We responded to the mandatory vaccination proposal in Lithuania: we forgot one important thing

On Delfi’s television show “Facts and Opinions”, Deputy Minister of Health Živilė Simonaitytė says that we must protect our freedom, not think about how to force people.

“Probably all of us when we talk about mandatory vaccines know that it would be very convenient to tell someone that vaccination is mandatory and there is no need to work, persuade a person, but we forget something else – and what will happen? What will we do if people give up? Will we catch and bring tied up? Look, we live in a conscious society.

We live in a society that understands why health is important and if there are people who do not understand it, then we must first think about ourselves and what we have not done by educating people and explaining the benefits of vaccines instead of forcing them to do so. The union triggers a reaction of rejection, and we really do not want to create a reaction of rejection, we do not want to return to the state of forced labor, vaccination or anything, we all want to enjoy our freedom, we want to be free and we do not want others to be captives ”, says the deputy minister.

According to the interlocutor, he advocates education, not coercion. Although, as you know, an increase in vaccination coverage would only improve the situation.

“It just came to our knowledge then. Sometimes we don’t think about human perception, freedom of self-determination, education. I’ll give a very simple example, which is still the most stagnant for me. We had very low vaccination rates in Visaginas, when We sent the tent from the National Blood Center, everyone was very scared because we thought what we would do with that tent from the National Blood Center, but it went well and the vaccination rates there were great then, what does this mean?

This means that if the tent is in a convenient place for people, there are professionals who can explain it. After all, they see their neighbor and acquaintance lining up or next to that tent, then people decide to get vaccinated. I am a supporter of education, but not a coercion ”, says the Deputy Minister of Health.

Usonis: vaccination is a public decision

Professor Vytautas Usonis says vaccines are a public decision and doctors have already done their best.

“It would be medically effective, but we are talking about the impact on society. I often repeat that the choice of the vaccination model is not a medical decision, but a public decision. The doctors did their job. Thanks to scientific research, the peculiarities of the infection, its spread and a vaccine have been developed. In other words, we have a serious problem in society: the coronavirus. We have a tool to manage this problem. Here it is no longer about doctors, but about the public wondering why we do not want to use that tool.

Perhaps not through coercion, but through responsibility, the Vice Minister mentioned freedom very well: freedom is a great value for us, but in reality freedom is only when there is a choice next to responsibility, and here is the choice of society. We can name many countries where vaccines are compulsory, like vaccines for children, but there are also countries where vaccination is not compulsory, but vaccination rates are ninety-eight percent or more, like Finland ”, says V. Usonis .

To the offices, only after vaccination.

Professor Kęstutis Petrikonis, meanwhile, says that we must mature culturally and socially to realize that we must be vaccinated.

“I am in favor of a balanced approach. I agree with both the vice minister and Usonis on some responses. We need to mature, both culturally and socially, and in any other way, so that we can make a decision and vaccinate everyone.

If we don’t get vaccinated, here’s the worst case, we’ll go into quarantine and then there’s a decision that some countries have been using since March to open businesses, businesses only if one hundred percent of workers are vaccinated.

Then the solution is already open. If we had made the decision to open offices in Lithuania, if the employees were 100% vaccinated, there would be no need to argue about distances. There would simply be such a requirement in the hygiene passport and it would not violate human rights at all, ”says K. Petrikonis.

Delfi recalls that we have already written that the Special Envoy of the World Health Organization (WHO), Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, assures that now all possible efforts should be made to vaccinate people and does not rule out the possibility that some professions have to do it.

According to him, compulsory vaccination and voluntary vaccination are not mutually exclusive. “If you can reach 90% voluntarily. Society to vaccinate it, then that’s fine. If you can’t, and the epidemiological situation remains threatening, why should you put the whole society at risk when there is an opportunity to mandatorily determine when, where and how to get vaccinated? What is contradicted here?

What human rights are being violated here? Those who shout it show their total ignorance. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly stated that if there is an epidemiological threat to human health and because a person lives in society and not like Robinson Cruz on an uninhabited island, it is necessary to use what would protect human health. “

The interviewee assured that both voluntary and mandatory vaccines have been in force for centuries and that this practice has been proven over time.