Get vaxxed or get tested. That is a viable alternative that accommodates people’s ethical beliefs and respects their right to informed consent before complying with a medical treatment. But take away the testing alternative, and what’s left is criminal extortion—get vaxxed or lose your job, salary, or both. The non-alternative version of the vaccine mandate is what is currently demanded of thousands of New York City employees.

According to Megan Redshaw’s report, Lawsuits Challenge NYC’s COVID Vaccine Mandates, the mayor of New York City appears to be in critical need of treatment for cephalic-rectal syndrome—a serious condition in which one’s head must be extracted from one’s anus. How else to explain the mayor’s incomprehensible comment that workers are “quitting,” when clearly workers are being fired without any alternative provided by the current vaccine mandate.

Here’s wishing the mayor a rapid recovery from the extraction procedure, assuming he consents to the treatment. Maybe it will help him see a clearer picture of the situation…but with so many other government administrators, public health authorities, media personnel, politicians, and employers suffering from the same condition, I’m not expecting an immediate change.

Given cephalic-rectal syndrome’s high prevalence within certain segments of the population most responsible for mismanaging public health pandemic responses, perhaps we should change the pandemic name from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to cephalic-rectal syndrome 2019 (CRS-19)?