Make the SARS-CoV-19 vaccine mandatory. An October 1, 2020, article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine couldn’t make it any plainer in bemoaning a poll that found that only 49% of Americans plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it comes out.
“One option for increasing vaccine uptake is to require it,” the article says, boldly, at the beginning of the second paragraph.
Written by lawyers at Stanford Law School and other health policy experts, the article outlines what the authors claim are “six substantive criteria” that would support the first vaccine ever to be mandated for adults, outside of the flu vaccine for health care workers.
Recognizing that it’s the individual states, not the federal government, that would do the mandating, the authors also suggest measures that states need to take to pull off a mandate. “State mandates should not be structured as compulsory vaccination (absolute requirements); instead, noncompliance should incur a penalty,” the authors say.
And, the penalty should be “substantive,” in the form of employment suspension or stay-at-home orders, they add.
SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine October 1, 2020