I know a lot of people are rightfully having heartburn on Vax mandates, but many of oldsters who (in my case...early 1960's) remember lining up single file for our smallpox and polio shots. And to the best of my knowledge those shots were mandatory.
1: Smallpox and Polio were more deadly. Polio: 2% to 5% among children and up to 15% to 30% among adolescents and adults. Smallpox: The fatality rate for flat or late hemorrhagic type smallpox is 90% or greater and nearly 100% is observed in cases of early hemorrhagic smallpox. 300 million dead in the 20th century.
COVID-19: 0.15% overall death rate.
2: The shots (or sugar cubes, in the case of one Polio vaccine) worked.