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Maaya Manoj

COVID-19 Vaccine Discrimination

Over the past year the world has come to terms with COVID-19 and how to deal with it. Singapore is currently one of the most cautious countries in the world with its high regulations even with extremely low deaths and very high vaccination rates. Australia recently decided that working towards a COVID-19 free country is unreasonable and therefore reduced their regulations significantly in order to get back to stimulating the economy and social life. The US started returning to before-COVID life, with the US being on the list of safe-from-COVID places to travel to and Broadway reopening at full capacity. However, all countries are aiming to achieve a high vaccination rate for the safety of the public. Some of the public is objecting to the vaccine so countries have resorted to using vaccine mandates and vaccine incentives while some countries cannot afford the vaccine for their population. Does this cause a new form of discrimination around the world to those who can’t afford the vaccine?


Some of the public do not believe in the science behind the vaccine and therefore do not want to take it. Some people don’t want vaccine mandates that make entering public vicinities and travelling exclusive because they believe that it destroys the freedom of individuals. They call it a discrimination against those who simply want their freedom. While I don’t think it takes away freedom, because the government is only trying to protect the public from this pandemic, it can be considered discrimination against those who want the vaccine, but can’t get it.


Singapore, the US and India are among a large number of countries that are allowing travelers from continents all over the world to enter and exit the country only if they are vaccinated. While it’s great that countries with low vaccination rates are included in the list of countries that can travel, such as India, South Africa and Bangladesh, it isn’t as helpful as it could’ve been if vaccine roll out and acceptance was higher in these countries. But why isn’t it higher and how is this discrimination?


Poorer, underdeveloped and developing countries are falling behind on vaccinating their public and it's impacting their economy and people. Distributing vaccines needs a lot of government spending for it to be efficient. It needs money to invest in buying or developing the vaccines, maintaining the quality of the vaccines (making sure they aren’t contaminated or expired), storing the vaccines, distributing the vaccines with a medical workforce, promoting the vaccines as a beneficial choice, and enforcing vaccine mandates. Many countries cannot afford it, and even if they can, with the help of rich countries and programs such as Covax, other problems come into play:-


Peer pressure from families and friends into not taking the vaccine, misinformation about the safety of it on social media, problems with time and money to put aside to travel and get the vaccine, a lack of education or belief in the science of the vaccine or the pandemic itself, and the government’s organisation and efficiency in vaccine roll out (i.e high waiting time, bad quality and low quantity of healthcare workers, etc). These problems are very often seen and bad enough in urban areas, but are much worse for families in rural areas because there’s less opportunity, less money and lower quality of government maintenance.


These problems are very hard to solve economically because it requires the use of the government’s money, which often doesn’t exist for countries that have been hit hard by sudden changes in the economy, developing and underdeveloped countries. This is causing a huge fallback in the public’s travelling, mental health, efficiency in production and overall economic growth. In fact this pandemic is one of the reasons for the Great Resignation (a record number of workers who quit their job was seen in April) in the US, which will cut back on efficiency further.


However, Thailand is coming up with a creative solution that seems to work. Thailand now has a quarantine island, Phuket, which allows people who are either vaccinated, or have tested negative for COVID-19 to roam around freely for a certain period of time, after which they are allowed to visit any other region in the country. This is bringing back tourism to Thailand and giving a larger number of people in the world a chance to return to Thailand or simply get back to the fun of travelling.


The government, like the public, wants to get back to pre-COVID life. Thailand proves that there are other ways to get back to normal rather than only mandating vaccines, such as testing routinely, quarantining for a period of time, allowing small numbers of people to attend events and have social gatherings and using technology to track and alert the public of the virus, like Singapore’s TraceTogether app. The right to a normal life shouldn’t depend on the country’s efficiency, but instead should take advantage of one's responsibility and resilience in this pandemic.


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