Five Common Objections to Mandatory Vaccination for Healthcare Workers: A Medical Ethicist's View

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Northerner

Northerner

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The policy of mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers goes against 'bodily autonomy'

Calling the policy 'mandatory vaccination' is a misnomer. The policy is more accurately described as 'vaccination as a condition of deployment'. In brief, the policy requires all persons over 18 with direct, face-to-face contact with patients to provide evidence that they have received a complete course of approved vaccines against Covid-19 by no later than April 1, 2022. Those who fall foul of the policy will either be redeployed to roles that are not patient-facing or dismissed.

In no circumstances will a healthcare worker who declines vaccination be forced to accept it. There will be no infringement of bodily autonomy.

 
I've had vaccinations as a condition of deployment in some of my jobs.
Exactly as it says there.
 
Amity Island said:
@mikeyB

I don't think he is saying anything contrary. I think what he is saying is that vaccinated or not, the chances are everyone is going to catch the coronavirus at some point. We only need to look to the most vaccinated areas to see that this is the case. e.g Israel and Netherlands

"Covid ICU admissions in Israel hit record levels this week, reaching 130.5 per million on January 26th 2022"
"Despite 90% vaccination in Netherlands we are seeing record case numbers"
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Do you believe a vaccine works by stopping you catching covid, as you seem to mention this a lot?
 
I had two jabs and the same week that I was offered the booster I had the Omicron version, but it was quite mild and I might easily have gone to work thinking it was a bad cold in the first couple of days before definite symptoms.
I had quite a bad reaction to the first AZ jab, felt really ill and my legs and feet were very swollen, which was very worrying and I felt lucky when I remembered that gingko biloba might help with circulation, and it did, so I can quite understand that a nurse, on their feet all day, might not feel that it was worth the risk of being vaccinated.
 
Amity Island said:
Thanks. I've amended it from "catch" to "get".
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Vaccinations won't stop you getting covid.
Only a biohazard class respirator system would stop that happening.
(A mask is still fairly good though)
 
Amity Island said:
Surely a measles vaccine stops you getting measles? A chicken pox vaccine stops you getting chicken pox? Tetanus vaccine stops you getting tetanus?
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In terms of infection, I think we just don't know. I get the impression that virologists think that if we tested enough people with PCR we'd find at least some (those who'd been exposed to the viruses) who tested positive for the measles, etc., viruses. There are obvious differences in the ways they spread (so as I understand it it's not a big deal if I get infected with the measles virus since I can't spread it asymptomatically, whereas that's not true for many of the respiratory viruses).

(It's a question that came up on This Week in Virology more than once. The only vaccine they could think of which prevented infection was HPV.)
 
Amity Island said:
Surely a measles vaccine stops you getting measles? A chicken pox vaccine stops you getting chicken pox? Tetanus vaccine stops you getting tetanus?
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No, you still get it.

Your body just has it's defences primed, so it is less severe, or doesn't develop at all.
You are confusing the pathogen with the disease.



www.who.int

How do vaccines work?

www.who.int www.who.int
 
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Another reason why I am more relaxed about covid now in fact.
Unvaccinated, at the start of the zombie apocalypse, reasonable chance I would die.
Vaccinated, reasonable chance I'd live.
Omicron variant, vaccinated, even better chance.
If I can stack the deck in my favour, well........
 
Bruce Stephens said:
Yes, really good chance it'll be nothing more than an annoying cold.

I must admit I don't buy that. I doubt Omicron's much different. What's changed is our immunity (through vaccination, recovery from infection, and death).
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Omicron is different.
Previous variants were predisposed to replicate faster in lung tissue, omicron is primarily a bronchi infection.

Which fits the viral pattern.
This virus is like any other living parasite that needs a host, and can't lie dormant without one and still survive.
The ones that ultimately kill the host die off, the ones that don't survive.
This one is also a lot more infectious, as it replicates in the airways, so the viral load from a sneeze for example is much higher than if the main area of replication was in the lungs.
Evolution in action.
 
Amity Island said:
I understand what you are saying @travellor , but what I am saying is i've never seen anybody with measels or tetanus who has been vaccinated.

What Dr Steve James is saying to Nigel Farage is that the chances of developing covid19 is no different whether vaccinated or not and thus, why would such a vaccine be mandated? From what I understand the vaccines can help reduce mortality and hospitalisation with covid, although Israel now has record numbers in ICU and Netherlands has record cases.

He is not saying don't get vaccinated, just that the given reasons for mandating them doesn't fit with what is happening.
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You won't see it, because the bodies immunity system is primed to go as soon at the infections take place.
You only "see" something like measles after the infection takes a hold in unvaccinated people for the period the body needs to program the immune system to make its own antibodies, then the infection is (hopefully) beaten back.
 
Amity Island said:
Yes, so why doesn't that happen with the covid vax? Why still so many getting sick and going to hospital and ICU?
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Because covid isn't measles.
You really do need to read up on the basics of vaccination and how the immune system actually works.
 
Amity Island said:
All I know is, I don't know of anyone ever getting measles or tetanus after vaccination. Would you take a vaccine for tetanus if you were told it wouldn't stop you getting tetanus?

Is it just me or do I not understand something?
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It's you.
I've had most vaccines going.
Measles stops me showing symptoms.
Rabies gives me time to get a medivac.

Or something inbetween.
 
