Discrimination
The use of vaccination status to determine the extent of an individual’s freedom of movement and access to education has profound legal and ethical implications and amounts to an infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms, granted by international treaties, constitutions and the laws of most, if not all, industrialised countries.
Additionally, such infringement of rights and freedoms for individuals who have reasonable justification to avoid COVID-19 vaccination on scientific and medical grounds, amounts to discrimination against this group.
This tension between public health, on one hand, and the rights and liberties of an individual, on the other, is inevitable given public health is primarily concerned with the health of entire populations, rather than the health of individuals. But the basis of mass vaccination is predicated on a questionable and theoretical concept of ‘zero- covid’, in which protagonists uphold, without any ability to provide evidence, that mass vaccination of the global population will eliminate SARS-CoV-2.
A feature in the journal Nature referred to this as a “beautiful dream [that] most scientists think is improbable”. The author went on to say that of 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists working on SARS-CoV-2 that the journal surveyed, 90% believed the virus could not be eradicated and would remain endemic for years regardless of the promise offered by vaccines.
Regardless of its merits or scientific basis, the implementation of public health guidance and policy does not mean that the health, rights and freedoms of the individuals, especially those in minority groups with valid justification to avoid a recommended public health intervention such as vaccination, should be discounted. This is especially the case when the scientific grounds on which the public health policy is based are unproven, untested and potentially flawed. Moreover, to overlook any individual’s inalienable rights and liberties amounts to a breach of that individual’s human rights.
The public health principle of least infringement states, “…that among available options to achieve a public health goal, policy-makers should choose the option that least infringes individual liberties.”
We argue here that the tenets of this all-important public health principle have been universally flouted by governments and health authorities because many of the other mechanisms used to provide a high level of public health protection from respiratory infections have been insufficiently prioritised. These include: early treatment of COVID-19 disease, e.g. using protocols such as those proposed by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), improved prevention of COVID-19 disease, improved shielding of vulnerable populations, and improving social determinants of health that will substantially reduce the risk of comorbidities and therefore also the risk of severe COVID-19 disease as a result of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Vaccine mandates are increasingly being applied de facto to those wishing to exercise their full range of fundamental rights, such as freedom of movement, a right to education, a private life and religious or other beliefs. Such coercion creates inequities by creating a two-tiered society in which vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are forced to exercise their rights and liberties to differing extents. While it has been widely recognized that these inequities will be driven to some extent by inequality of access to vaccines, with low-income countries having less equitable access, there has been little consideration of inequities among those who have access to vaccines, but have reasons to not consent to their use.
It is thus important to not discriminate against sub-groups, regardless of their country of residence, who make medically-based decisions to avoid vaccination, and who currently face sanctions or infringements of rights that are granted to their more privileged, vaccinated peers.
Such inequities are entirely unjustifiable, especially given the lack of certainty over the ability of vaccines to prevent infection and transmission of currently circulating or future variants of SARS-CoV-2, and potentially serious adverse effects, particularly in certain population groups, such as those suffering from or a risk of autoimmune conditions or risk.
Oskar Gstrein and colleagues, from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society of Oxford, proposed that vaccine passports provide “no clear and straightforward connection to safety and security,” and added, “…their rapid introduction might have similar consequences to opening Pandora’s box of discrimination and stigmatisation.”