students to attend VCOM, or to obtain approval from the Louisiana Department of Health to exclude unimmunized students from admission….

The court also held that VCOM's actions likely violated the Louisiana Preservation of Religious Freedom Act (a state analog of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, seemingly because VCOM's actions appeared haphazard and inconsistent with state law:

VCOM must demonstrate its actions are in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, and that it used the least restrictive means of compelling that governmental interest. VCOM can likely show a compelling state interest (safety of students, employees, and patients), but is unlikely to meet the second prong, that it used the least restrictive means of compelling that interest….

VCOM changed its policy effective July 16, 2021 to allow exemptions based upon medical or religious beliefs but to also require a student that received a medical or religious exemption to not participate in educational settings that involve hands-on care of patients or classmates, to wear a mask on campus, have frequent testing for the COVID-19 virus and to use the MyHealthTracer.com application.

When VCOM approved the Plaintiffs' religious exemptions on August 6, 2021, VCOM did not follow its own policies, but added … [further] restrictions ….The Plaintiffs still were not allowed to participate in Standardized Patient Exams and Early Clinical Experiences (which are required to advance or graduate), even if wearing a mask. Therefore, VCOM is unlikely to be able to show that it used the least restrictive means of compelling their interest of keeping students, employees, and patients safe. {These restrictions apply to "unvaccinated students," not students who actually test positive for the COVID-19 virus.}

 The court later added:

VCOM placed a "Scarlett Letter" type list of requirements on the "unvaccinated," which will preclude the Plaintiffs from completing required components of their required curriculum. Also, the Plaintiffs would be required to disclose their "unvaccinated" status to other students in order to obtain the other students' consent to work with the "unvaccinated." {Despite the fact that VCOM students are allowed to mingle with ULM students, who don't have these requirements.} …

The Plaintiffs' potential harm of a constitutional violation, ability to complete their education, ethics charges, and possible expulsion outweighs VCOM's interest. Although VCOM has an interest in protecting its students, its students are allowed to attend ULM functions, participate in ULM intramural events, study in the ULM library and mingle with ULM students, who are not required to get the vaccine.

The public interest is not disserved. Granting the TRO would allow the parties to follow the laws of the State of Louisiana.…

Two thoughts:

1. The court's Louisiana RFRA / strict scrutiny analysis was closely focused on the details of the VCOM scheme, and its seeming incompatibility with the other Louisiana statute (and with ULM's lack of a vaccination mandate). It didn't discuss what would happen to a vaccination mandate that seemed more internally consistent, and its reasoning doesn't set much of a precedent for those mandates.
2. Under Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman (1984), the Eleventh Amendment state sovereign immunity principle forbids federal courts from ordering state officials to follow state law. VCOM, however, didn't cite that case, and neither did the federal court—perhaps on the theory that, even if VCOM is intertwined enough with the state to be a state actor, it's not actually a part of the state government and therefore isn't protected by the Eleventh Amendment.

Comments

[Liberator Lickpenny]

Will anyone share recommended reading for preemption and vaccination laws?

[DaivdBehar]

Hawaii first responders are upset too.

https://www.classaction.org/media/pelekai-et-al-v-state-of-hawaii-et-al.pdf

[Helvidius]

The court’s analysis seems to make implicitly clear why 11A doesn’t apply: VCOM is a private entity; but even so, VCOM is also so contractually entangled with UL-Monroe that it’s a state actor for 1A analysis.

[Michael P]

Can you elaborate? If the First Amendment provides sufficient protections for the student’s position, why did the court also apply the state’s Preservation of Religious Freedom Act? The court only mentions the First Amendment cursorily, saying that even brief loss of 1A freedoms is an irreparable injury, so that prong of the preliminary injunction test is satisfied.

[Helvidius]

If 1A provides sufficient protection, why apply the statute instead? Easy-peasy: courts practice a doctrine of constitutional avoidance.

To be fair to your question, though, I was painting with entirely too broad a brush generalizing La.’s PRFA into 1A matters more generally. You are correct that the statute and the amendment are, in the more finely distinguished nature of things, separate matters. That’s what I get for posting at 2 a.m. Mea culpa.

[Martinned]

Like the lady wearing glasses said: “if God wanted us to cover our mouth and nose, he would have made us that way”.

https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1428417770694356998

[KCar]

You should wear a mask all the time until end of time.

