Commentary When both the Queensland and Northern Territory governments decided to withdraw COVID-19 vaccine mandates in some settings in early April, their imposition was hailed a great success. Indeed, infectious diseases physician Dr Paul Griffin said: “It doesn’t mean they weren’t the right thing to do at the time, I think it was very important to do at the time and very effective. What’s really clear is protection against infection is reduced by two doses against Omicron but largely restored with that third dose.” Such statements appear to be an attempt to re-write history. Vaccine mandates, wherever they have been imposed, have proven to be, as Wesley J. Smith put it, exploding cigars. In April last year, the British Medical Journal cautioned against vaccine mandates, arguing that more evidence about the long-term effectiveness of different types of vaccines and the duration of protection they confer was required, considering the emergence …