Compulsory vaccination is compatible with human rights, according to German institute

Introducing a generalized obligation of the vaccine against covid-19 is justifiable if the situation requires it and only if all the steps to facilitate access to it on a voluntary basis have been exhausted before, according to the German Institute for Human Rights (DIMR) .

“If at the time of making a decision these steps have been taken and if there is still a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus, then the obligatory nature of the vaccine as a last resort is admissible from a human rights point of view,” Beate said today Rudolf, director of the DIMR.

At a press conference to present the sixth report on the human rights situation in Germany, from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, he underlined the importance, before any obligation, of facilitating as much as possible voluntary access to the vaccine and the corresponding information.

Fewer doubts throws the obligation in medical centers and residences, where it is “correct” and is “justified” because “it is about the protection of particularly vulnerable people,” he stressed.

Even so, he added, it is important that at the same time there is an offensive so that the option to get vaccinated reaches these centers.

On the other hand, Rudolf pointed out that the unvaccinated status cannot be a criterion to deny assistance in the ucis in a saturation situation. “An unvaccinated person also has the right to health” and “human rights are not lost due to foolish or unsupportive behavior,” he said.

In general terms, he stressed that “everyone must have the same access to medical care in the ucis” and be taken into account under equal conditions “in a tragic decision such as triage.”

In this sense, he urged the Bundestag (lower house), as it did last year, to legislate what criteria can be applied if due to a saturation of the ucis “you have to choose between patients.”

Already then, he recalled, it was said that the predicted time of life, estimates of quality of life or age “cannot be criteria for a triage”, in which people with disabilities and the elderly would always be disadvantaged, which , he noted, is “discriminatory.”

Rudolf also referred to the treatment given to children and young people during the pandemic, in which the State has not considered them as “people with their own rights who should be heard”, but rather as “propellants of the pandemic.”

“They were not taken into account, they were not listened to, they were not made participants” in political decisions, he criticized, referring in particular to the closure of schools and nurseries. (I)