Covid-19: France is not the only country where we “piss off” the unvaccinated

The bill establishing the vaccine pass will be examined from this Monday in the Senate and demonstrations are organized in several cities in France against its adoption. The “unvaccinated” are the targets of the strategies of many countries which have relied on the vaccine to exit the pandemic or to mitigate its impact on hospital services.

If the recent declaration of Emmanuel Macron has raised a part of the opinion, France is not the only country where one “pisses” the vaccinated – even if one puts it otherwise. Review of the most radical or the most striking measures.

Austria will become at the beginning of February the first country to introduce the vaccination obligation … even if its technical implementation will probably not be possible before April at the earliest. The status of “unvaccinated” was already heavily penalized, since the Austrian confinement was only lifted on December 12 for people vaccinated or cured of Covid-19. Austrians who do not have a complete vaccination schedule are still deprived of an exit.

Italy will for its part introduce a vaccination obligation for people over 50 from February 15. In Germany, despite a decision by the executive and a political consensus on the subject, the bill is ultimately not expected to be considered before the end of March.

“This is the price to pay for health”. At the end of November, the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, announced the introduction, from January 16, of a fine of 100 euros for those over 60 years unvaccinated against Covid-19. “This is protection, not punishment”, he added. This financial sanction will be renewed every month until the interested parties take the plunge. Less than two weeks before the entry into force of this new measure, a TF1 team went there to take the temperature.

Greece is among the European countries with the lowest vaccination coverage rate. Only 68% of the population has completed their vaccination schedule. A figure lower than the European Union average (69%). More than 21,000 people have died since the start of the pandemic in Greece.

Since January 2, Canada has suspended the granting of unemployment benefit (called “employment insurance” locally) for the unemployed who lose their jobs following their refusal to be vaccinated – which the employer will have to now specify in the grounds for dismissal. A very incentive vaccination passport is already in force in Canada, and the provincial authorities can tighten the rules locally, by extending its use for example. Quebec, the Canadian province most affected by the wave of the Omicron variant, has just banned non-vaccinated people from access to stores selling alcohol or cannabis.

In Singapore, the government has chosen to type in the wallet: unvaccinated patients will have to pay their hospital costs themselves. In critical care, the average bill per week in a Singapore hospital is around 15,000 euros (it would be close to double in France), but patients can still be reimbursed by private insurance.

If Indonesia is the first country to have introduced the vaccine obligation, from February 2021, it is clear that the device is not working well: only 35% of Indonesians were vaccinated on December 1. Regional authorities are competing in administrative ingenuity to put pressure on the unvaccinated.

In some regions, residents are refused the issuance of their driving license because they are not vaccinated. Other districts cut social assistance or prevent the reception of letters necessary to start a job. In Jakarta, unvaccinated people can be fined up to 290 euros, while the average salary in the capital is around 400 euros per month.

In the Pakistani province of Punjab, since last June, those who refuse the vaccination see the SIM cards of their phones blocked. A measure that is not anecdotal in this country where the vast majority of inhabitants have access to the Internet only through their mobile phones.