Mandatory vaccines are nothing new

[sourcherie]

so we’ve been sliding down this slippery slope for about 200 years.

www.bbc.com/future/article/20211029-why-mandatory-vaccination-is-nothing-new

I have my misgivings - mainly because I don’t think it’s the way to persuade committed anti-vaxxers to get the jab - and it plays into their narrative. But there is a difference between coercive and mandatory vaccines, and with all mandatory vaccination so far, no one has had a needle forced into their arm against their will.

I would have gone about it differently, but as someone who’s lived in Austria for over 20 years, I can guarantee you that no one will be forced into it and there will be countless exemptions. As I wrote on another thread - Austrians have an extremely fuzzy grey zone when it comes to interpreting rules and regulations.

It seems on social media (including mumsnet) that people really think citizens are going to be pinned down and injected or that the police are going to be carting them off to prison left, right and centre. I’m fairly sure the reality will be a lot less eventful.

@JaninaDuszejko

OK, so I've just read the article from BBC America (a country that, unlike the UK, has a long history of mandatory vaccines). Not to mention having had this argument with my DBro. I work in the pharma industry, we make vaccines and I am as provaccine as they come. However, I strongly disagree with vaccines being mandatory for the general public, there is no evidence to support it and it's a massive corruption of our rights of autonomy over our own bodies. Put simply, people have the right to be stupid. The one time we had mandatory vaccines in the UK the opposition to vaccines increased. In fact, considering the UK is generally the most pro vaccination country in the world (thanks to trust in the NHS and the fact that we actually invented vaccination) I suspect making vaccines mandatory here would only result in a massive backlash. We're contrary like that.

Obviously the political climate is different in Austria so I can't comment on that but what we've found from work that was done in regions with resistance to smallpox and polio vaccination it is really important to engage with people's concerns about vaccination and address those if we want to increase vaccination rates rather than dismissing such concerns as 'stupid' and making vaccinations compulsory.

Yes, this is exactly what I've seen in people who are hesitant about the covid vaccine. All but a few are only hesitant in a very marginal way - they want to wait for a bit, don't want it for kids, and generally get their other jabs. But they have some concerns about these ones, some for quite personal reasons like allergies or immune issues, but still not exempt.

As they experience people saying they should be forced, their employers telling them they can't work, or even just being accused of being "anti-vaxxers" when they know they aren't, it alienates them hugely. Even if they get the vaccine because they need to work, they have basically lost their trust in the authorities. And they now believe that the state doesn't really have any qualms about infringing on their basic rights. It basically radicalizes them.

Many of these are people who eventually would have vaccinated anyway.

@Sumsencosrshit

Sorry - who/what were in the minority?

Do you mean the helicopters spraying the vaccines?

And how were they spraying them? They’re contained in tiny glass vials aren’t they? Surely the vaccine couldn’t reach protesters from such a height?

Oh dear!

@Theplantisgrowing

Jesus Christ, someone actually believed they were spraying Pfizer out of a helicopter!!!!!

I repeatedly feel like I've been catapulted back into the middle ages over the last 18 months.....

Next thing, it will be all over Twitter! It does give an insight into the mind of that very unpleasantly named anti-vaxxer, though. Very telling.

Yes, quite revealing as to the level of thought @SencosRShit / @Sumsencosrshit puts into starting all these threads

Spraying protesters with Pfizer indeed.

Interesting how Pfizer is now the subject of these kind of thing (threads about this, the 55 years of "records sealed"), and anti-AZ posts seem to have died out.

Bloody hell, that Standard link.

When you think you’ve heard it all, but no, there is someone even thicker.

OMG that standard link is hilarious! Keep body orifices as tight as possible! Stay away from manhole covers lest some one pops out and vaccinates you! bwahahahaha! And clearly people do believe this because we have our very own believer right here on this very thread. Proper made my day that.

@TotoShetland

That’s good to hear OP but judging by the size of the protest today in Vienna. And I’m guessing there were others around Austria too. People seemed angry. It doesn’t sound like social media is over reacting.

There is cause for concern.

Yes there is kick back and as much as people say it’s fine people are showing their anger. Not just Austrian approach

@Postdatedpandemic

I think we have just found the lowest common denominator of anti-vaxxers.

My initial thought was that the belief that the police are spraying Pfizer vaccine out of helicopters might be self-correcting stupidity: putting a plastic bag over your head is quite likely to rob you of breath, which is not good for people who want to stay alive. And once dead, such people will not be stupid any more.

(And in the name of whatever God anyone believes in, why the Pfizer vaccine, which needs to be kept at very low temperature to be effective? or will the police only do this when the ambient temperature on the ground is low enough and nobody is out of doors?)

They might make them mandatory in Germany too, which also has a big anti-vaxxer movement

We were living in Berlin during the first 6 months of the pandemic when there were lots of 'anti-hygiene demos', people protesting masks and distancing and all the restrictions

They were mostly in our neighbourhood so I got to see them firsthand, it was a bizarre mix of neo-Nazis, yoga mums and QAnon

All of those people are going to freak out if they make the vaccine mandatory and enforced medical treatment is a hugely touchy subject in Germany, so it will be a big mess

Anti-vaxxers and people who don't care about spreading diseases to others are already restricted, of course, from going into any of the occupations in which there are mandatory vaccination requirements. Health care and the army are two which spring to mind.

