WHO recommends persuasion against mandatory COVID-19 vaccination

*The World Health Organisation says it is a much better position to actually encourage and facilitate Coronavirus vaccination without some kinds of requirements

Alexander Davis | ConsumerConnect

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has stated that moral persuasion to people on the actual merits of a COVID-19 vaccine would be far better than trying to make the jabs mandatory for consumers.

The global health body said Monday, December 7, 2020, though the exercise would be left to individual countries to determine how they want to conduct their vaccination campaigns against the Coronavirus pandemic, reports AFP.

WHO, however, insisted making it mandatory to get immunised against the disease would be the wrong road to take.

Kate O’Brien, Director of the WHO’s Immunisation Department, told a virtual news conference that “I don’t think that mandates are the direction to go in here, especially for these vaccines.

“It is a much better position to actually encourage and facilitate the vaccination without those kinds of requirements.

“I don’t think we envision any countries creating a mandate for vaccination.”

O’Brien noted there may be certain professions in which being vaccinated might be required or highly recommended, such as respiratory technicians and intensive care medics in hospitals, for the safety of both the staff and the patients.

Nonetheless, WHO experts admitted there was a battle to be fought to convince the general public to take the vaccines as they become available.

The organisation’s Emergencies Director Michael Ryan said people needed to ask themselves what they were willing to do in order to protect themselves and those around them.

Ryan stated: “The vaccine story is a good news story. It is the victory of human endeavour, potentially, over a microbial adversary,” he said.

“We need to convince people and we need to persuade.”

In view of making vaccines mandatory, the WHO Emergencies Director said: “I think all of us who work in public health would rather avoid that as a means for getting people vaccinated.

“We are much better served to present people with the data and the benefits and let people make up their own minds.

“There are certain circumstances… where I would believe that the only responsible thing would be to be vaccinated.”

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