Why people who reject coronavirus vaccine may be barred from work, school

The pace at which countries and corporations are racing to produce a COVID-19 vaccine means that one would be ready in the shortest possible time, taking the world into the next step of administering it to people.

However, global and growing anti-vaccine movements and views suggest that there would be a lot of people who would refuse to take the vaccine for various reasons ranging from religious to political and from cultural to scientific. But a Professor of Law at Stanford University, California, Prof. Hank Greely, says people could be forced to take the vaccine if they have to work or attend school.

Recall that a controversial bill seeking to replace the Quarantine Act with a Control of Infectious Disease Act that hurriedly passed first and second readings at the House of Representatives in April, caused outrage in Nigeria, with many vowing to resist its final passage. The bill gives sweeping and disproportionate powers to the Minister of Health and the Director General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), a development critics say could engender human rights abuses in a country already failing to hold leaders accountable.

READ: Russia to start use of COVID-19 vaccine

While defending the bill during a virtual conference titled, “COVID-19 and the Proposed Vaccination Bill: Implications For Nigeria,” organised by Elombah Communications/Njenje Media Limited in May, Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila represented by his Special Assistant on Research and Public Policy, Dubem Okadigbo Moghalu, said: “Individual right must succumb to public concern; so, we have not done anything outside the existing law”.

A video posted by TMZ shows Prof. Greely saying that people who refuse to take the vaccine could be denied access to their schools or workplaces, even though several legal issues may arise.

According to the health expert, speaking in the context of developments in the United States of America, if relevant authorities certify the vaccines as safe and efficacious, it will be difficult to choose not to take the vaccine if it is tied to work or school especially in the public sector.

Watch Prof. Greely speak in the video below: