There’s an increasingly large divide around the world between the vaccinated and the not. In countries with high levels of vaccination, it’s those who still refuse to get the vaccine who are over-represented in ICUs and morgues. And in an attempt to open up countries with high rates of COVID-19, governments are creating a two-tier world — where those who are vaccinated are afforded far more freedoms than those who are not. Here’s what that looks like around the world.
United States
The Biden Administration is set to announce that all federal employees must be vaccinated or get regular coronavirus tests. Like everything in the United States, vaccination is falling on partisan lines, with red states unsurprisingly having the lowest rates. Four states have introduced some form of vaccine-pass app, but a further 19 have passed laws banning them.
Private employers are also placing restrictions on people who aren’t vaccinated. Tech companies like Google and Facebook have made them mandatory for their employees. The National Football League is introducing a rule where a team will forfeit a game where an outbreak is linked to an unvaccinated player.
United Kingdom
Britain’s “Freedom Day” has passed, but with infections still rising despite high vaccination rates the government is trying to push more people to get jabbed. Boris Johnson wants to make vaccination status a condition of entry to high-risk venues like nightclubs. But that plan was met with strong opposition from some Tories. Labour haven’t decided whether to support it.
Universities could also restrict unvaccinated students from attending lectures. Vaccination was key to London’s staging of the European Football Championships finals — supporters at Wembley had to show proof of vaccination or a negative test result to enter.
France
France has historically had some of the highest rates of vaccine hesitancy in Europe. In response, a frustrated Emmanuel Macron has responded with some of the strictest vaccine mandates in Europe. Life will be highly restricted for the unvaccinated — they’ll be unable to travel freely and enter most indoor venues. Despite protests, the stick has worked — millions signed up to get vaccinated the week Macron announced his plan, which has widespread support.
Israel
Israel’s green pass, which provided proof of vaccination and was a condition of entry for many indoor venues was a key driver that helped the country achieve one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world. While it was dropped after achieving high rates of inoculation, it’s been brought back to help deal with rising cases due to the Delta variant.
China
China started rolling out a vaccine passport that can be used through WeChat in March this year, designed to free up overseas travel. Some regions are also attempting to restrict people who are unvaccinated from attending various public events.
Russia
Russia is also introducing tough new laws to spur vaccination uptake. Retail and restaurants who don’t vaccinate 60% of their staff could be temporarily suspended, and workers could be stood down. The country has similar vaccination rates to Australia, and is being battered by the Delta variant, recently recording nearly 800 cases in a day.
I loathe the idea of government dictating what I must put into my body.
However, it’s not like they’re holding me down and pumping the vaccine into me.
I do have a choice to not be vaccinated. It seems fair to me that if I choose this path then perhaps letting me into a crowded nightclub poses a risk to others, a risk that I do not have the right to impose.
Definitely a tricky one, and no doubt some teeth will be gnashed over it.
But no one if forcing anyone to be vaccinated and it just means that if you make that choice then you need to live with the consequences, the biggest of which is that you are more at risk of contracting covid.
And spreading it around. What’s the R factor for Delta – 5?
At the moment those reluctant to get the jab also want to maintain unlimited freedom of movement, and entry into shops, pubs, clubs.
They don’t have a leg to stand on in terms of argument, but that won’t stop them.
That’s a broad brush stroke you’ve made there DB. One that doesn’t match my experience.
I’m all for getting the vaccination level up, but we in Aus are still being presented the idea that vaccination is the panacea to this problem. However, the vaccinated are still contracting and spreading Covid-19. Recently the UK’s chief scientific officer said 60% of people currently hospitalised for Covid-19 were fully vaccinated, and explained the reasons why that would be. Later he backtracked, and said the 60% were unvaccinated. But that still leaves 40% of the hospitalised being partially or fully vaccinated.
What happens when we get >80% vaccinated (the epidemiological goal), and we still have outbreaks? Will we continue to lockdown? Can we afford to? Can we afford not to? Can those in power maintain their ‘no death’ strategy?
No one’s talking about this seemingly inevitable next progression.
It’ll be interesting to see what Australia adopts once the supply of vaccine exceeds demand for it. You’d think getting vaccinated to reduce the risk of dying / serious illness, health systems overrun, society needing to operate on “emergency mode”, etc. would all be reason enough to get vaccinated.
I think the difficulty in our system is we’ve made it opt-in rather than opt-out. This way the onus is on us as individuals to come up with good reasons (like those above) to get vaccinated, rather than needing to justify (at least to oneself) to opt-out. By making it opt-out, no-one is forced to get it, but it changes the way that hesitancy works.
Once we get to supply-side surplus, I’m all for incentivising getting vaccines (if the incentive to return to normalcy and the reduced risk of dying / serious illness isn’t incentive enough) with things like lotteries and giveaways. Only then is it worth doing stick measures like restricting certain freedoms to the vaccinated-only. And at no time does it get the psychological stigma of becoming mandatory.
Try opting out of wearing a hard hat of steel capped boots on a construction site
Try that argument on someone with reservations about vaccination and see how it goes.
(Gonna bet they’d mention something about it being a weak analogy because you can always take off a hardhat but a vaccine is an invasive procedure. In any case, I’d think you’d manage to put anyone with even mild reservations offside with such a strongarm tactic.)
Medical interventions are one of the most personal things we have in our social lives – it doesn’t make sense to me to get authoritarian about what people do with their bodies when there are ways more in line with how people think that have shown efficacy even with hesitant or reluctant populations.
The figures I’ve seen suggesting a substantial number of people ‘reluctant’ to get the jab might be overblown. Using an ‘opt out’ method might make a big difference. Literal door knocking programs to the unvaccinated, home jabs, after everyone has had a chance to get it, might make a 10% difference to the overall number inoculated.
What about human rights? Class actions against discrimination of the unvaccinated? The government will be mad introducing discrimination of any form.