Going to school in most (possibly all but I can't find the information) states in America is another thing with mandatory vaccination requirement, along with the same in eg France, Italy, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, almost all the 'stans (there is no information about what is going on in Afghanistan, but a couple of weeks ago the Taliban started to ask for the polio vaccine to be sent to them), and Iran and Egypt and most of the Northern African nations and all of Latin America and... Somalia requires vaccines for children lucky enough to be going to school.

I wonder whether those people protesting in Austria at present had their children vaccinated before the present right-wing-inspired agitation started up with covid.

Yeah, the Taliban are so enlightened about polio vaccine. Sure. Hold them up as role models.

@ragged

Yeah, the Taliban are so enlightened about polio vaccine. Sure. Hold them up as role models.

If even the blasted Taliban have started being in favour of vaccination, unenlightened crothounds that they are, doesn't that tell you anything about the twerps who are not?

The Taliban are capricious. They don't act rationally. They will use the polio vaccine access as a political tool & maneuver.

The vaccine mandates are capricious, too. Their reason for being required is "because covid" . Covid decisions are their own special class of decisions that don't need a rational basis other than "because covid".

I wonder if malaria vaccines might become required. To prevent 400,000 deaths a year, mostly of very young children. The public health case for mandatory malaria vaccines is a lot stronger than for covid.

@ragged The malaria vaccine is being worked on, the latest one is 30 - 40% efficient. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-58833382

Have you ever thought what would happen if your own research was as efficient?

@Postdatedpandemic -- do you think if the malaria vaccine reaches 51% efficient that it will be made mandatory for all residents of malaria endemic countries?

If not, Why not?

The malaria vaccine only received WHO endorsement in Oct 2021. Guess they will wait more than a month before making it compulsory. Maybe they won't have to make it madatory, maybe people don't like their kids dying. There are others under development, with the hope of getting efficiency to at least 75%

@ragged you do understand that malaria is not contagious, don't you?

I think spraying vaccines is a good idea. It's much quicker and it'll get all the anti-vaxers unless they manage to hide in a shop doorway
After all, they spray crops with insecticide in some countries - same principle.
😄😄😄

Human beings can be placed at the centre of the Plasmodium life cycle. Integral part of the spread of malaria. Besides, there are voices saying the unvaccinated should have reduced access to treatment for their VPD how could we impose such a cruel outcome on children who don't have choices about their vaccination status how would that problem be avoided?

Or do only diseases that don't involve vectors justify mandatory vaccination? Is that a key threshold that must be crossed?

What is the logic about why (eg) Covid must be legally required vaccination of all-population but not jabs for flu, measles, group B strep, HPV...? 51% efficient vaccine available? no vector? Novel disease? What is the precedent going forward? How do we know a good decision is being made now and how do the decisions being made now help figure out the best decisions later -- unless you belong to the church of "Because Covid" as the reason why some decisions were made in which case no logic need apply.

or will the reasons for the mandatory vaccination decisions and infringements on civl liberty always remain simply "Because Covid".

Possibly because covid is a highly infectious disease that’s causing so many people to land in intensive care that hospitals are running out of beds and resources? That morgues are overflowing, cancer patients’ operations are being cancelled, there are no beds for heart attack, stroke, road accident patients? That’s my guess.

Maybe this is the universe’s way of getting rid of all the stupid people. Stupid people = anti vaxxers = eventually die of Covid. Fingers crossed.

helicopters spraying the vaccines

Now I really have heard everything!!

If that was effective, instead of threatening people with fines and imprisonment, they could just blanket vaccine-bomb the entire country that way. Or maybe seed clouds with vaccine, that seems an even better idea.

@AntiMaskersAreTwats

Maybe this is the universe’s way of getting rid of all the stupid people. Stupid people = anti vaxxers = eventually die of Covid. Fingers crossed.

Sounds good to me, but alas, these twats infect others who through no fault of their own cannot have the vaccine, or who are for one reason or another are immunosuppressed, and those die too.

I agree with you Op.
I have so many friends who work in the nhs and armed forces who have mandatory vaccines, and it’s still a choice.
The shame of it is that vaccines are a wonderful thing that have prevented infant mortality and millions of need less deaths.
But they’re treated like some awful thing, I just don’t get it.

It is mandatory, in this country, to drive on the left of the road.

People do drive on the left, on the whole; those who don't are quite likely to cause both their own death and that of the people they ram through stupidity/a refusal to accept that there may be reasons for rules which (gasp, shock, horror) impinge on their liberty to do whatever they want, or not do whatever they happen not to feel like.

"Mandatory" does not actually mean "the work of the Evil One."

See also mandatory crash helmets, seat belts, circuit breakers in domestic wiring, not beating infants with sticks....

@Campfirewood

I agree with you Op. I have so many friends who work in the nhs and armed forces who have mandatory vaccines, and it’s still a choice. The shame of it is that vaccines are a wonderful thing that have prevented infant mortality and millions of need less deaths. But they’re treated like some awful thing, I just don’t get it.

Yep.