Should Covidiots be given the Coronavirus Vaccine?
If someone decides to disobey the law, they have to be fully held responsible for the consequences.
The American pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer has announced few days ago its vaccine “candidate” to treat the Sars-COV 2 disease that has been around for roughly one year now. Obviously and given how much this virus has shaken up the world – from economical to social spheres – the vaccine brings along a set of ethical questions that shouldn’t be left untouched. For instance, should people pay for it once it’s available? How much would it cost then? Should the WHO order the cure for the most vulnerable and/or poor countries first? However, one important question is to be asked since we have to consider whether the COVIDIOTS should be given the vaccine or not. If so, when should they get it?
Vaccine distribution has historically always been unfair and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about that. The country to manufacture the cure will benefit from it first. Then, those with means will likely buy it from the manufacturer. Most countries of the third world would have to wait a little longer. In each country, the distribution still faces some serious ethical questions as to what kind of citizen should be vaccinated first or last. Also, under Donald Trump, we almost had the feeling of a protectionism return in the country. If such vaccine has to be distributed with him in the white house, it’s safe to say that things would get even more intense as it would be an “America first” kind of deal.
Since the pandemic started to become a trouble, most countries adopted few rules (confinement, masks wearing, hands washing, social distancing). Just like in any other things in life, some people are either skeptical, rebellious or simply uncultured and thus refuse to comply to the rules defined by authorities. Internet has been calling them COVIDIOTS. The question whether those people should be vaccinated is very relevant and deserves to be asked. If someone decides to disobey the law, they have to be fully held responsible for the consequences. But then that wouldn’t be any fair because equality requires the vaccine to be given to everyone. In any state of law, COVIDIOTS would normally get the vaccine just like any other citizen because law also defends equality. Besides, hospitals don’t refuse cancer patients because they kept smoking despite the risks of getting sick.
Even if equality answers the question positively; ethics, equity and common sense have it otherwise. For the Covid-19 vaccine distribution to comply with equity principles, it shouldn’t be given to the COVIDIOTS – or they would at least have to be vaccinated after everyone else. That’s the only way the distribution would be fair to those who followed the rules. Someone who respected those rules shouldn’t have to die because a COVIDIOT took the vaccine that was meant to be administered to the respectful citizen.
Ethics and common sense on the other hand put everyone in front of the consequences of their choices. For the American bio-ethician Arthur Caplan, “You are free to manifest, you are free to show your priorities. But if you do not follow the basic sanitary precautions, you should have the moral courage to say that ‘’I understand the consequences and I am ready to accept them.’’ Those who decide not to follow the rules should indeed have the guts to let the other ones take the cure first. Nobody should have to pay for someone else’s irresponsibility.