Refusing services to unvaccinated. What are your thoughts?

[TheChip]

I'm just curious to hear of people's thoughts on this.
I have currently been refused a service due to being unvaccinated, in the UK. Its not a service that would require close proximity like a hairdresser, but in the same space for a period of time.

My thoughts on it are while I understand and respect people's choices and comfort levels, I do find it hard to grasp when the virus is both passed between those vaccinated or unvaccinated. Even if you throw in the comments about how vaccination reduces transmission, it is still transmissible.

I would have been more than willing to LFT before every contact, and wear a mask. But this wasn't an option. Which I guess is the part I find most difficult to understand. That they would be comfortable and willing to be around those vaccinated, possibly even without testing. Which I'd expect testing to be expected for both vaccinated and unvaccinated for someone who is clearly so uncomfortable.

So yeah, what are your thoughts

As an unvaccinated person you are exercising your freedom of choice (and rightly so) not to be vaccinated. You expect that others respect your choice and not to judge you. I fully support you with this - this is absolutely your choice and right.

What I struggle slightly with if I’m honest is whether, if freedom of choice is so important to you, do you also respect the choice of the driving instructor not to provide a service to you?

If we genuinely have freedom of choice, I feel that freedom should work both ways (barring discriminatory behaviour).

I personally wouldn’t care whether or not you are vaccinated and you would be welcome in my car should I have a driving school but clearly the instructor has different opinions to you. I feel we have to also respect the right of the instructor to hold that different opinion. Wishing her business to fail because she holds a particular opinion seems a little harsh to me.

Good luck with your lessons though! 🙂

@Frogsonglue

Well that's ridiculous isn't it. I know loads of vaccinated people who have caught and passed Covid on in recent months, myself included

Completly agree.

This is what happens when behavioural scientists are in charge of responding to a medical crisis.

There is so much conflicting nonsensical information flying around that people can't make rational choices.

Apparently everyone is going to run to get vaccinated in June though, what is happening then

Their choice. They no doubt have their reasons. Just as it's your choice whether or not to be vaccinated and no doubt you have your reasons to reject vaccination.

Very silly of you to say you're not in 'close proximity' to them, though. I can't imagine many situations where you would be in closer proximity for such a prolonged period of time. And it's not always feasible to have the windows open. You need to be able to hear your instructor and they may need to reach across you to grab the wheel. If you're in a noisy area or it's windy outside, you need to have the windows shut so you can hear what your instructor is saying.

I do not blame a driving instructor for wanting to avoid unvaccinated people. It was a good call for them to make and I would do the same

A hairdresser is at a higher risk imo

But with respect, OP, this is not about your risk assessment. This is about the driving instructor making decisions on the risks that they are willing to take. For whatever reason, they don't want to teach people who have chosen not to get the vaccine. That's their prerogative.

If you want people to respect your right to choose, then I'm afraid you have to respect theirs.

If you want people to respect your choice, surely you can extend that courtesy to others?

A hairdresser tends to be more behind you whereas there is more face to face contact or at least side to side with a driving instructor. Also they will be with you for a couple of hours every week whereas most people don't go to the hairdresser for a few hours every week. Unfortunately it is a sellers market for driving lessons at the moment and because you will only need to learn once I guess they aren't as concerned long term about loosing your business because by that time someone else will be learning to drive.

Could the driving instructor have asked for proof or checked?
Not that you should lie or should have to lie but can’t see how they would know even if you had said you were fully vaccinated. Can they check?
I think it’s pretty disgusting! I’m triple vaccinated but my dh has decided against it and has no jabs at all. I can’t believe it’s come to this I really can’t. I have no interest in what jabs anyone else has had.

Certainly in our area, driving lessons have long waiting lists and are much in demand. Sounds like this instructor can pick and choose their clients at the moment- I wouldn’t choose an unvaccinated client in their position either, if I’m honest.

Of course they are reasonable. I wouldn't fancy sitting in a car for an hour with someone unvaccinated sitting beside me, even less so if it was my livelihood.

You had a choice about whether to have the vaccine but you don't get to decide how others will feel about that choice.

Equally though, you get a choice on whether to provide a service to unvaccinated individuals but you don’t get to decide how people feel about that.
I’m extremely pro vax, I volunteered for the trials and at vaccine centres and had my doses as soon as I was eligible. I wouldn’t use a service that refused to have someone who was unvaccinated as a customer/client. I firmly disagree with it and would go elsewhere. And of course, they are within their rights to not care about that.

I did state that I understand and respect people's choices and comfort levels.
I just simply take my business elsewhere.

My concerns are that in this case, it seems like the issue is that I am unvaccinated. Like I said, I could have LFT before each lesson but that wasn't an option or even a requirement. So that means, it's quite possible that vaccinated people are more of a risk than I would have been. Which means the whole reason for the refusal was only because of my vaccination status. Or at least, that is how it seems.

