Irish Examiner view: Vaccine logic

Freedom of choice

There can be consequences for choosing not to be vaccinated. Picture: Leon Neal/PA Wire

The reason most frequently quoted by people declining to participate in the Covid-19 vaccination programme is that such decisions are a matter of personal choice, and they have opted not to do so.

We don’t support general mandatory vaccination, but equally there can be consequences for non-participation. 

Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary believes they should be wide-ranging. “If you’re not vaccinated, you shouldn’t be allowed in the hospital, you shouldn’t be allowed to fly, you shouldn’t be allowed on the London Underground, and you shouldn’t be allowed in the local supermarket or your pharmacy either,” he said.

To avail of Ryanair’s service, it is usually necessary to provide details of a valid negative test via the passenger locator forms demanded by most countries. 

If Ryanair wanted to take that one step further, it’s likely it would garner public support. First, however, vaccinations and boosters would have to be available to every person who wants one.

Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp, the most outspoken Premier League manager in terms of the mutual protections provided by vaccines, has made it clear that Liverpool will not be signing unvaccinated players in the future.

He was speaking ahead of today’s emergency meeting that will examine what to do about a season threatening to descend into chaos because of the fixture congestion caused by cancelled matches.

The clubs would do well to pin copies of John Donne’s 17th-century poem Meditation 17 on the walls of every dressing room. 

That’s the one that starts “ No man is an island entire of itself”, and finishes “ ...never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.