TIME Person of the Year comes out against vaccine mandates

It’s a pretty strange pick in the middle of a pandemic, especially since TIME honored healthcare workers from a much lesser pandemic before:

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Time's cover story on Elon Musk doesn't sugarcoat problems at his companies: Tesla accidents, racial abuse, the boss violating federal rules. But his success, flamboyant Twitter defiance (and most wealthy status) was too much for the magazine to resist https://t.co/Xh8pbKLKlS

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) December 14, 2021

Anyway, the actual scientists who created new vaccines in less than a year did get a participation award and were named the “2021 Heroes of the Year”:

Vaccine scientists are TIME's 2021 Heroes of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/8qAiVzxRPP pic.twitter.com/pxee2faWdL

— TIME (@TIME) December 13, 2021

As for Musk, he told TIME he’s against vaccine mandates and that “we’ve got to watch out for the erosion of freedom in America”:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s made statements downplaying the virus, broken local health regulations to keep his factories running and amplified skepticism about vaccine safety. Musk tells TIME he and his eligible children are vaccinated and that “the science is unequivocal,” but that he opposes vaccine mandates: “You are taking a risk, but people do risky things all the time,” he says of the unvaccinated. “I believe we’ve got to watch out for the erosion of freedom in America.” The vast expanse of human misery can seem an afterthought to a man with his eyes on Mars.

We would like him to add his thoughts on all the proposed mandates that will ban gasoline-powered cars in favor of electric ones. Is that an erosion on our freedoms, too?

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