It’s already clear that large sections of the South African public are reluctant to have the Covid-19 vaccine – but, in order to achieve herd immunity, around 40 million will need to be injected.
Is there a case for making the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory? The World Health Organisation has indicated that it’s not in favour of the notion. But it’s a question which has been debated in countries all over the world, as vaccine-hesitancy is by no means limited to South Africa.
Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in December 2020 that local governments could introduce measures for compulsory Covid-19 vaccination. What this means in practice is not that citizens can be held down and forcibly injected, but that they may be stripped of certain rights – like entering certain places, or receiving certain funds – if they do not comply with vaccination.
, which deals specifically with the issue of Covid-19 vaccines.
B. On vaccines
Fundamental principles and values
1. On several occasions, Pope Francis has affirmed the need to make the now imminent Covid-19 vaccines
available and accessible to all, avoiding “pharmaceutical marginality”: “
if there is the possibility of treating a disease with a drug, this should be available to everyone, otherwise an injustice is created”.
[1] In his recent
[2] the Pope stated that vaccines, if they are “to illuminate and bring hope to all, need to be available to all… especially for the most vulnerable and needy of all regions of the planet”. These principles of justice, solidarity and inclusiveness, must be the basis of any specific and concrete intervention in response to the pandemic. The Pope even talked about it in the Catechesis during the General Audience of 19 August 2020, offering some criteria “for choosing which industries to be helped: those which contribute to t