Public health or private choice?

The Supreme Court has tried to strike a balance between the citizen’s right to bodily integrity and the state’s right to regulate and protect public health. It has decreed that the government has no right to force a citizen to undergo vaccination for Covid-19. However, it has also upheld the government’s right to impose reasonable restrictions on the movement of unvaccinated persons in the interest of public health. A bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao said, “Personal autonomy of an individual, which is a recognised facet of protection guaranteed under Article 21, encompasses the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment in the sphere of individual health”. The court’s decision was based on a petition filed by a community health expert who argued that the government was not revealing details about the anti-Covid-19 vaccination policy.

There is considerable merit in the argument that enough data about Covid vaccination are not available in the public domain. For instance, there is no certainty that an unvaccinated person is more likely to spread Covid-19 than a person who not only received the two doses of vaccine but also the third booster dose. The court’s direction not to suppress data should be seen in the overall public interest. It has not taken kindly to some harsh restrictions some state governments tried to impose on the movement of unvaccinated persons. True, Article 21 provides the citizen the right not to receive medical care. The question is whether the same right can be extended to someone who refuses to accept vaccination, say, against smallpox, for if he catches the disease he can pose a risk to others. Resistance to vaccination is as old as vaccination.

Covid-19 is one disease that caught the whole world by surprise. During the initial days, the medical fraternity was as clueless as ordinary persons about how to treat the disease. Trial and error methods were adopted to provide a semblance of treatment to the victims of the disease that did not spare the rich or the poor. Governments all over the world came forward to support efforts to find a suitable vaccine by liberalising the standards. In the end, anti-Covid-19 vaccines have been proved useful. And, if some are still resistant, they need to be cajoled to get vaccinated. While doing so, transparency should be the government’s watchword.