I just personally don't understand that stance.

The pp who mentioned about the isolation periods makes a lot of sense though. I'd like to hope that was the reasoning behind it and not because of vaccination status.

Think entirely reasonable for a driving instructor to take this view. They would need to spend an hour with you in the car.
If you test they have no way of knowing you did it properly.
Their business, their health, their risk.

@TheChip

But their vaccinated pupils are just as much likely to infect them as I am. If not more so if they aren't being asked to test beforehand.

No they're not, because vaccinated pupils are much less likely to have caught it in the first place.

Lft testing each time is only fair if people are paying for their own tests. Why should people who choose not to vaccinate have to be further subsidised by everyone else?

In this situation I think they have a right to choose who they gave in the car with them.
Anything medical is different.

@EnviroLeg

As an unvaccinated person you are exercising your freedom of choice (and rightly so) not to be vaccinated. You expect that others respect your choice and not to judge you. I fully support you with this - this is absolutely your choice and right.

What I struggle slightly with if I’m honest is whether, if freedom of choice is so important to you, do you also respect the choice of the driving instructor not to provide a service to you?

If we genuinely have freedom of choice, I feel that freedom should work both ways (barring discriminatory behaviour).

I personally wouldn’t care whether or not you are vaccinated and you would be welcome in my car should I have a driving school but clearly the instructor has different opinions to you. I feel we have to also respect the right of the instructor to hold that different opinion. Wishing her business to fail because she holds a particular opinion seems a little harsh to me.

Good luck with your lessons though! 🙂

The question is how can we know if OP is being discriminated against?

There was a time not so long ago when gay men were refused services because people were afraid they would catch AIDS from them.

My thoughts are that a lot of people have had the first 3 rounds of vaccination in good faith to move on from the pandemic and do their bit.

However, if vaccination becomes a requirement for too many services
and we let those requirements take hold, then there will be pressure on government and unnecessary cost of further vaccinations in the future for persons who do not really need them. It is already happening in the travel industry on a large scale. Both testing and vaccination at the height of the pandemic were absolutely necessary, but as we move away from that, they become unnecessary (used in the wrong context) and very significant costs for the taxpayer.
I wonder whether in the future we will end up with the opposite, aka laws to stop arbitrary discrimination based on vaccine status.

Unless they are legally required to check your vaccine passport, or they are asking if you have a medical condition which could affect the service ( eg epilepsy for driving?) I don’t think a private company has any right to ask about your private medical history do they?

I did state that I understand and respect people's choices and comfort levels. I just simply take my business elsewhere.

In fairness, it doesn't sound like you have much choice but to take your business elsewhere. And of course, some vaccinated customers may also choose to take their business elsewhere if they don't agree with the stance that the instructor has adopted. That's a risk they they have to weigh up as part of their risk assessment. Choices all round.

My anti-vax friend said this would happen at the beginning of the pandemic. I said no one was forced to have the vaccine and she said just wait until they start excluding those who haven’t from various things until they feel forced into getting it to do basic things. I thought she was being ridiculous but here we are with people being told they will lose their jobs and being excluded from services.

I think it’s pretty disgusting! I’m triple vaccinated but my dh has decided against it and has no jabs at all. I can’t believe it’s come to this I really can’t. I have no interest in what jabs anyone else has had.

I think you need to take a step backwards and consider what everyone has been through.

If you look back, we have had almost two years of fear, grief, lies, confusion, lockdown restrictions, lost earnings, economic hardship, government hypocrisy, vaccination hype and vaccination hysteria. We are all very tired and weary at this point and, given the lack of effective or trustworthy leadership in this country, it's up to us to make up our minds where to draw our own boundaries.

On that basis, although it's not a choice I make myself, I can't really get worked up about someone making the judgement that they would prefer not to be in close contact with unvaccinated clients. Likewise, I don't think anyone who chooses not to be vaccinated is 'selfish'. We have to make our own risk assessments at this point. This is a world after all where it is government guidance that children testing negative in Covid-positive households are ok to go to school.

"Whether you are vaccinated or not is medical information, and a private business surely has no right to know about any of that."

They don't have a right to know so you can refuse to tell them and they can refuse to do business with you because of that.

@Staffy1

My anti-vax friend said this would happen at the beginning of the pandemic. I said no one was forced to have the vaccine and she said just wait until they start excluding those who haven’t from various things until they feel forced into getting it to do basic things. I thought she was being ridiculous but here we are with people being told they will lose their jobs and being excluded from services.

'Conspiracy theories' keep coming true

If she’s CEV or has a CEV relative her anxiety will be high.

At the end of the day it’s her bat and ball.