[bevis the lumberjack]

One idiot says something idiotic, and that means the rest of us should…..what? What does her stupidity suggest I should do? Please, I need to know.

[grb]

bevis the lumberjack : What does her stupidity suggest I should do? Please, I need to know.

Glad to help:

1. Use her stupidity as a cautionary example.
2. Rationally consider your words & beliefs.
3. Act accordingly.

By using this process, you’ll better judge the documented findings on vaccination safety and pandemic security measures, then understand the place of vaccines & Covid safety precautions in their broader social context.

As an added benefit, you’ll sound less like a right-wing tool…..

[Don Nico]

I’d consider the stupidity of her comment as a cautionary example and be careful not to hate the sinner

[Michael P]

Minor nitpick: The paragraph starting “The court also held that VCOM’s actions” should probably not be part of the block quote, and is missing a closing parenthesis.

[DaivdBehar]

This comment is considered a type of rudeness on the internet. Nitpicking is in bad faith, and should be punished in a tribunal.

[Michael P]

Failing to pick nits leads to outbreaks of lice. Do you want outbreaks of lice?

[Eugene Volokh]

Whoops, fixed, thanks!

[Aladdin's Carpet]

Those 7 conditions are pretty much impossible to follow, and seem designed to be as difficult as possible to follow … I mean, I tend to agree with, if you are gonna have a religious exemption, make it an actual exemption, with some requirements. That are related to public safety. I fail to see how taking an extra class serves that purpose.. Don’t just say, we have an exemption, but we are gonna make it as difficult as possible to use it because the exemption is not real.

And if the law requires it, well, challenge the law.

I would think the court is right here to say you can’t get around this by saying, we have it, but we will make your life a living hell if you use it. Either you have it or you don’t.

[Don Nico]

Aside from #2, that might not be a requirement for all students, which do you object to.
Treating patients should certainly be out of bounds. Moreover, there is not even a requirement for weekly or semi-weekly testing. The rules are not “living hell” but what you would expect for a Delta variant that is 3x as contagious as the 1918 Spanish flu.

[Don Nico]

‘Three types of exemptions..exist: medical, philosophical, and religious”
Philosophical = “I don’t want to”

[KCar]

Philosophical = I dont need it as it does me next to no good.

[KCar]

= common sense supported by data and science objection.

[Don Nico]

= pig-headedness and science ignorance

[Life of Brian]

Where:
“pig-headedness” = “not doing what I want”
“scientific ignorance” = “a perspective I don’t like”

But using more candid language makes it harder to throw your weight around, no doubt.

[Helvidius]

Hypotthetical: if you are an atheist, but object to human fetal stem cells being used in the production of vaccines because informed consent cannot be obtained from each fetus, what sort of objection might that be classified as?

[Don Nico]

For the sake of Brian,
scientific ignorance = holding a position that has been scientifically falsified or at least has a preponderance of the evidence against it

[Life of Brian]

scientific ignorance = holding a position that . . . has a preponderance of the evidence against it

Reread those words a few times, slowly. If you don’t see the problem, you’re not really a scientist.

[Don Nico]

As I said, “I don’t want to.”
Use fewer words, KCar

[OtisAH]

Considering none of the major religions have prohibitions against masking or vaccinations, “I don’t wanna” applies, for the most part, to the religious exemption as well. Jehovah’s probably forbid those things.

[Bruce Hayden]

The absurdity here is that this is a medical school, the mRNA vaccines weren’t considered “vaccines” by the medical field even two years ago, there is evidence that they aren’t sanitizing, which often causes serious mutation issues, and are only available right now under Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs), which require informed voluntary consent for application. Anywhere else in the law, using completion of medical school as incentive for accepting the vaccinations would put the consent in question, as being coerced.

My problem here is that the more and more issues surface with these newly developed, novel, and never previously implemented vaccines, the more the pressures are ratcheted up to force those who resist being test subjects for them, to be vaccinated.

[Don Nico]

Bruce,
In two or three weeks your objection will be moot. The vaccines will have full approval.
Even so, your objection is mindless

[Life of Brian]

The vaccines will have full approval.

More definitional word games. What you really mean is that the last bureaucratic box will have been checked.

