The person credited with saving the most lives ever is Edward Jenner, inventor of the smallpox vaccine. The disease had a much higher mortality rate than the novel coronavirus that is confining many people to their homes right now; about 80% of children and 60% of adults who contracted smallpox died of it. In the 20th century alone, it killed more than 300 million people before the vaccine eradicated it worldwide in 1979.

CDC officials announced Tuesday that they believe the new vaccine currently under development aimed at controlling the rapidly spreading SARS-CoV-2 virus — responsible for causing COVID-19 — will be approved and ready to be utterly rejected by those in the anti-vaccination (anti-vax) movement by next year.

Anti-Vaxxers are terrified the government will ‘enforce’ a vaccine for coronavirus. Anti-vax groups on social media are claiming that the spread of the disease will lead to mandatory vaccinations and ‘unlimited surveillance.’ For most people, the news that a vaccine had been developed against the disease would come as a relief, but for anti-vaxxers it ties together two things. The first is, naturally, an overwhelming fear and distrust of vaccines; the second is a terrified certainty that someday the government will find a convenient excuse to enforce Orwellian degrees of control. This is a common theme in the anti-vax world, and conspiracy theorist communities more broadly: that every disease outbreak is a pretext to enforce a secret, frequently sinister agenda.

When available should we just let them die or force inoculations against their will?