Restrictions, fines, expansion of the vaccine passport: more and more governments are taking drastic measures to convince the unvaccinated. Are these measures persuasive?
Although financial penalties may convince some, the possible gains of this kind of measure on the unvaccinated population remain uncertain, according to Ève Dubé, medical anthropologist at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ).
A significant proportion of non-vaccinated people in Quebec have “significant access barriers”, such as people who are homeless, workers in precarious situations, people with a digital divide or newcomers who are little reached by our system, reminds Mme Dube.
“This kind of penalty will impose a significant burden on them or will not reach them,” she believes, noting that it is difficult to decide pending details of the implementation methods.
Among people with attitudes very opposed to vaccination, ie the “other proportion” of the non-vaccinated, these penalties could even have a rebound effect. “We know that the more we have attitudes firmly opposed to vaccination, the more we will react badly to coercive measures. […] We saw it with health care workers, even under the threat of losing their jobs, many did not go to get vaccinated,” observes the INSPQ specialist.
The “health contribution” announced Tuesday by Quebec, however, seems to have caused an increase in interest in getting a first dose: 7,369 appointments were booked on the day of the announcement by Prime Minister François Legault at a press conference.
This is a record for the previous 7 days, with 2,200 appointments more than the day before and more than 4,000 than two days earlier.
Nearly 2,000 of these appointments, however, have been reserved for children aged 5 to 11, for whom vaccination opened last month. 25-29 year olds are the second age group to have booked the most appointments (763), followed by 30-34 year olds (720).
“We know that there are several reasons why people hesitate to get vaccinated, including the risk-benefit balance. If we don’t find the disease so serious and we are afraid of the side effects of vaccines, we lack motivation. [Pour ces gens], the health contribution or the vaccination passport can influence them,” explains Ève Dubé.
Appointments of all age groups increased for the day of January 11, and particularly among 30-34 year olds, whose appointments for a first dose doubled in a single day. The number of appointments for 18-24 and 25-29 year olds also almost doubled compared to the previous day.
Penalties for older people
Although it is difficult to measure the impact of the financial sanctions imposed on the unvaccinated in the context of the pandemic, they do not seem to have caused a significant rebound in the administration of first doses.
In Italy, the government recently decided to introduce compulsory vaccination for all people over 50, under penalty of a fine of 100 euros for refractory.
To give people time to make an appointment, the sanctions will only apply from 1er February. The decree still does not specify whether it would be a one-time or recurring fine.
Since the announcement on January 5, there has been a jump in injections of first doses across the country. Nearly 70,000 people went for a first dose for the day of January 11, the highest number of first doses administered in a single day since the beginning of October.
More than 580,700 doses of vaccine (first, second and third) were also administered for the day of January 11, a peak since June 2021.
However, this recent rise also coincides with the recent tightening of health measures. Since Monday, proof of vaccination is now required to enter almost all public places and public transport.
Compulsory vaccination will also be introduced from January 16 for anyone aged 60 and over in Greece, under penalty of a fine of 100 euros every month. After a modest increase in the first doses administered in the days following the announcement, they quickly fell back below the 10,000 daily injections mark.