The imperative of vaccination in a pandemic

The sacking of nine Customs workers for refusing to have Covid-19 jabs is a sign of how rules surrounding vaccines will have an impact on lives for months or years.

Customs was reportedly unable to find alternative roles for the workers, who included four people from one port. At least one worker has publicly taken issue with mandatory vaccination in this case.

Since May 1, all MIQ workers, contractors and visitors have had to provide proof of vaccination each time they enter a facility.

More than 95 per cent of frontline Customs staff have received an initial dose while 85 per cent have had the second.

While restrictions are in place during a global health emergency, border security workers are in a special situation.

Trends overseas are heading towards opportunities and restrictions for people based on whether they are vaccinated or not. NBC News reports that in the United States job sectors where mandatory vaccinations are most likely include healthcare and academia.

Requiring vaccinations is a grey space between personal wants and what’s best for a group.

The level of vaccine hesitancy or denialism in various populations makes new caveats on workplace, lifestyle and travel behaviour more likely.

If vaccine herd immunity can’t be reached in a community, then the people who have had jabs will want guarantees their safety won’t be put at risk if people who haven’t had doses are around them.

Even without a pandemic, no one has an automatic right to fly, attend sports games, or wander through any business offices.

Kiwis who think they don’t need to get the vaccine because they won’t be heading offshore themselves should consider that sooner or later they will come into contact with people who will, or who know people who will.

Tourists, workers and students will also be arriving from overseas. New Zealand’s borders can’t stay shut forever.

Vaccine requirements will be most obvious for travel. And, most likely, tourists will aim to holiday in places where the local population has high levels of vaccination.

Plans for summer travel are picking up in Europe where vaccinations are more advanced.

The European Union’s plans to open up to people from outside the bloc for non-essential travel include not only that people be vaccinated, but that their jab is one from an approved list of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen shots.

Individual member states could still set extra restrictions.

The European Parliament has previously backed plans for an EUwide digital travel certificate, expected to be ready by June.

Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta and Greece are preparing to open to international tourists based on vaccines or tests.

Britain will have a traffic light system to enable quarantine-free travel with fewer than 10 highly vaccinated countries — such as Gibraltar, Malta, Israel and Iceland — categorised as green.

The argument that it’s your right to be unvaccinated in a health emergency essentially says you should be free to spread infection to anyone.

A G7 summit in Cornwall next month is expected to discuss a system of Covid passports to allow vaccinated travellers free entry into countries around the world.

A “green” country could accept digital proof of vaccination, immunity or a negative test for entry.

Australia and New Zealand are considered candidates for the green list down the track.

In the US, Disneyland reopened last weekend for the first time in a year under restrictions. US health authorities have told cruise lines that ships will be able to sail in its waters by mid-summer without practice trips first if 98 per cent of the crew and 95 per cent of the passengers are fully vaccinated. Canada’s Health Minister says the country will come up with a certificate to allow vaccinated Canadians to travel abroad.

The argument that it’s your right to be unvaccinated in a health emergency essentially says you should be free to spread infection to anyone. Police in Spain last month arrested a man for allegedly going to work and a gym while symptomatic and infecting 22 people.

New Zealand has had a safe, seminormal life during the pandemic, but it has been cut off from good as well as bad links with the outside world.