Compulsory Vaccine - What does it mean?

[WheresYourIndicator]

Sorry for posting in AIBU but I know most traffic is here.

So reading the latest news headlines, Austria and Germany are making vaccines compulsory.

Can someone explain what this actually means? What are the consequences if someone refuses to be vaccinated. I appreciate I may sound thick here so I apologise in advance.

I am double vaccinated myself and will be booking my booster for January but I strongly disagree with people being forced to take something they don't want. Surely it sets a precedent for the future. What will the government try to force next?
Scary times ahead!

Are there any compulsory childhood vaccinations in the UK? Here in Belgium, kids have to be vaccinated against polio before they can go to crèche or school, and I think quite a lot of countries have some mandatory vaccinations for kids. There's been no dramatic outcry about this so far, so why is the covid vaccination worse, for people who think it is?

@MumInBrussels

Are there any compulsory childhood vaccinations in the UK? Here in Belgium, kids have to be vaccinated against polio before they can go to crèche or school, and I think quite a lot of countries have some mandatory vaccinations for kids. There's been no dramatic outcry about this so far, so why is the covid vaccination worse, for people who think it is?

No. Vaccines can be required for specific job roles, but the UK doesn't require someone to be vaccinated in other circumstances. It would be considered dramatic in the UK to make any of the childhood vaccinations mandatory.

Bloody ridiculous comparison. If you were Jewish your card was marked: if you weren’t able to leave the country, you were corralled into a ghetto and eventually deported to a camp where your chances of survival were minimal. No way out other than death.

You have a choice as a vaccine refuser in Germany: either get the vaccine, or continue to refuse, but be denied entry to non-essential businesses and services. Nobody is deporting you, confiscating your property, burning your homes and businesses, attacking you violently, separating you from your loved ones. Nobody is systematically killing you.

The reasoning behind this: why should those who are able to get the vaccine, but refuse, continue to cause the vaccinated to be restricted. Vaccination is the only way out of this continual cat and mouse game and I’ll be absolutely honest, those of us here who are vaccinated are fucking sick of this. We’re sick of all the progress we’ve made being pissed up the wall by anti vaxxers, time and time again.

Nazis? It’s a fucking stupid and offensive comparison. Do you know what the Nazis would have done in this situation? They would have denied the weak and vulnerable treatment. They would have let Corona “take its course”. They would not have protected those unable to protect themselves.

Give your head a firm wobble.

@XenoBitch
"And like has been said loads of times already.... there are lots of reasons why someone feels they can not take the vaccine."

As far as I'm concerned, other than a very small minority who can't have the vaccine due to medical counter indications, there is no reason why people can't take the vaccine.
They should have the choice not to - but that needs to come with consequences, otherwise what is the point in the rest of us being vaccinated.
I know from previous threads that you feel very strongly about this - as do I. We shall have to agree to differ.

I always ask on these threads what people think of me.

I had the first vaccine. Ended up in hospital shortly after. Under neurology. I’ve had a headache for months since the first one.

My consultant told me that I will not be able to get an exemption for a second. I asked for another opinion, was told the same. No exemptions, just a letter giving me “permission” to have another make of vaccine going forward.

Sorry but no. I’m not willing to risk futher side effects.

So what about people like me? Do you think I should just say, “oh well, i’ll take the other one, thanks?”

Because of you had lived my life over the summer, I guarantee you wouldn’t either.

That is terrifying @Siriisatwat. The message seems to be ‘vaccines without exception’

@IHateFlies

That is terrifying *@Siriisatwat*. The message seems to be ‘vaccines without exception’

Yeah it is.

And believe me, I’ve had enough people tell me to just have a second because covid could be worse. Or that I should do it to protect others. sorry, but I care about my own well being first.

Well, I had covid and it wasn’t worse. I had a sore throat for 2 days. So that argument doesn’t sit with me.

Also I now can’t go back to the job in care that I was really good at.

And I think i’ve cost the nhs far more money since
having the first vaccine in hospital stays, scans and consultant appointments than I ever have in my life.

