Professor Julian Savulescu, an ethicist at the University of Oxford, says that incentivising people to get the vaccine could help to achieve the required level of herd immunity
Governments should consider incentivising people to get a Covid-19 vaccine in order to achieve the required level of herd immunity, an expert has said.
The incentive could be either financial or payment in kind, such as being allowed to not wear a facemask in public, the University of Oxford ethicist suggests.
Given the rising global death toll and the far reaching health and economic consequences of the pandemic, there have been calls to mandate Covid-19 vaccination, if and when a jab is approved, according to Professor Julian Savulescu at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.
Writing an opinion piece in the Journal of Medical Ethics he argues that though vaccination should be voluntary generally, there is a strong case for making any vaccination mandatory if four conditions are met.
These consist of: when there is a grave threat to public health, the vaccine is safe and effective, the pros outweigh the cons of any suitable alternative and the level of coercion is proportionate.
