Thought of the Day - July 15 2021 - Mandatory Vaccination Debate

A number of countries, frustrated by the domestic uptake level of COVID vaccination are now starting to make vaccinations mandatory. In Europe, Italy, France, and Greece are leading the pack with mandatory vaccination for all healthcare workers. Britain and Australia have done the same for care-home workers. In the US, California and New York are moving incrementally toward compulsory vaccinations in schools and colleges. Kazakstan and Turkmenistan have more or less made COVID vaccination mandatory for all.

Remember there is a spectrum of public policy options concerning vaccination enforcement:

So what about Canada?

As you have seen, significant amounts of public money have been spent on advertising. As you may have noticed, a significant amount of analysis has been spent on the vaccine passports. To date there are no mandatory vaccines across Canada. Our current COVID-19 vaccines have been granted emergency use authorization, not full approval, which might make any policy legally shaky. Moreover, unlike China, for example, Canada is still to authorize any vaccines for those under 12. According to the WHO policy brief on the ethical considerations and caveats of mandatory COVID vaccination, “policy-makers should consider specifically whether vaccines authorized for emergency or conditional use meet an evidentiary threshold for safety sufficient for a mandate.”

Across the provinces, there are quite a variety of approaches to vaccination. Some provinces already have the power to make vaccines mandatory or even forced. In Alberta, for example, legislation presently exists in the Alberta Public Health Act, section 38(1)(c), which authorizes the government to order anyone who is not immunized against an epidemic disease, or who can’t prove immunity to the disease, to be vaccinated. Anyone who refuses will be treated as though they are infected with the disease, and can then be subject to other measures, including being apprehended under a warrant and forced to accept “treatment” to make them non-infectious.

Only three provinces, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba have existing legislated vaccination policies, prescribing, non-COVID, vaccines for children about to enroll in school. BC and Ontario are already allowing children to be COVID-19 vaccinated without their guardians' consent.

So what do I predict for Canada? Well like most issues surrounding COVID, Canada will continue to debate this for some time (neither consultants nor bureaucrats will see a benefit in rapid decision making). In the end, there will be a mish-mash of options.

• We will continue to throw money at the Recommended option, ads and bribes, both nationally and provincially ( Thought of the Day - June 3 2021 - Vaccine Bribes ) .

• We will slowly move forward with vaccine passports at the national level ( Thought of the Day - July 8 2021 - Vaccine Passports Update ).

• There will be varying degrees of mandatory vaccination at the provincial level, including compulsory interventions for care-home clientele.

In short, mandatory vaccinations are just one more complicated item to add to the list of policy issues brought to the fore by COVID.

Cheers

Cliff