Where do you stand on the No Vaccination debate?

[ASEAN NOW News]

Novak Djokovic fueled to flames of the No Vaccination debate when the Australian government deported him last month.

 

The media went into a frenzy about vaccinations and people’s rights.

 

Here in Vietnam, even the media were quoted as saying if nonvaccinated people did not stay at home they could be arrested.

 

I think it would be safe to say that when the Omicron variant was discovered to be very contagious, most Asian countries were taking a tough line on nonvaxed people.

 

Vietnam’s Covid passports

 

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The Ministry of Health has announced procedures for the issuance of Vietnam’s official COVID-19 'vaccine passports’ along with the passport templates effective starting from December 2021.

The COVID-19 vaccine certificates are to be issued for people who have received the primary course of one of eight types of COVID-19 vaccines licensed for use in Vietnam by the health ministry, namely AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria, Gamaleya Research Institute’s Sputnik V, Sinopharm’s Vero Cell Inactivated along with the manufactured-in-UAE version Hayat-Vax, Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty, Moderna’s Spikevax, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen, and Cuba Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB)’s Abdala.

 

The QR code-based passport will be valid for 12 months.

The vaccine passports have 11 fields of information: name, date of birth, nationality, targeted disease, doses of vaccines received, date of vaccination, lot number of the vaccine batch, type of vaccine, vaccine product received, the vaccine manufacturer, and a code for the certification.

 

Peer Pressure

 

That is the official response; however, it will eventually come down to public peer pressure as to whether we can exist altogether.

 

I can understand the reluctance of some who do not wish to be vaccinated on medical grounds.

 

Of course, it is still early days to read about any long-term effects of all these different vaccines.

 

I personally at 72 years old felt it was worth the risks by taking two initial vaccines and now a booster, and to date (touch wood) I have not had any virus.

 

I am sure many of the elderly expat population did the same.

 

Now with the Covac system making sure supplies of vaccines are fairly distributed, everyone now should be able to get boosters if they want.

 

Many also now have registered on apps or have Vaccine Passports to show we are vaccinated.

 

I would expect most of us can also live with friends who are unvaccinated.

 

Travel will be tougher

 

However, the unvaxed will eventually come up against some strong regulations when traveling.

 

Vietnam has temporarily recognised vaccination certificates or vaccine passports of 72 countries and territories worldwide that were officially introduced to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to its spokeswoman.

 

Assume that most countries will be adopting the same system as well.

 

Certainly, it will be hard for them to check in onto an international airline.

 

And if governments also impose regulations if you want to check into a hotel here in Vietnam or overseas, you must show your vaccination passport, then these unvaxed people will soon become vacation lepers!

 

It is an exceedingly difficult subject, so it would be helpful to hear your own thoughts on the subject.

 

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