Why should it be a personal choice? Living through this pandemic without getting vaccinated is at least as dangerous to public health as driving a car without wearing a seatbelt, and that is illegal.
Even if the vaccine did nothing to stop the spread of COVID (it does much more than nothing), it is still of vital importance to keeping ICUs free, which in turn is important for everyone.
Since your choice has an outsize effect on society, and since we have ample, overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that the vaccine is safe and certainly hundreds of times safer than the disease, I see no reason why it shouldn't be considered mandatory.
I'm young, slim, healthy, unvaccinated, not tested positive for Covid once even after my housemates had it.
"There is not a single example of a country with less than 40% of the population overweight that has high death rates (over 10 per 100,000). Similarly, no country with a death rate over 100 per 100,000 had less than 50% of their population overweight"
Are we going to start banning overweight from consuming alcohol and eating fast food? They're putting tremendous pressure on our universal healthcare system, their choice to be unhealthy has an outsized effect on society; specifically the health systems that we are using as a reason to push vaccination on everyone, regardless of their risk category.
Why do you refuse to get vaccinated? There are plenty of young, slim, healthy, unvaccinated people who also died. Your "choice" is inconsiderate to others in society who may catch it from you, that it may mutate in you and cause a worse variant, to people who care about you, and to the EMS and healthcare workers who you feel entitled to lean on when they're already overworked. This isn't about self-righteous entitlement to your "rights", this is about your duties to others to be a respectable member of a functional community and society.
Sure I wear a seatbelt. It's not invasive in any way and wearing it poses no risk to my health. Not comparable to vaccination in the slightest, that has numerous risks and is still undergoing trials and studies related to safety and efficacy. Let me remind you that these therapies, have been approved for emergency use.
The young, slim, healthy unvaccinated that you're talking about are such a tiny amount of people that I do not consider myself at any real risk. Like I said, I've not tested positive once the entire pandemic and I suspect that's largely to do with having a good immune system, so will clear the virus naturally, plus taking other sensible measures like wearing masks and avoiding large indoor gatherings.
I take other measures to limit the spread. The vaccine is not a panacea, it helps reduce severity for the most vulnerable so let them take it. The virus can also mutate in vaccinated people, in other mammals, it is hyperbole to suggest unvaccinated are largely responsible for all the negative aspects of Covid, completely politicised. The people that care for me respect my decision and quite honestly at this point agree, the majority of vaccinated people that I know will not be getting boosters.
Regarding health workers, I have 3 cousins and an aunt that all work in healthcare (plus some friends). From a renal nurse, ICU nurse to doctors and radiologist. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but our healthcare system has been at critical levels for years prior to the pandemic. This can only be solved by improving our infrastructure. They all respect peoples right to choose what medical treatment they want to receive. If you want to talk about duty to be respectable, when you do not know me or my contributions, then perhaps you should think about your attitude and moral grandstanding?
As my previous comment highlighted, my country has 63% of adults overweight. America is 68%. Their burden on the health system is immense, far greater than the unvaccinated. Should we ostracise them and limit their access to parts of society for everyone elses benefit? If the population was <40% overweight, we would not be facing the crisis in hospitals.
Even if the vaccine did nothing to stop the spread of COVID (it does much more than nothing), it is still of vital importance to keeping ICUs free, which in turn is important for everyone.
Since your choice has an outsize effect on society, and since we have ample, overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that the vaccine is safe and certainly hundreds of times safer than the disease, I see no reason why it shouldn't be considered mandatory.