We need to consider very seriously the momentum that is growing among some EU colleagues for lockdowns, and other punitive exclusionary measures, targeting those people who have declined vaccinations or resisted additional doses delivering extra protection.

Does it worry us that these initiatives are being championed from Germany and Austria, or that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, herself a physician, has given tacit support to the views of incoming chancellor Olaf Scholz who believes that vaccinations should be compulsory? She wants all 27 member states to consider the same question.

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