Scientists from Stanford, Indiana and Yale Universities are calling for a “vaccine mandate” when a Covid19 inoculation becomes available.
“Employment suspension or stay-at-home orders,” should be issued, but fines should be discouraged because they can be legally challenged, and “may stoke distrust without improving uptake,” they write.
Penalties for noncompliance, however, should be “relatively substantial” to ensure cooperation.
In their research paper titled, Ensuring Uptake of Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, Drs. Michelle M. Mello, Ross D. Silverman, and Saad B. Omer, argue that an immediate mandate would be too controversial, so a vaccine should be voluntary – at first.
But if “uptake” of the vaccine is not substantial enough within the first several weeks, the vaccine should become obligatory.
They layout 6 “triggers” that would make a Covid vaccine mandatory:
- Covid-19 is not adequately contained in the state.
- The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has recommended vaccination for the groups for which a mandate is being considered.
- The supply of vaccine is sufficient to cover the population groups for which a mandate is being considered.
- Available evidence about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine has been transparently communicated.
- The state has created infrastructure to provide access to vaccination without financial or logistic barriers, compensation to workers who have adverse effects from a required vaccine, and real-time surveillance of vaccine side effects.
- In a time-limited evaluation, voluntary uptake of the vaccine among high-priority groups has fallen short of the level required to prevent epidemic spread.
They recommend certain “high risk groups” be forced to take any vaccine first.
“[T]he elderly, health professionals working in high-risk situations or working with high-risk patients…persons with certain underlying medical conditions,” as well as those in “high-density settings such as prisons and dormitories” should be among the first to get the vaccine, the doctors say.
It also suggests that active-duty military service members should be among the first that are forced to get one.