The way I see it, is that covid vaccines are more like a seat belt in a car. They won't stop you getting hurt in an accident, but if you do, it decreases the risk of injury in the accident.
There's an article in the British Medical Journal about the proportion of patients in Critical Care or admitted to hospital who are unvaccinated.
Critical care:
"...published on 31 December, showed that the proportion of patients admitted to critical care in December 2021 with confirmed covid-19 who were unvaccinated was 61%. This proportion had previously fallen from 75% in May 2021 to 47% in October 2021."
Hospital admissions:
"...unvaccinated adults are as much as eight times more likely to be admitted to hospital than those who have been vaccinated and that booster doses are 88% effective at preventing hospital admission".

The proportion of people who have had at least one covid vaccination in Scotland is "92% of those aged 12 and over with at least one dose, while Wales and England have reached 91% and Northern Ireland 89%."

So I guess, just as I wear a seatbelt in a car, despite the fact that being vaccinated won't absolutely stop me from catching covid, that it increases the chance of keeping me out of hospital, or gives me a better chance of being mildly unwell, rather than wildly unwell, is one I'm happy to take.
 
Amity Island said:
Yes, e.g stops you getting sick.

That's what I am saying (and have been trying to explain). The tetanus vaccine stops you getting (ill with) tetanus. The chicken pox vaccine stops you getting (ill with) chicken pox. Hepb vaccine stops you getting (ill with) Hepb.

Or do you disagree and believe the purpose of vaccines is not to prevent illness?
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No, no guarantee at all they stop you getting "sick".
I merely said what the measles vaccine did personally for me, many years ago if I remember. My unvaccinated brother didn't have the same benefit.
And fortunately I haven't had to put the rabies vaccine to the test.
As I say, I would only trust it to buy me time.
A first world medical facility would be high on my agenda after that.

You really, really need to try to get an I understanding of the basic immune system before you keep posting continuously on anti vaccine theories.
 
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Amity Island said:
............ Of course a vaccine won't stop you "catching" anything. That's not how they work......
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I think you've finally got there.
Either way, I'm out now, with my booster shot due before September to keep my immune system topped up, and vaccine passport up to date.
 
Amity Island said:
Hi Windy,

That is what Dr Steve James is basically saying too, hence why he is questioning the mandates. He is not suggesting anything wrong with the vaccines or advising people not to take them, or that they don't help avoid hospital or ICU. It's just about the mandates.

Clive Dix former head of the vaccine task force said about the design of the vaccines "Indeed the vaccines were not designed to end transmission". Which is quite clear in Israel and the Nertherlands.

www.telegraph.co.uk

The booster strategy makes little sense

We must strike a balance. It is not right that support for chronic conditions will be delayed by boosters for people in their 20s
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
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Fair point, but for me it's about looking after myself, and also looking after other people, and not over burdening the health service by getting extremely sick with Covid because I've not lowered my risk by being vaccinated.

There's an Imperial study which looked at the transmissability of covid (delta variant, rather than the current, more transmissable one) which "found that around 25% of vaccinated household contacts tested positive for COVID-19 compared with roughly 38% of unvaccinated household contacts."
So there's still transmission, but I'm happier knowing that I'm protecting myself, and also protecting others. I appreciate 25% to 38% isn't massive, but if it decreases the risk of me killing someone's granny by giving them Covid unknowingly, I'm fine with that.

Fascinating subject. I kind of wished I'd have done biology or something medical at university.

Keep yourself safe @Amity Island 🙂
 
From what I understand of the data, fully vaccinated people are somewhat (not 100%) protected against developing COVID-19 following exposure to sarscov2 (their immune system is primed and ready to do battle).

They also significantly reduce the risk of Covid 19 becoming a severe case, and requiring hospitalisation.

And they also reduce the possibility of you spreading the virus.

To my simplistic view, the more viral matter you are exposed to, the higher the risk of infection. If two people are exposed to 100 wiffles (my newly coined technical term) of sarscov2 and one is vaccinated while the other isn’t, the unvaccinated person has far more chance of those wiffles being able to multiply and become a case of COVID-19.

Say the vaccine only reduces your wifflage by 35% (made up number). That’s still a lot fewer wiffles trying to get the better of you. And it’s also fewer wiffles for you to spread around before you know you have wiffled them.

Maybe you need to reach 200 wiffles before COVID-19 happens. Well 100 one day was bad luck, but the following day unvaccinated Bob unfortunately gets coughed on with another 100 wiffles in the cafe queue, while vaccinated Pete (who is down to 65 wiffles at this point) gets away with a running total of 165 and doesn’t make the Covid cutoff. And then is down to 130 by the following day because his vaccine-primed immune system cracks on. Meanwhile, poor Bob has his wiffles multiplying to 250-300 before he knows it, as his immune system is fighting in the dark.

Of course if the cougher had been wearing a mask like they were supposed to be at that point it would have caught 60-70 of the coughed wiffles, and both Bob and Pete would have been below the cut, and had more time for their immune system to get into gear. But that’s another topic.

If I am seeing a healthcare professional, who by nature of their work is in quite a wiffly environment, I would really prefer them to have the best chance of having as few wiffles as possible. Partly because it makes it more likely that they will still be able to be in work (so my appointment can go ahead), but also because they’ll have fewer wiffles to potentially pass on to me - especially if I am pretty poorly already.

:D
 
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