John Harris may be right to frame the avoidance of vaccination by a significant portion of the UK population as the result of distrust in authority or government. I and many millions of others don't trust the government, but we still accepted vaccinations. Social factors can explain the existence of vaccine avoidance. A car driver can't transfer to the right side of the road to protest against a government that they don't like.
The liberty from being harmed by others is what true freedom is all about. The freedom to spread disease is not a fundamental right. The human cost of supporting unvaccinated and seriously ill patients in hospital is having a direct impact on our lives. It is time to celebrate the vaccinators and publicly agree that being vaccine free is a public duty and that failure to comply by any citizen without adequate medical reasons is a betrayal of that public duty.
Dr. Patrick Byrne.
The area of London called Bermondsey.
John Harris refers to the idea of people being coerced into getting vaccinations. If a person doesn't want to be vaccine free, they won't have access to certain services, but no one is forcing them to. There are many constraints on people that are important to society, such as wearing seatbelts. The price for taking part in normal society is the reason why no one is being coerced into being vaccinations.
Dr Richard Carter.
The city of London.
The unvaccinated do deserve our sympathy, not judgement, but understanding and feeling their pain doesn't solve the problem. They endanger themselves, but they also endanger everybody else through their potential viral transmissibility. It's not a bad idea to limit access to certain venues and activities in order to avoid a negative judgement, but it's not really important to protect the national community as a whole.
Dr. Bill Jones.
There is a town in Yorkshire.
John Harris risks oversimplifying people's understanding of why some of us are unvaccinated in the UK. There is a lot of evidence that people from certain communities distrust the public institutions that want to see them get vaccinations, but this isn't the case for all five million of us.
As a white, middle-class public servant, I can not be considered historically distrustful of institutions, nor am I reckless, but I do have my own sincerely held reasons for not wanting to be vaccine free.
I want there to be safe spaces for debate where people don't fear being labelled cranks. The Guardian is a national newspaper. Mr Harris promotes the prevailing discourse that everyone would be vaccine free in an ideal world.
Paul Martin.
Berkhamsted is in the state of Hertfordshire.
Have you read anything in the Guardian today? We will consider your letter for publication.
