Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 38, Number 11, 1 Nowemapa 2021 — Personal Choice vs. Aloha [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Personal Choice vs. Aloha

/ HA'I MANA'O V * OPINION *

By Jeffrey Akaka, MD The article authored by Keli'i Akina, PhD, in the October 2021 Ka Wai Ola, favoring personal ehoiee over vaccine mandates, is deeply disappointing. Our keiki have no vaccine protection against infection, sickness and death from COVID-19. Our keiki are the noses that the unvaccinated fists, emboldened by the article, are smashing. Does the author favor smokers rights over their coworkers dying of cancer from their smoke, or favor vaccine refusal over kids killed by measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, diph-

theria, typhoid or smallpox? There is no difference. Puhlie heahh mandates save lives. Refusal kills. Individual heahh ehoiee ends when your ehoiee kills our keiki. What happened to Hawai'i's highest value, Aloha, the unconditional regard for your fellow human being, whieh seeks to do good to a person, whh no condition attached, out of a sense of kinship? Choosing to disregard your neighbor's lungs and life is not Aloha. Everyone, please, embody the Aloha Spirit by helping everybody to stay alive. Please get vaccinated, and support vaccine mandates against COVID-19. Please support Aloha. ■ Dr. Jeffrey Akaka graduated from Kamehameha Schools and the John A Burns School of Medicine. He is the son of the late Rev. Abraham KahikinaAkaka, whose Statehood Sermon on The Meaning ofAloha delivered at the Kawaiaha'o Church the day after statehood in 1959 ean befound at https://www.akakafoundation.org/ sermons.html.