Try saying it, to perfect your diction: Impfpflicht.
This German word, in addition to working on lip-tongue coordination, is used to designate compulsory vaccination.
Austria will adoptImpfpflicht from February, and Germany is thinking of imitating it.
In Quebec, the Legault government considers the measure radical. The federal Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, wants the provinces to do it. “I think we’ll get to that one day,” he said on Friday.
In the entourage of Mr. Duclos, we were surprised. He thought aloud, in response to a question about Italy and Greece which will impose vaccination (respectively for 50 years and over and 60 years and over).
Still, it would be less radical than it is claimed. There are a few precedents.
Before COVID-19, the anti-vaccine movement allowed diseases like measles to return1.
In 2016, Australia therefore launched the campaign “ no jab, no pay “. She denies three allowances to families whose children are not vaccinated. This measure was associated with a four percentage point increase in the vaccination rate.
Italy and France have in turn made school attendance conditional on a new series of vaccines, especially against serious meningococcal infections. In 2019, a study published in Eurosurveillance observed an increase in vaccination coverage among our cousins2.
In 2016, after a measles outbreak at Disneyland, California also imposed vaccination. Maine and New York did the same three years later.
And again, it was not unprecedented. US states make school attendance conditional on a series of vaccines – some grant religious or moral exemptions.
In Canada, only Ontario and New Brunswick have this requirement. Quebec relies on free choice, because that would be enough to achieve the desired immunization rate.
To find other examples, we can go much further back, before the first vaccine invented by Edward Jenner in 1796.
Two decades earlier, General George Washington was forcing his troops to become immunized against smallpox by exposing them to a small load of the virus.
Once the first vaccine was developed, in the XIXe century, it was made compulsory in several places such as England (1853) and United Canada (1862).
With his Impfpflicht, Austria is therefore not inventing anything. It perpetuates an old tradition of our societies: to fight against death.
* * *
Since the subject is emotional, I offer a char analogy.
The government is already forcing you to put your child in a safe seat in the back seat.
Getting vaccinated is like sitting your baby in that seat or putting on your own seat belt – the metaphor fits all ages.
Not getting vaccinated is like riding without this protection for yourself. And at a dangerous speed which increases the risk of collision with others. Even if neighboring drivers are properly restrained, some will eventually get injured.
I will summarize again: wearing your seat belt does not prevent you from having an accident, but it does reduce the severity of the injuries. And if others drive slower, the risk of having an accident also decreases.
This is an elementary notion of probability. Sadly, people still don’t understand it. This is why the State must sometimes intervene in order to protect bodies and human beings.
Of course, people who have been vaccinated can also be irresponsible. This is not a convincing argument, however.
Once again, I invoke my Guide to Automotive Ethics: just because drunk drivers kill people does not mean that sober people should be allowed to drive 180 km / h in traffic, on the pretext that they are respect the other rules and trust their braking system …
* * *
Austria, Greece and Italy are not going to tie up the recalcitrant by force to inject them with a dose. They will give them monthly fines – 100 euros in Greece, and up to 1200 euros in Austria.
In Quebec, Prime Minister François Legault asked the Minister of Finance to find financial incentives. Consideration is being given to charging more for unvaccinated patients. This measure has two limitations. It is reactive, because it intervenes after the disease. And it would not be very dissuasive, because a person who refuses the vaccine underestimates their risk of being hospitalized.
I repeat my question: what do we want to do exactly? To reduce contamination and hospitalizations, action must be taken upstream. This is what compulsory vaccination does.
Of course, several legitimate objections exist.
Some argue that the current crisis stems from the poverty of our health network and the management of the Legault government. Very possible, but countries with a system deemed to be better, such as France and Italy3, are also outdated.
Others fear that compulsory vaccination will radicalize the unvaccinated, some of whom are ordinary people who are reluctant to roll up their sleeves for a multitude of reasons. This is true, and that is why the provocative tone should be avoided.
Finally, there are those who remind us that coercion will affect disadvantaged communities more. They are right, but we must also not forget another category of vulnerable people: patients victims of load shedding. Unlike an unvaccinated one, these patients cannot choose to change category. They cannot decide not to have cancer anymore.
So much for the critics. Due to the latter two, the World Health Organization (WHO) does not recommend compulsory vaccination4.
Indeed, it is better to start by expanding the vaccination passport at work and in shops. This reduces the risk of infection without compromising the right to dispose of one’s body, a fundamental principle.
Compulsory vaccination should remain a solution of last resort. But we are approaching this final stage.
It is authorized in the Public health law, adopted in 2001. This was to be used in an extreme situation, and Quebec is currently going through it.
What is drastic is to suspend collective agreements, force a nurse to work and postpone an operation for a person in pain, because too many people have refused to give their share of the effort.
What is radical is all that is happening right now and that we continue to tolerate.