A lot of false information is circulating on social networks about the coronavirus epidemic. One of them states that when a state of health emergency is declared, the vaccine is compulsory for the population.
Beware of false rumors
A newspaper extract was photographed and shared on facebook. In this article, the question is answered: “Can the government force me to get a vaccine?”. The person then replies that: “Yes, if he declares a state of health emergency. […] If you refuse, a judge can compel you and if he has reason to believe that you will not obey, he can even order that you be taken to a specific place to be vaccinated.”. It is in fact Doctor Horacio Arruda, the national director of public health of Quebec. This article was published in the Journal de Montréal last March. It therefore concerns Canadian law. In France, the state of emergency does not make it possible to impose vaccination on citizens. Some vaccines are recommended, while others are required.
What does the law provide for compulsory vaccines?
Indeed, 11 vaccines have been mandatory in France, especially for children, since 2018, according to the Ministry of Solidarity and Health. They protect against pathologies that have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of children, such as diphtheria, tetanus and polio. This compulsory vaccination coverage makes it possible to defend oneself against other childhood diseases, such as rubella, measles, mumps, whooping cough, hepatitis B, meningococcus C, pneumococcus and haemophilus influenzae B. Agnès Buzyn raised the penalties provided for in the Public Health Code a few years ago in the event of refusal of vaccination. The people then risked six months in prison and a € 3,750 fine.
What criminal sanctions today?
Currently, the government cannot force refractories to be vaccinated or to vaccinate their child (ren). However, parents take risks, as the nursery or other establishments may refuse to accommodate them. The government recalls that not having your child vaccinated can put him “endangered and can endanger other children, contaminating them with diseases that could have been prevented by vaccination”. Moreover, the law now regulates vaccination in a particular case, as the former minister recalled: “if a child one day legally turns against his parents because he has a disability, because he has not been vaccinated [il] has the right to criminalize his parents. And there, the parents are likely to have two years imprisonment and 30,000 euros in fines “. For the time being, the High Authority for Health indicates, in its press release of November 9, that “In the current context, vaccination against Covid-19 should not be compulsory, neither for the general population, nor for health professionals. Indeed, within the framework of a schedule of delivery of vaccine doses that is not well known and – at this stage – of the lack of perspective on future vaccines as well as on their capacity to limit the contagion of the virus, this would not be justified ” .
