Writing for Flat White on August 13, 2021 arguing against the idea of vaccination certificates, I noted that vaccines don’t stop either transmission or hospitalisation. But because they can reduce the severity of the illness and mortality rates for target groups, I said: ‘Vaccines should be made available to all, strongly recommended for all vulnerable groups, but not made mandatory for anyone. Embrace personal choice and individual responsibility as the core elements of Covid risk management as we all learn to live with it as individuals and a nation.’

Guess what? In an interview with Jon Karl of the US ABC TV on September 10, Dr Anthony ‘Call me Mr Science’ Fauci was asked who should get Covid boosters. The question was prompted by a spike in cases and hospitalisations and the consciousness that this will intensify as the country heads into the northern winter. Fauci replied he believes that, ‘We should give the choice to people that are not in the high-risk groups, to have the vaccine available for them.’ Even high-risk people, he added, should be given the choice but not compelled to get vaccinated: ‘Make [the vaccine] available to everyone, but certainly recommend it to high-risk people.’

Fauci also highlighted the level of immunity in the population is high owing to people who have been vaccinated, boosted, and infected. In other words, he is now also acknowledging naturally acquired immunity from prior infection.

Writing in the Washington Examiner, Jon Miltimore comments that the use of words like ‘choice’ and ‘recommend’ even for high-risk people is ‘a stunning reversal’ from Fauci’s earlier support for mandates. He attributes the change of position to a string of legal defeats in the courts of various vaccine mandates and to the rising legal costs of the Department of Health and Services defending a flood of legal suits from the vaccine injured.

How about an apology from him, from the public health institutions and authorities, from all the vaccine mandate pushers in the media, and from the social media fact-checkers to all of us who were smeared, vilified, shadow-banned, and de-platformed? Crickets?

And isn’t it about time Australian courts began to hold our health officials to account and provided relief to all those who lost their jobs because of their principled refusal to be vaccinated and compensation to those who were injured by the vaccines?

As the great economist, social theorist, and political philosopher Thomas Sowell said: ‘The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.’ Or, to put it another way. It’s not that people will make the right choice for themselves. Rather, people have the right to make the choice for themselves.

Ramesh Thakur’s book, Our Enemy, the Government: How Covid Enabled the Expansion and Abuse of State Power was published by the Brownstone Institute last month and is available here from Amazon Australia.