Is It Ethical For A Healthy Person To Choose Not To Get A COVID-19 Vaccine?

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Credit: Pool photo via CBS 8

Above: A Rady Children's Hospital worker gets one of the first COVID-19 vaccines Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020.

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As we continue to see more coronavirus vaccines available and more people eligible to take them, will vaccinations continue to be viewed as an individual choice?

Aired: December 17, 2020 | Transcript

As the first COVID-19 vaccinations take place across America, there are no reports of hospitals requiring their health care workers to get the shots. At this point, the decision about whether to get vaccinated is up to individuals and the availability of the vaccine.

But as we continue to see more coronavirus vaccines available and more people eligible to take them, will vaccinations continue to be viewed as an individual choice? Is a healthy person’s decision not to get vaccinated an ethically defensible choice? And on the other hand, would it be right for businesses and organizations to require people to get the vaccine?

Michael Kalichman, founding director of the UC San Diego Research Ethics Program and co-founder of the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology, joined Midday Edition Thursday to discuss the ethics of vaccinations.