In fact, I’ve used private healthcare and health insurance for everything since the age of 20. That’s 21 years I’ve not bothered the NHS, even paid for private care in pregnancy and births.

only private health cover will not cover anything arising from covid vaccines.

@Siriisatwat that is a crappy situation for you and makes no sense whatsoever. Where is the logic? You’ve had covid now so should have natural immunity. Your risk is low. If you’ve got no comorbidities then you’re risk is even lower.

It’s utter madness.

A dutch doctor was just interviewed on R4 he talked about the possibility of going Code Black in the Netherland. This would mean choosing who lives and who dies. They will have to assess if it is worth trying to save very sick people, what a terrible thing to have to ask a doctor to do. 18 months ago the world prayed for a vaccine and now look at us, funnily enough no one in the third world countries are protesting...

@MariaAngustias

I am 100% pro vaccine but this is so wrong. Can't see any healthcare professional would give a vaccine without informed consent... This is very troubling

No healthcare professional will be required to give a vaccine without informed consent. In Austria nobody will be vaccinated against their will. They will be fined for refusal and, in extreme cases, if they refuse to pay the fine they will go to prison.

On the German news right now, health minister emphasizes there will be no compulsory vaccine in Germany. Only for certain professions (potentially).

The word for duty is the same so later it is emphasized there is a social duty to get vaccinated but that's different from compulsory vaccination.

An interesting play on words: next year 3G will change from vaccinated, recovered, or tested to vaccinated, recovered, or dead.

Basically that you can't hide from the virus, you either get it and recover or you get it and die. The vaccine being the only exception to that rule.

I always ask on these threads what people think of me.

I had the first vaccine. Ended up in hospital shortly after. Under neurology. I’ve had a headache for months since the first one.

My consultant told me that I will not be able to get an exemption for a second. I asked for another opinion, was told the same. No exemptions, just a letter giving me “permission” to have another make of vaccine going forward.

I had the first one and a week later I started getting alopecia patches. Never had it before and it is immunity related. By the time I was due my second one, I had a 5 x 5 cm bald patch on my head and a few other smaller patches. It is only just growing back 9 months later. I checked yellow card and found only a small number of reported cases and concluded it was unlikely to have been the cause, it was simply a correlation. I have more patches now since the second and I’m due my booster next week. I spoke with the GP and the dermatologist who have confirmed it is unlikely to be the cause.

In your situation I would say if the consultant has refused an exemption, they have looked at your symptoms, and the data, and concluded the two aren’t linked.

In my situation I decided even if it was linked, having the vaccine was the better option, even if it meant me going bald, where I previously had lovely long thick hair. You are free to make whatever decision you wish in terms of the second vaccine, only you can assess what risk you are willing to take, but not being provided an exemption in your case doesn’t mean there is some kind of reluctance to give exemptions where side effects are impacting on people’s lives, which is the conclusion think people might want to draw from your situation.

Yeah, you are right.

Total coincidence that I came down with a 5 month long headache 12 hours after the AZ vaccine, despite never suffering from headaches before.

Would have happened that day anyway, right?

Every HCP I have seen said they have seen the same thing in other people after AZ who have come to them, but that they can’t give an exemption.

@SeemingSeamstress

I cannot believe the human rights abuses and coercive control measures ordinary EU states are implementing and making even more severe. I fear for the future, this is beyond some of the worst sci fi / dystopia fiction . Completely beyond acceptable and future generations will judge us for it.

A bit hysterical, I think. A pandemic like Covid is unprecedented. Mandatory vaccination against it doesn't automatically equate to human rights abuse. If you think it is, where are the human rights of the thousands of people who have died from it or suffer from long covid? I couldn't wait to have my vaccinations and I'm grateful to all the scientists who made them possible.

You have a choice as a vaccine refuser in Germany: either get the vaccine, or continue to refuse, but be denied entry to non-essential businesses and services. Nobody is deporting you, confiscating your property, burning your homes and businesses, attacking you violently, separating you from your loved ones. Nobody is systematically killing you.

