In a big dose of irony, this is nearly the exact position anti-counter-measure proponents were taking in the early days of the pandemic, when senior US politicians and popular pundits on the right suggested with varying levels of directness that sacrificing some lives would be necessary for the economic health of the nation.

I think people on the left mostly rejected that line of argument on moral grounds. We should be careful not to indulge in the same moral reasoning for different purposes.

I think we should also be careful to try to empathize with people who are rejecting vaccines because they’ve bought into conspiracy theories pushed by influential people making a lot of money spreading false messages.

Nobody deserves to die in a pandemic. That’s a great place to start the conversation.