The Economist January 22nd 2022

The Economist January 22nd 2022

Vaccine mandates_권한

Must you be jabbed_예방주사?

 

Arguments over compulsory_강제적인 covid-19 vaccination are raging across Europe

 

earlier this month President Emman­ uel Macron_마크롱 대통령 said

he wished to “piss off”
those who had chosen not to be vaccinated against covid19.

France’s 5m unjabbed people will soon be barred_차단 from restau­rants, theatres and long­distance trains, among other things. Yet they might con­sider themselves lucky.

Italy and Greece have passed laws making vaccination obligatory_의무적인 for all residents over 50 and 60 respectively_각각.

Austria has just done so for all adults, and Germany may follow suit.

Most European countries have already excluded_제외하다 unvaccinated people from large swathes of public life, to varying 변화하는 effect (see Graphic detail).

In many places jabs are a condition of employment in hospitals and care homes.

But facing a stubborn완고한 wall of vaccine scepticism 회의론, some governments have gone one step further.

“I would have preferred to go another way. But…we need to take this drastic 과감한 step,” said Alexander Schallenberg, Austria’s then chancellor 수상, announcing the plan in November.

Austria and Germany have some of the lowest vac­cination rates in western Europe.
Many feel queasy 메스꺼운 , 초조한 at the prospect of gov­ernments ordering them to have needles stuck in their arms. Proponents 지지자 counter 반박하다 that the unvaccinated erode 침식시키다, 무너뜨리다 the freedom of other citizens by swamping 쇄도하다/ 뒤덮다 health­care systems and making new lockdowns more likely. 

 

Either way 어느 쪽이든, compulsory vaccination carries several potential risks.
Start with the legal and logistical pro­blems.

Austria’s law, which will apply to 7.4m people—all residents over18 bar preg­nant women and those with medical ex­ emptions—will take effect on February 1st.

From mid­ March the unjabbed face fines of at least €600 ($680), with further checks and fines applicable 적용되는 every quarter.

 

But the agency responsible for the vaccine registry says it will not be ready until April. (Spot­ checks will apply before then.) The legal system could buckle if many refuseniks opt for fines over jabs. Germany, where parliament will debate vaccine mandates next week, does not even have a registry, making enforcement look yet trickier.
Moreover, constitutional courts will frown on mandates that look premature or disproportionate. Many reckon European governments could do more to balance the stick of restrictions with the carrot of bet­ ter outreach. Rather than simply impose top­down measures, they could find vacci­ nation champions in communities with large numbers of unjabbed people, includ­ ing some minority groups.

A second concern is epidemiological 역학적. The German and Austrian mandates were proposed when the Delta variant was dom­ inant. But laws may not prove as adaptable as the sars­Cov­2 virus. What if the next variant requires a modified vaccine, or a fresh booster? For Janosch Dahmen, a Ger­ man Green mp and doctor, uncertainty sur­rounding the behaviour of future variants is a strong reason to press ahead with (well­designed) compulsory vaccination now. Others disagree. A leading Austrian virologist urged the country to rethink its plan in the face of the widespread immuni­ ty the Omicron wave will confer.

A third worry is backlash 반발. Most Ger­mans support compulsion.

But although moving from nudges to mandates may in­ duce some sceptics to get the jab, others may become implacable foes. Anti­vax protests, many of them fuelled by the far right and prone to violence, are spreading rapidly. A vaccine mandate will surely swell them further. To avoid creating social “fissures” the Czechs recently scrapped a plan to oblige over­60s to get jabbed. (The age­limited mandates in Greece and Italy have proved less contentious.)

 

No one knows if compulsion will work. One Austrian panel found that roughly two­thirds of the 1m remaining unjabbed adults were unlikely to get vaccinated at any cost. But such surveys have their lim­its.

 

The French, for example, turned out to be more relaxed about jabs than polls 여론조사 had once suggested. As other countries grapple 씨름하다 with their vaccine hold­outs 버티기, they will be watching the experiments in the German­ speaking countries closely. n