Could British residents be forced to have a Covid-19 vaccine? Yesterday Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused to rule out mandatory inoculation, telling TalkRadio that the government would ‘have to watch what happens and… make judgments accordingly’. His comments have sparked questions about how realistic the prospect of mandatory vaccination is in the UK, or what restrictions people could face – with MP Tom Tugendhat suggesting that the unvaccinated could be banned from workplaces – if they refuse to get inoculated.
If a policy of mandatory vaccination were to be carried out in the UK, what might it look like? That discussion is happening in Denmark now, as the country looks to replace its emergency laws brought in this spring with a new ‘epidemic law’. The proposed legislation – which would become a permanent, rather than a temporary measure – could mandate certain people to receive a vaccine, and would allow the police to use force if necessary to administer it.
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