The odds that the FDA would backtrack at this juncture are flatly zero, regardless of any new unfavorably information that might continue to inconveniently intrude into the public sphere. There’s simply too much political capital at risk at this point.

[Toranth]

Meh, the objection is word games in the first place.

I think one of the things that COVID has shown the world is that the FDA’s testing and approval process for drugs is way too conservative.
Just look at the response to the J&J vaccine having a few cases of serious side effects – trying to pull an effective and generally safe vaccine at a time when it was seriously needed.

If it weren’t for FDA delays in the first place, the vaccine could have entered production in April 2020. The existing Moderna vaccine was first synthesized on January 13th – the day after the genome was made available, and a week before the first known case in the US was identified.

If we could get the FDA to speed up the medical approval process significantly, it would more than be worth it in lives saved.

[jb]

“The absurdity here is that this is a medical school, the mRNA vaccines weren’t considered “vaccines” by the medical field even two years ago, there is evidence that they aren’t sanitizing, which often causes serious mutation issues”

It may be helpful for you to speak to an actual doctor as nothing you wrote here is true or even passes the threshold of making sense.

[Life of Brian]

It may be helpful for you to speak to an actual doctor as nothing you wrote here is true or even passes the threshold of making sense.

Fascinating hot take. Please continue.

[ReaderY]

Balancing individual liberty against public safety and order is a classic state legislative function. The fact that we may feel strongly, really strongly, that one policy is the right way to go doesn’t make the opposite policy irrational. Republics have to learn from their mistakes and this means being allowed to make them. Even when the mistakes are deadly.

In order to have a compelling imterest, a state legislative body has to assert it. Courts have no authority to rule by decree in an emergency. They can potentially strike down a policy enacted by the exectutive or a law enacted by the legislature. But they cannot create their own laws out of thin air. They can potentially strike down an act of a legislature. But they cannot strike down a legislature’s decision not to act.

Common law naking powers are something of an exception. But even they cannot overrule a legislature.

[Jimmy the Dane]

White supremacists are starting to learn to love vaccine mandates. After hearing it meant around 70% of people of color would not be allowed into public accommodations many have been asking where is the closest vaccine clinic.

[grb]

I would have never thought of that one! I guess it must take someone of a certain mindset……

Strangely enuff, I haven’t seen anything equal coming from the Left, though the same reasoning would scrub public spaces clean of people wearing MAGA hats.

[Don Nico]

Jimmy,
I hope that this was an unsuccessful attempt at humor.

[ReaderY]

I also continue to think that laws protecting the unvaccinated are simply ordinary civil rights laws, amd civil rights laws are simply ordinary rational basis legislation. Every law giving a minority a liberty takes something away from the majority. There is no free lunch.

I find Biden’s use of civil rights legislation to try to protect the majority against the monority particulalry troublimg. Do children get an appropriate education when they are disturbed and disrupted by children with behavioral problems and various other conditions protected by the ADA? The ADA has done a great deal to make the educational environment of the majority of children more difficult in order to make a better one for the minority. The idea that the majority gets protection from the minority turns the concept of Civil Rights law on its head.

In Justice O’Conner’s concurrence in Lawrence v. Texas, she said that sodomy laws in general are rational because limiting sex to marriage restrains the spread of disease. (She said that limiting the prohibition to homosexual sex only, as Texas did, is inconsistent with this rationale.) Even when not uniformly enforced, they still affect behavior enough that they tend to restrain super-spreader events. But even under Bowers, nobody would think that a conservative Republican administration could seriously argue that a liberal state’s repeal of its sodomy law, by putting people at greater risk of sexually transmitted disease, thereby violates the Rehabilitation Act by not giving them an “appropriate” education.

There is definitely a big difference in degree between the two cases. But I don’t see a difference in kind.

[Don Nico]

Reader Y,
RE” ADA kids.
The alternative is to start a second large public school system as the percentage of kids with some level of disability (ADHD, dyslexia, limb deformity, etc.) is quite large. Civil Right are not stood on their head. Society is too stingy to povide an alternate approach

[David Nieporent]

I think you mean ADEA.

[Don Nico]

Yup, we don’t want kids with bad teeth in class

[grb]

I’m still trying to work out how “sodomy laws in general” limit “sex to marriage” and restrain the spread of disease. Maybe it’s because I’m not a lawyer, but I see multiple assumptions here – many of which strike me as incorrect.

