It is a sad state of affairs when something as life-saving and revolutionary as a vaccine has become something that is controversial or even menacing. It has brought on countless positive changes in daily life, yet as misinformation spreads, the overwhelming benefits of vaccinations have seemingly become opinion, not fact. This could endanger or potentially kill millions.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought on numerous more challenges, and the controversy over immunization has only amplified that. Ever since the first trial data on vaccination was collected by Moderna on July 14th, a storm of fake news and anti-vaccine propaganda has taken over the Internet. Unfortunately, that is now spreading into the real world.

It can easily be spotted everywhere. Facebook has become a concentrated cesspool of vaccine-slandering groups, and this year, the company has started to ban users who purposely spread misinformation. This swirling mess creates an echo chamber for users, in which opponents of COVID-19 vaccinations only hear bogus claims from untrustworthy websites and their uncle Mike, rather than government officials from multiple countries who dedicated half their lives to studying medicine and virology and are well-respected internationally.

Such is the case of healthaffairs.org, which estimates that the largest 147 misinformation accounts have amassed nearly 60 million followers. With such a popular social media platform like Facebook and with those numbers, the crowd of “anti-vaxxers”, as they have known to become, have since migrated to other websites, carrying their rhetoric with them. Not only is it fearmongering, but downright malicious for innocent people who are unable to fight off the disease on their own. People with autoimmune deficiencies, old age, or the extremely young could potentially die because of someone who felt that the government is trying to microchip them.

Thankfully, vaccinations are on an upswing. However, some do not believe that it is enough. As fake news spreads to impressionable readers and they carry the message to more people, I believe that a balancing force needs to counter it. For coronavirus to end soon, everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated. A Friday in October of 2020 had marked the most coronavirus cases a single day. In one day alone, 83,000 people caught the virus. Two months later was even worse. December 2nd, 3rd, and 4th—three days in a row—8,290 people died because of COVID-19.

Together, we can prevent these tragedies from happening again. For us to reach herd immunity, or the number of vaccinated people required to build up a mass protection against the virus, 70% of the population must be immunized. A common criticism is that a vaccine mandate would be unethical and goes against one’s rights. However, my counter argument is that it is equally unethical to disregard basic public health guidelines and potentially kill others. A vaccine mandate cracks down on both misinformation and the virus itself.

Had it not been for prior vaccinations, we would still have polio, rubella, and smallpox—yet somehow, the COVID-19 vaccine is different. Instead of preventing countless illnesses and deaths, the anti-vaxxer belief is that by injecting it, the body will be subjected to mind-control, microchipping, and whatever other so-called “communist” witchcraft the shadowy cabal of our government has in their agenda. Saying it out loud, one likely would not think it was much of a stable system either if these types of people are given a platform, especially in such a high position, to spew harmful information such as the former.

At the end of the day, a mandate would prevent innumerable deaths in a safe and efficient way. Not only do I believe that the legality of anti-vaccine newspeak be questioned, but be staunchly countered by health organizations and government officials as much as humanly possible. In a time when people are quite literally dropping like flies, the benefits of a vaccine mandate knows no bounds.