@ ChaToilLeam Yet?

I think it’s valid fo compare to the nazis, but we are very early stages of it. It’s not history repeating itself fully, but it ‘might’ be beating the same drum. We always say we should learn from history, never forget, and there’s a reason why many people are so uncomfortable with what is seen as an overstep in powers.

@hamstersarse thank you for pointing this out
I grew up in country where loads of Jewish people died during WW2
I still vividly remember my grandma telling me when I was a little child how people were still ashamed to let that happen. She was a little girl herself in 1920's and 30's but loads of people in her generation lived there lives secretly ashamed of their inactivity in early stages

I suppose people living in England/UK for generations didn't grow up with this kind of message from past so can't understand that some people can be genuinely scared of history repeating itself - to some extent

But we mustn’t treat the fatties like second class citizens, that’s a special thing reserved for unvaccinated people. Just no.

People who are overweight ("fatties" - how ignorant you sound) do not infect other people, they only damage (possibly) themselves.

I'm going to play the history PhD card and say that Covid isn't "unprecedented". It isn't even a particularly 'bad' pandemic in the grand scheme of history (Spanish Flu was much worse in all sorts of ways). In fact one reason why we find Covid so awful is that we're actually remarkably protected from infectious disease in the contemporary West, to a degree which would be unimaginable to people living even a century or two ago (and that's even with Covid circulating...it's actually much less brutal than typhoid / Scarlet Fever / cholera or a whole bunch of other things people used to routinely live alongside). I'm not complaining about this, but we'd probably benefit from a bit of perspective. We really aren't living through The Worst Thing Ever. In fact one reason why I'm uncomfortable with compulsion around vaccination is that I think we need to store up consent and goodwill around vaccines for The Much Worse Thing which could come along in the next few decades.

if they refuse to pay the fine they will go to prison.

And if they cannot afford to pay? The rich will pay, the poor will be thrown into jail?

@gofg

But we mustn’t treat the fatties like second class citizens, that’s a special thing reserved for unvaccinated people. Just no.

People who are overweight ("fatties" - how ignorant you sound) do not infect other people, they only damage (possibly) themselves.

Actually they do, in that they take up a disproportionate amount of healthcare resources. Ditto smokers, heavy drinkers, people who sex lives put them at greater risk of STIs etc etc. If we start dividing people with health needs into deserving / undeserving categories it's going to be very hard to stop. Also once governments learn that they can deflect frustration at healthcare inadequacies away from themselves and onto unpopular low status subgroups, they won't stop. So in Austria all the focus is on the unvaccinated, rather on asking how Austria ended up so much worse off than - say - England despite not-actually-much-lower vax rates

@thenightsky

if they refuse to pay the fine they will go to prison.

And if they cannot afford to pay? The rich will pay, the poor will be thrown into jail?

Basically. It will have a massive socio-economic bias, and no doubt a racial bias given people of recent migrant /refugee origin are unsurprisingly less affluent on average.

@ItsSnowJokes

The Singapore analogy you can't use as Singapore charge for all treatment anyway. It was only covid that was treated for free.

I don't agree with mandatory vaccination, but would agree with restrictions for the unvaccinated. No holidays, no using public transport etc...... unworkable in practice probably but it would be better than mandatory vaccination.

No using public transport? Really? So how are people meant to get to work? Or should they not be allowed to work either? Should they be made to live on benefits or do you think they also shouldn't be allowed those? Therefore leading to poverty and crime?

@thenightsky

if they refuse to pay the fine they will go to prison.

And if they cannot afford to pay? The rich will pay, the poor will be thrown into jail?

If they cannot afford to pay the fine they should think again about refusing the vaccinations that more than 5 billion of the rest of us have had.

isn't even a particularly 'bad' pandemic in the grand scheme of history (Spanish Flu was much worse in all sorts of ways)

There was some guy on TV the other night, saying if we projected Spanish flu figures into today’s population, it would be the equivalent of 250 million who died.