{"id":12067,"date":"2025-05-14T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=12067"},"modified":"2025-05-14T11:42:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T15:42:58","slug":"the-negative-impacts-of-covid-vaccine-mandates-in-the-united-statesi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=12067","title":{"rendered":"The negative impacts of Covid vaccine mandates in the United StatesI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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  1. The unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccine policy: why mandates,
    passports and restrictions may cause more harm than good, published in BMJ
    Global Health. (See:
    https:\/\/gh.bmj.com\/content\/7\/5\/e008684?fbclid=IwAR2Vl1lPUozvc_bEAiR1uAt
    GDR0L_3JVeqB9-_LIgMX0kpe4TsuulnAuP48).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk benefit assessment and
    ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities. Journal of medical ethics.
    (See: https:\/\/jme.bmj.com\/content\/early\/2022\/12\/05\/jme-2022-108449.abstract).
    In the first paper, written in late 2021, I and a group of scholars from Johns Hopkins,
    Oxford, Harvard and elsewhere outlined a set of 12 reasons why the coercive approach to
    Covid vaccination policy would ultimately be both counterproductive and damaging to
    public health and society. We based these ideas on the existing literature at the time, with
    nearly 150 citations.
    We divided these 12 reasons into 4 categories:<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Behavioural psychology: reactance and entrenchment; cognitive dissonance;
    stigma and scapegoating; distrust and conspiracy theories.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Politics and law: erosion of civil liberties; social polarization, global governance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Socio-economics: disparities and inequalities; reduced health system capacity;
    exclusion from work and social life.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. The integrity of science and public health: erosion of key principles of public
    health ethics; and the erosion of trust in regulatory vaccine oversight.
    I would like to quote directly from our abstract:
    \u201cOur analysis strongly suggests that mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policies have had
    damaging effects on public trust, vaccine confidence, political polarization, human
    rights, inequities and social wellbeing. We question the effectiveness and
    consequences of coercive vaccination policy in pandemic response and urge the
    public health community and policymakers to return to non-discriminatory, trustbased public health approaches.\u201d
    We started the result section of this paper with the following statement:
    \u201cAlthough studies suggest that current policies are likely to increase populationlevel vaccination rates to some degree, gains were largest in those under 30 years
    old (a very low-risk group) and in countries with below average uptake.\u201d
    The totality of actual data on increases in vaccination uptake from mandates and
    passports does not suggest an overwhelming positive impact. For example, a recent study
    found that indoor vaccine passports had no significant impact on COVID-19 vaccine
    uptake, cases, or deaths across all nine US cities that implemented the policy (See:
    https:\/\/www.mercatus.org\/research\/working-papers\/indoor-vaccine-mandates-and-covid19).
    The second paper focused on booster mandates at American universities. Let me digress
    for a moment. We received a lot of emails from people after this first paper, including
    concerned students and parents. At first, I was reluctant to write this second paper on
    boosters (this work was conducted voluntarily; it was all free time) and was skeptical of
    our findings, based on publically available data from CDC and Pfizer. I thought, \u201cSurely
    the CDC and other professional bodies have crunched the numbers. The adults are in the
    room.\u201d But we have seen the stifling of debate in our institutions of higher education, a
    lack of transparency and a worrying groupthink in the liberal class. This has been
    alarming to witness first-hand.
    It was surprising to see just how widespread vaccine mandates were at universities in
    North America. This was not the case in Europe, where the vast majority did not have
    mandates.
    In our paper, we combined empirical risk-benefit assessment and ethical analysis.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n