Should COVID Vaccines Be Mandatory?

Considering the right balance between freedom and safety

Austria announced this month that vaccination against COVID-19 would be mandatory from February 2022. This makes the alpine republic the first western country to legally impose the jab upon its citizens. Other major countries like Germany are said to be considering such a move. This is not an insignificant line crossed in the relationship between the state and the individual.

The case for states to make such a move is that politicians may feel this is the only way to defend against the virus. Given that a certain proportion of a population needs to be vaccinated to control the number of severe cases (in order for hospitals to cope), perhaps the only solution is to force uptake by law.

Where people have objections to the vaccine, our best scientific knowledge is that the risks associated with the vaccine are very low and that they reduce the chances of infection, as well as reduce the severity of symptoms. Governments are therefore overruling such objections, effectively saying for safety’s sake the matter is not up for individual debate.

A health crisis may be one area in which we feel comfortable with the state taking such drastic action. However, with any crisis, it is important to try and figure out what response is not justified. In the name of terrorism, climate change, or the coronavirus we see nations adopting more power and control over individual lives, but rarely do we define what ‘too far’ might look like. It is unlikely that any crisis is so severe that any measure is justified, and so we must stay wary of the creeping influence of the state.

Michael Shellenberger, author of Apocalypse Never, encapsulated this idea succinctly when he said: “We no longer suffer from our problems as much as we suffer from our solutions.”

One problem with mandatory vaccines is that many people opposed to the vaccine are already suspicious of big government. This likely means there will be diminishing returns from the exercise of increasingly extreme state powers, with an increased likelihood of a serious backlash. In countries like America, where suspicion of the state runs high in libertarian circles, individuals are not mild in their opposition of…

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