I have never heard of a population wide mandate for a flu vaccine however.

And since 2004 the average effectiveness for the flu vaccine is about 40% so I guess if you are in a high risk group it might increase your survival a bit, but not enough effectiveness for a national mandate. The death rate of the flu is about 0.01% for all populations.

I mean, would you get a surgery that had a 40% success rate if your chance of dying without the surgery was 0.01%?

You are basing your argument on population based statistics. Healthcare workers are an important, large, and uniquely at risk sub-population.

Should you rx chemo therapy this afternoon? Probably not… unless you have a known tumor. Radiating random people off the street is not a good idea—I fully agree!

Yes, which is why we should be only vaccinating "important, large, and uniquely at risk sub-population"s.

I do not mind mandates for vaccines for certain workers, but for young bartenders?

That's a false equivalence .

A jab isn't as evasive as surgery, it doesn't carry the same risks,costs,time etc

How can you be so sure?