[SimonP]

No attention paid to the claimed religious objection? Strange.

Plaintiffs here apparently believe, falsely, that the vaccines are derived from aborted fetal tissue. Is there a reason our laws should favor exemptions based on objectively, demonstrably false beliefs, even if sincerely held?

[Aladdin's Carpet]

Generally it requires a pretty high bar to question someone’s religious beliefs, though I believe their are cases where courts have said it wasn’t sincere based on, well, again its a grey area but I know it when I see it generally applies. I think most people can agree on whether a belief is sincere, even if they cannot agree on whether they have a right to apply that belief in certain scenarios.

Here its a bit weird because they have a sincere belief that the they cannot use anything derived from aborted fecal tissue. They also have a belief that the vaccines are derived from fecal tissue. The former is a religious belief. The latter, sincerely held or not, is not a religious belief. It is just wrong (except in the case of J&J, where one can plausibly make an argument … though it won’t be very good).

I do not think one can claim a religious exception based on the latter claim, that the vaccines are derived from aborted tissue. It is a statement of fact, true or false. So the religious exemption won’t work there.

One could say my religion prevents me from taking vaccines period but … eh. If you have taken vaccines in the past, that probably won’t work?

[Don Nico]

AC,
That is fetal tissue not fecal (from feces) tissue

[Don Nico]

AC,
The mRNA vaccines are not made using fetal tissue. However, some of the research leading to the vaccines did use fetal tissue. To me that is a big difference, but you may feel otherwise.
So you have to evaluate how “far back” your objections goes.

[Toranth]

Yeah, I’ve seen this objection before, alongside the “the vaccine isn’t vegan”, and it amazes me how wrong it is.

The mRNA vaccines are manufactured in a process that uses no cells of any sort – neither human (adult or fetal) nor animal.

Here’s a paper from the NIH archives about the process.

[Don Nico]

Simon,
I tend to agree with you that if a “belief” is experimentally falsifiable, then it should be disregarded.
Is that a slippery slope? Probably.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Choose reason. Every time.

Choose reason. Especially over sacred ignorance, dogmatic intolerance, and adult-onset superstition.

Choose reason. Every time. Most especially if you are older than 12 or so. By then, childhood indoctrination fades as an excuse for gullibility, backwardness, bigotry, and ignorance. By adulthood — this includes ostensible adulthood — it is no excuse.

Choose reason. Every time. And education, modernity, tolerance, science, progress, freedom, and inclusiveness. Reject ignorance, superstition, backwardness, bigotry, authoritarianism, insularity, childish dogma, and pining for ‘good old days’ that never existed. Not 75 years ago. Not 175 years ago. Not 2,000 years ago. Never.

Choose reason. Be an adult. Or, at least, please try.

Thank you.

[BadLib]

Also, the Plaintiffs would be required to disclose their “unvaccinated” status to other students in order to obtain the other students’ consent to work with the “unvaccinated.” {Despite the fact that VCOM students are allowed to mingle with ULM students, who don’t have these requirements. [VCOM is on the campus of the University of Louisiana in Monroe. -EV]} …

Presumably students must participate in lab courses with a partner to complete their course of study and close contact with a lab partner is likely to last for tens of minutes, at least, on a regular basis. However, likely no student is required to “mingle”, let along for long periods of time, with the general student body of the University of Louisiana in Monroe in order to complete their course of study.

Consider an immunocompromised student who may have taken the vaccine even though it’s likely that their limited immune response means the vaccine is likely to be relatively ineffective. Such a student would probably be wise to avoid “mingling” voluntarily with a group of people whose vaccination status was unknown and might well do so. Likewise, they might refuse to work with a lab partner who was unvaccinated — but if they don’t know for sure who is/is not vaccinated it’s possible that it would be sufficiently risky for this vaccinated student to participate in labs w/a required partner that they would be unable to complete their course of study safely.

On the one hand we have a disabled person who, without the disclosure requirement, can’t safely complete their course of study. On the other hand, we have an unvaccinated person who doesn’t want to reveal their vaccination status (and, I assume, they don’t have to explain why they are unvaccinated) but doing so would not interfere substantially with their ability to complete their course of study (they can just pair up with another unvaccinated lab partner or find one that doesn’t care that they are unvaccinated).

