Against compulsory vaccination

The vaccination certificate will be necessary in Galicia to consume in bars

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The argument often made to defend mandatory vaccination is that vaccinated people are less likely to transmit the virus to unvaccinated third parties, so declining the vaccine would generate a negative externality on those third parties: and if no one is entitled to harm third parties, then neither should anyone be allowed to go on the loose without being vaccinated. Now, any negative externality derived from not doing something can alternatively be characterized as a positive externality derived from doing that something: in this case, we could say both that not getting vaccinated generates a negative externality on third parties (greater risk of infection) as that choosing to be vaccinated generates a positive externality on third parties (lower risk of infection). Therefore, it would be as valid to internalize the externalities of vaccination to punish those who do not get vaccinated as to reward those who do.

Since in this case the vaccines are being administered free of charge, they are already subsidizing part of the positive externalities that are generated. That incentive may not be enough to overcome the resistance of the most fervent anti-vaccine militants, but in this case the solution would go through increasing monetary incentives to be vaccinated until resistance is overcome (provided that the marginal benefit of vaccinating them is considered to exceed the monetary cost of doing so) and withdraw them entirely when the desired percentage of the vaccinated population is reached (which ideally should not be disclosed to avoid strategic behaviors). In fact, if we really take seriously the argument of fiscally internalizing positive or negative externalities, let us remember that, to achieve Pareto efficiency in this way, the beneficiary of suppressing a negative externality or promoting a positive externality should bear part of the cost of that measure (otherwise, the optimal thing from their perspective would always be to reduce negative externalities to zero or to infinitely promote positive ones): And that does not happen when the negative externality is internalized with unilateral obligations on the unvaccinated (and it does happen, instead, when the positive externality is internalized with rewards towards those who choose to be vaccinated, which are financed, in part, by the rest of the population).

But it is that, in addition, there is wide availability of vaccinesThese being enormously effective in preventing the most serious manifestations of covid-19 and being fully subsidized for the patient, those who want to avoid becoming infected in a society where there are small groups of anti-vaccines have it quite simple: to vaccinate themselves and, therefore, protect themselves against the main risks of any infection that the anti-vaccines could cause. In this sense, restrictions on mobility –including covid passport– could have been justified, even from a liberal point of view, as the least bad alternative to protect third parties innocent against the risk of contagion, but only until the moment when there were more efficient mechanisms —and respectful of individual freedom— to do so: that is, until we found a vaccine that everyone could decide whether to administer or not.

We would do very wrong to normalize the exceptional, in grant the State new powers on the bodies of people on account of the health crisis of covid-19. Once we had defensive lines in front of the coronavirusOnce we have had time to adapt individually and socially to it, the extraordinary powers that the state acquired for a short period should recede and disappear sooner rather than later. Never increase further. Unfortunately, there are those who, even in the name of liberalism, advocate for continuing to expand those extraordinary powers, to the point of advocating mandatory vaccination against citizens who (even if they are very likely wrong) refuse to do so. Is everything permanently valid in the face of a pandemic or are there moral limits that we should not break?

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Vaccinating someone against their will is one of the potentially most intense aggressions that can occur against their freedom: it supposes violate their physical integrity to inoculate a preparation with possible benefits (in the form of immunization) but also with possible risks (in the form of side effects). It should, therefore, be the individual himself who, ultimately, has the sovereignty to assess (rightly or wrongly, from the perspective of a third party) whether benefits are more important to him than risks, or vice versa. It would be fed up dangerous for us to legitimize the state in the long term to arbitrarily inject us with those drugs that he deems appropriate in the name of social welfare, even though in some of those cases — such as the present one — many people (but not necessarily others) may agree to inject them voluntarily.

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