Quebec to introduce a tax for the unvaccinated

[Hairbrush123]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59960689.amp

What are peoples thoughts on this?

I am wondering if in the future Health Insurance in the US will require vaccinations before they will insure people? Similarly life insurance.

If I ever travel overseas again I would expect insurance to require vaccination. I know travel insurance companies will not insure certain activities. I imagine some policies are higher for people with certain medical conditions.

@Ontheblink

That rules out any future holidays to Canada for me, ditto Australia. The countries which make up these pathetic coercive rules don’t deserve tourism.

Are there many countries that don’t require vaccinations for tourists then?

@Shadowboy

Does anyone know what age they vaccinate from? I’m vaccinated but not my children. And I don’t intend to vaccinate them until they are at least a few months into their menstrual cycles starting. It would be interesting to know if the tax would be levied on parents of unvaccinated. It’s an awful idea- as with any tax on target groups it always disproportionately affects minorities or poor.

@Shadowboy age 5+ can be vaccinated. Our 5 and 7 year olds are and I work in a school ages 11-13 and the vast majority seem to be vaccinated. It's been open to ages 12+ since April I believe.

People just won't do the test and will avoid hospital until they're at death's door.

Government should never be coercive like this.

@PartyOnKale

It's bad for future vaccine trust imo.

That

I dont agree with this model in the UK as that goes against what the NHS is about which is free access to all.

I dont know exactly about the Canadian model but from what I've gathered it's a combination of private and government funded. If they have deemed that the cost of the unvaccinated is causing an unsustainable and service quality depleting toll on their hospitals, they have every right to make decisions like this. It is undeniable to say that the unvaccinated are causing the rise in hospital pressure, with this comes additional cost and with that comes increased tax.

It also can not be compared to smoking/drinking/obesity there are so many factors involved in this, mental health, trauma, addiction, socio economic factors etc. There isnt an injection to reduce your chances of liver disease from drinking.

A vaccine, apart from medical exemption, severe phobia and possible religious beliefs the vaccine is just a yes or no decision, not like obesity.

It’s disgusting and makes a mockery of our freedoms and rights

Would you say the same about passive smoking? When I was a child people smoked everywhere, pubs, shops, work, restaurants, public transport. I even remember visiting a relative on a hospital ward, propped up in bed with a little foil NHS issue ashtray on the bedside table and a packet of Benson and Hedges.

Car fumes is another pollutant. There was a very sad story in the papers the other week about a child who had lived in a heavily populluted urban area, and it was proved that traffic fumes had contributed to the childs death. This is why diesel is being phased out and electric cars brought in.

No one is saying anyone should be denied health services but something has to be done to protect health services and public health and involves tax, for example on petrol, booze, cigarettes sugar, to discourage and reduce unhealthy choices, .

This is nothing new. In medieval and Tudor times there was laws about household waste/sewage and it impinging on neighbours properties. Laws for shops, quarentine laws, a type of lockdown, for outbreaks. Port laws on diseases. Look at Ellis island in the USA

I don't like it at all. A professor was on R4 earlier, explaining that a bout of covid is as good as a vacvine and provides 6 months of antibodies (well, up to 6 months. Like the vax). There will be many unvaccinated people with just as many antibodies as those vaccinated. I presume that children and those medically unable to be vaccinated will not be taxed - so it is clearly punative and better described as a fine, not a tax. One that is described as deliberately punative.

I do not agree with governments fining people for retaining agency over their own body. As an idea, it revolts me. It is totalitarian in thought. It also punishes the poor more; as ever, the rich can do as they please, while the poor must be controlled.

Tripple vaxxed before people start banging on at me for being an antivaxxer.

@Flaxmeadow

It’s disgusting and makes a mockery of our freedoms and rights

Would you say the same about passive smoking? When I was a child people smoked everywhere, pubs, shops, work, restaurants, public transport. I even remember visiting a relative on a hospital ward, propped up in bed with a little foil NHS issue ashtray on the bedside table and a packet of Benson and Hedges.

Car fumes is another pollutant. There was a very sad story in the papers the other week about a child who had lived in a heavily populluted urban area, and it was proved that traffic fumes had contributed to the childs death. This is why diesel is being phased out and electric cars brought in.

No one is saying anyone should be denied health services but something has to be done to protect health services and public health and involves tax, for example on petrol, booze, cigarettes sugar, to discourage and reduce unhealthy choices, .

This is nothing new. In medieval and Tudor times there was laws about household waste/sewage and it impinging on neighbours properties. Laws for shops, quarentine laws, a type of lockdown, for outbreaks. Port laws on diseases. Look at Ellis island in the USA

These are false equivalences. This a brand new vaccine using new technology. It is not tried and tested. There is no long history of research or known outcomes behind it as opposed to solid knowledge on the outcomes of passive smoking or living in a polluted environment. I am fully vaccinated. I took my teen for their second vax this morning. I am no ant vaxxer but even I can see why some might have concerns and resist these new, untried vaccines.

mRNA vaccine research and technology has been around since the 1970s.

The reason the covid vaccines were able to be produced so quickly is because of the huge global unprecedented research and man hours being thrown at it in comparison to vaccines in the past

The vaccines don’t work against omicron which is the variant in circulation now. Some countries do have delta still but it will be displaced quickly by the milder omicron.
Scientists have said that omicron evades the vaccine.
If this tax is based on health concerns then it seems misguided.

@Flaxmeadow

mRNA vaccine research and technology has been around since the 1970s.

The reason the covid vaccines were able to be produced so quickly is because of the huge global unprecedented research and man hours being thrown at it in comparison to vaccines in the past

These are the first mRNA vaccines to be licensed for use in humans. The past year is the first time the tech has been used in humans on a large scale. In the frame of medicine, that's very novel.

The vaccines don’t work against omicron

This is misinformation. Vaccines do work agaisnt Omicron, as this research shows. The 2 second and 3rd columns from the left are Moderna and Pfizer

The red and blue ^

It's their business isn't it.

I quite like it, I think it's better than mandatory vaccination. If they do it here then all the funds should go towards the NHS.

So poor people who do not want the jab - will be fucked. What if they change the scope and say 'actually, you need the fourth, fifth, sixth ect and if you don't comply - you will be considered unvaxxed and will be fines too.

@Vargas

I quite like it, I think it's better than mandatory vaccination. If they do it here then all the funds should go towards the NHS.

Could you explain how it is different from mandatory vaccination, as is planned in Austria?

In both cases, the state will demand a sum of your money if you aren't vaccinated.

I really don't care tbh. People want a choice whether or not to be vaccinated, they will still have that. I think most people know at this stage is that the biggest problem with people that choose not to get vaccinated is that they end up taking up space in hospitals putting pressure on health systems. If this fixes that then that is great. Where I am we have sugar tax, we have whopping great taxes on tobacco products, we have minimum alcohol pricing and taxes on alcohol, we have carbon tax, I don't see how this is any different. Just like with alcohol, tobacco, sugar etc you can still make the choice but you pay for it. Nobody says what about the poor when it comes to tobacco tax so I don't see why there is the sudden concern here.

Gooseandmoose - the difference would be that's it not mandatory, you only pay the 'tax' if you're unvaxxed.

I can't imagine it would work in a practical sense, but i can see the appeal for our overburdened NHS. Obviously there would have to be exemptions for children and those who can't have it for medical reasons.

@Flaxmeadow it’s not misinformation.
This is from the Guardian 31st December

“ According the latest data released on Friday by the UKHSA, two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid jabs offer little protection against symptomatic infection, while 20 weeks after a second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna jabs, protection against Omicron is only about 10%.”

It then goes on to say

“However booster vaccinations have been found to ramp up this protection to about 65-75% two to four weeks after the jab, falling to about 40-50% protection from 10 or more weeks after the booster.”

The vaccine itself isn’t effective and the booster is required.

And it also admits in the same article that omricon is mild even for the unvaccinated.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/31/what-do-we-know-about-the-omicron-covid-variant-so-far

Recent headlines show that 60% or more critical care patients are unvaccinated. It's incredibly frustrating for doctors and nurses and incredibly costly to us, the taxpayers, not to mention the emotional toll on family and friends.

So if a tax encourages more people to get vaccinated I think it's worth at least looking into.

@Vargas

Gooseandmoose - the difference would be that's it not mandatory, you only pay the 'tax' if you're unvaxxed.

I can't imagine it would work in a practical sense, but i can see the appeal for our overburdened NHS. Obviously there would have to be exemptions for children and those who can't have it for medical reasons.

But it's effectively the same thing. The difference is purely semantic.

Unvaxxed = obligated to pay financially.

Calling it a tax just makes it sound more palatable to some. "Tax" sounds more reasonable than "fine"

it’s not misinformation

Your own post tells you it was when it says

“However booster vaccinations have been found to ramp up this protection to about 65-75% two to four weeks after the jab, falling to about 40-50% protection from 10 or more weeks after the booster

So yes, the vaccines DO work against Omicron, especially Moderna and Pfizer, which are both mRNA vaccines

While we debate the ins and outs and make spurious comparisons to a sugar tax, the point being overlooked is that this is a medical intervention. Which should only be undertaken with informed consent.
Taxing/fining/excluding people to ensure their compliance is so far from that I don't even know where to start.
These are not risk-free interventions either. There's a thread just next to this one about heart palpitations after the booster. And you want to mandate that?