No Jab, No Job
The case of mandatory vaccination
Yesterday Tyson Foods, the biggest United States food company announced that it will mandate COVID-19 vaccination for its near 140,000 employees. Last week the Department of Veteran Affairs became the first United States government agency to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for its employees which includes registered nurses, physicians, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists and chiropractors.
This follows the Australian prime minister polarizing Australia by announcing mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for aged care workers. By mid-September this year all Australian residential aged care workers will need to have had at least their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine or they will lose their job. There is a growing list of businesses and employee groups globally being told that COVID-19 vaccination is a condition of their employment.
No jab means no job!
When the talk of mandatory vaccination commenced, I wasn’t surprised. Since the global pandemic was first declared we’ve heard from our national leaders of the importance of protecting our ‘most vulnerable citizens’.
According to the Worldometer Coronavirus Death Toll, there have been over 4.2 million COVID-19 related deaths (as at 1050am (GMT+10) 5/8/2021), with the majority reported in people over the age of 70 years. Due to the normal physiological changes associated with aging as well as the increased presence of chronic medical conditions in the elderly, there is no questioning the significant risk older people face if they contract COVID-19.
Initially, to me, the ‘no jab, no job’ mandate felt like a reasonable objective non-issue, a wise decision made by our leaders in their endeavor to protect the susceptibilities of our elderly.
I remember when I first started working in a nursing home 25 years ago as a personal carer. I didn’t ask questions over the requirement to get my hepatitis B vaccination. I didn’t read about the vaccination, didn’t consider any potential risks or side effects, just waddled down to my doctor’s clinic, had the jab and started working in aged care fairly soon afterwards.
Perhaps I was just young, naïve and much better looking then, so the thought of a vaccination, its potential risks or my individual human rights didn’t take up much of my brain space. Granted, that vaccination had been around a lot longer than the COVID-19 infant.
Fast forward to the present. We’re all much more vocal about our basic human rights, our right to choose, to be well informed and to make our own decisions. Being ‘forced’ to do something doesn’t sit well with many of us, despite any suitable rationale.
I confess to feeling uneasy when I ‘check in’ at restaurants and shopping centers, being aware that the government now knows where I am ALL THE TIME. In saying that, I do still ‘check in’, with my ‘social responsibility’ cortex overriding my fear of being communized.
Mask wearing has been another mandate and I’m sure most of us have seen video-footage of a self-professed vigilante refusing the mask in the name of human rights.
Of course, there are some big differences between ‘checking in’, mask wearing and injecting something into our bodies. Despite leadership reporting the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine sprouting the rigorous analysis of its ingredients, chemistry, clinical trial data and manufacturing, the one thing we simply don’t have is the analysis of long-term data.
The older I get, the shorter a year feels, so no one can convince me that longitudinal analysis has magically occurred over a 12-month period. With this in mind, as well as the reporting of vaccination consequences, such as thrombosis (blood clots) and thrombocytopenia (low platelet levels), it’s not surprising that some people don’t want to blackmailed into having the vaccination.
Social media has evidenced the variety of personal opinions on mandatory vaccination. Here’s a couple of snips from Twitter and Instagram to get the picture and I promise not to correct any grammar:
Health professional bodies have been quick to add to the debate with some outlining their concerns with vaccine mandates in relation to its potential to generate internal rebellion, fueling established staff shortages. If even a small proportion of the ‘willing workforce’ were actually ‘unwilling’, then the healthcare workforce would be in big trouble. Any loss of healthcare workers and in particular, aged care workers would result in decreases in basic care of our older population.
It might seem overly simplistic to weigh it up in this way, but it almost feels that given vaccine mandates, we have two equally terrible options to decide between, either having:
1) adequately staffed healthcare facilities with the acute risk of COVID-19 transmission
or
2) understaffed healthcare facilities with a reduced risk of COVID-19 transmission
I’m not sure how to quantitatively decide between these two options. I try to think objectively about it. If my elderly parents were in an aged care facility and an unvaccinated worker passed COVID-19 onto them, then perhaps it’s wrong of me, but I think I would feel pretty upset about that and demand some answers.
Thinking further about it though, if my father was shopping at the supermarket and inadvertently passed by a person with COVID-19 and thus caught COVID-19, I don’t think I’d be as angry at the person buying their cornflakes, as I would a person caring for them in a healthcare facility.
There’s this certain level of expectation when we entrust our loved ones into someone else’s care. But then again, if my mother had been waiting a week for a shower, or had not been given her medication in a timely manner because of staff shortages, I too, would be fairly upset.
Is my anger justified in either case? I’m not quite sure.
I do believe I would be most angry if the care my parents needed wasn’t able to be provided due to staff shortages. COVID-19 or not. I want to be confident that there is always someone available to feed them their dinner, help them get into bed or change their underwear if they have an accident. Herein lays the dilemma as we try to sort through our conflicting emotions and views on the topic of mandatory vaccination.
A good friend of mine works in aged care. I’ve seen her private social media blow up over her anger of ‘being made to have a vaccination.’ The weird thing is, she’s not adverse to getting the vaccination, it’s the fact that she’s being forced to get it. I do wonder if this is the feeling of others.
It’s like when I tell my kids that they ‘have’ to do something that normal humans do like clean their teeth or shower ‘right now’. The whinging and drama that accompanies my outrageous demand is exhausting. However, with a little more coaching and explanation of the pros and cons (my 12-year-old is starting to stink!) and given the option to choose when they shower, they eventually will make the informed decision to take themselves off to the shower.
Informed decision making might actually be the better option, representing an allusive option 3:
3) All people in healthcare facilities are offered the COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible. All healthcare workers (including those who visit such facilities) are suitably educated to make an informed decision about the vaccine. They are offered the best-available vaccination and able to easily access it. They are provided with paid leave if they have any symptoms post vaccination and need a day or two off work to recover.
Option three may avoid the mass exodus of healthcare workers, whilst giving workers the ability to weigh up the individual and community cost-benefit of the vaccine. Whilst it will not result in 100% vaccination rates of all healthcare workers, removing blackmail will enable individuals to maintain their human right to decide, whilst also, through ease of access to the vaccine, potentially increase vaccination rates amongst healthcare workers.
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