I suppose this could be resolved by requiring students, under penalty of perjury, declare that they (1) are vaccinated, (2) are not vaccinated, or (3) decline to reveal their vaccination status. Perhaps, then, special accommodation could be made for any vaccinated student who wants, but can’t find, a suitable partner in group (1).

[Geezer]

Can someone here explain how a person who is vaccinated is put at risk by a person who is not vaccinated?

[David Nieporent]

Yes: vaccination is not 100% effective. Also, many vaccinated people have children too young to be vaccinated.

[Geezer]

I’ll rephrase my question:
If I am vaccinated, how am I endangered by being in the company of someone who is not vaccinated?

[Don Nico]

Because you can get sick and lose a day or a week or a month of work

[Geezer]

If a vaccination doesn’t protect me from getting sick, why should I get one?

[SimonP]

I think you already know what all the answers to your questions are likely to be, so why are you asking them? Why don’t you skip to the point?

[Geezer]

I think you already know what all the answers to your questions are likely to be, so why are you asking them?

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think the purpose of a vaccine is to protect the person who gets it, not to protect others.

[Don Nico]

Because
1) it substantially lowers your chance of getting sick and
2) because it greatly reduces your chance of hospitalization
It does not make you invulnerable. But overall your chance of being intubated or dying is reduced by a factor of 1000 to 10,000. To me that is a good reason.

Your mileage may vary.

[Don Nico]

The vaccine reduces your risk of infection by a factor of 5 by Delta. Good but far from perfect.
If you get sick, it reduces your risk of dying to less than 1%.

[Helvidius]

How about I rephrase your question for you?
“If I am wearing full camouflage in a hostile combat zone, how am I endangered by being in the company of someone wearing Day-Glo orange?”

[Geezer]

Because viruses attack vaccinated people who happen to be in the company of people who are not vaccinated, but they do not attack vaccinated people who are in the company of other vaccinated people?

[Don Nico]

Look anyone who gets infected, vaccinated or not, can infect others.

If you are with other vaccinated people, chances are better that they are not infected and even if they are infected chances are better that you will not be infected.

There is no impenetrable shield if you want to be in the presence of others. And that is an honest answer.

[Geezer]

If you are with other vaccinated people, chances are better that they are not infected and even if they are infected chances are better that you will not be infected.

[citations needed]

[Don Nico]

I can’t do your homework for you, but you can start with “Progress of the COVID-19 vaccine effort: viruses, vaccines and variants versus efficacy, effectiveness and escape” In Nature Reviews of Immunology. It gives many reference.

[Geezer]

You made two factual assertions:
1. If you are with other vaccinated people, chances are better that they are not infected
2. Even if they are infected chances are better that you will not be infected
I was hoping you could provide simple citations for each of those assertions.

[Don Nico]

They are an application of simple logic.
1 Say you are uninfected and meet B.
B is either infected or uninfected AND B is either immune (vaccinated or recovered from Covid)
If B is vaccinated or recovered then he is 5%x less likely to be infected than if he is unvaccinated.
2. If B is infected and you are vaccinated, you are 5x less likely to catch COVID-19 from B (the same factor of 5)
Citation:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e1.htm?s_cid=mm7034e1_x
will give you the factor of 5 number.

[Don Nico]

Also look at
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e1.htm?s_cid=mm7034e1_x
That will give you the factor of 5 number.

[Life of Brian]

“If I am wearing full camouflage in a hostile combat zone, how am I endangered by being in the company of someone wearing Day-Glo orange?”

Running with the poor analogy, you’re not endangered at all if you simply sit down in a restaurant. This activates a 360-degree forcefield that protects everyone involved — until they stand up and walk between the other forcefields to take a leak.

[Helvidius]

The fuck you are. Just because you are sitting down in a restaurant, there are people, who may or may not be infected and contagious walking by. You don’t live in a bubble.

And magic forcefields? That’s sci-fi, and has fuck all to do with the analogy. The analogy fits for its purpose because the virus is hostile; you aren’t going to negotiate a ceasefire with it or get it to surrender. All you can do is reduce your exposure to it and increase your ability to resist it and combat it.

[Life of Brian]

Hey, don’t get mad at me, bro — I don’t make the drop-dead stupid rules and try to justify them with Da Science&trade.