The news that many thousands of law enforcement personnel, firefighters and other government employees are refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccinations is difficult to understand. Most of those public workers took an oath to serve and protect the general welfare of the citizens in their communities.

Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has been a journalist for 45 years. He said, “When you work for taxpayers as a first responder, personal freedom is trumped by public duty. The job is to serve and protect, not serve and infect. And we may never know how many people in the general public, and the families of cops and firefighters, have become sick or died because the public safety officers refused to get vaccinated.”

Lopez said a reader named Alysia said in an email, “Last Thursday, the assisted living facility where my 101-year-old mother lives called me to report that she has shortness of breath and her oxygen level fell to 88 percent. Should they call the paramedics?

“I immediately said NO! They’re not vaccinated. We’ll take her … to urgent care … ourselves.” She said homeowners need to put signs on their front doors saying only vaccinated people allowed inside.

Lopez said since the pandemic began, according to L.A. County data, the L.A. Police Department has had 37 outbreaks that included 1,061 cases, and the L.A. Fire Department has had 75 outbreaks and 553 cases. He added, “In other words, the places of greatest resistance (in late September) are COVID-19 hot spots.”

Why do public workers refuse to take the shots?

One Los Angeles policeman said, “I don’t distrust the vaccine. I’ve had other vaccines. My family has been vaccinated. For me, I’ve done a personal risk assessment. I’m healthy. I’m fit. The more they push me to do it, the less obliged I am to do it.”

That last comment is the main reason most anti-vaxxers don’t get vaccinated. They simply don’t like anyone else telling them what to do. In addition, is the police officer really qualified to do his own personal risk assessment?

A New York City fire department official estimated that around 70 percent of the department’s workers contracted the coronavirus during the pandemic. He said with more than half of the department’s firefighters vaccinated and a large portion having had the virus before, that they “are covered” and protected from the coronavirus.

Is he right that they and others are protected? Lopez in his September column said, “Science is not on their side, and neither are statistics. The hospitals are not filled with people suffering harmful side effects of vaccine. They’re filled with people who refused to take it.”

The Officer Down Memorial Page that honors law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in the United States says, “COVID-19 is the No. 1 killer of LEOs (law enforcement officers) in 2020 and 2021. Getting vaccinated is just as important as wearing your vest and your seatbelt. Don’t wait any longer, please consult your doctor to see if vaccination is right for you.”

LAPD officers have to be vaccinated against measles, tetanus, hepatitis b, diphtheria, rubella and other diseases, Lopez said. He added, “Do they really trust all of those vaccines and not the COVID vaccine, or are they merely making a political statement?”

We hear a lot these days about personal freedom, particularly from those who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccinations. However, what does personal freedom mean exactly?

I got out the civics book I used to teach government years ago to try to get some answers.

“For us liberty is relative, not absolute,” was on Page 13. “We recognize that absolute liberty is impossible in an ordered society. Each individual cannot do exactly as he pleases because in so doing he would inevitably interfere with the rights of his neighbors. So liberty by its very nature is a mutual privilege.”

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained all of that by saying “the most stringent protection of free speech will not protect a man in falsely shouting ‘Fire!’ in a theater and causing panic.”

Although Holmes is often misquoted, you get the idea.

In its simplest terms, I suppose personal freedom means you can do whatever you want to do so long as it doesn’t interfere with what someone else wants to do.

So if you don’t get the COVID-19 vaccination, doesn’t that interfere with someone else’s personal freedom to be protected from a deadly disease? I think it does.