Speaking in the House of Commons this afternoon, Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggested that people who refuse a covid-19 jab, will be refused treatment on the NHS.
Hancock was responding to a question from Tory MP Liam Fox about the vaccine status of those currently receiving hospital treatment for the so-called Delta variant.
Hancock said:
“I think that there is a material difference between the states responsibility to offer the vaccine to all adults.
And the duty that we have when somebody has not been offered the vaccine is greater than the duty we have when we have offered a vaccine but somebody has chosen not to take it up. And there is a material difference between those two situations.”
Hancock’s colleague Andrea Leadsom interjected and said:
“Can I take (it) one step further? If I choose not to say, not to have a yellow fever jab when I am going to a place that suffers yellow fever, the government of the united kingdom takes no interest whatsoever in my illness status. So when my right honourable friend says that he has less of a duty, surely what he means is that he has no duty at all.
It is for people to take up the vaccine.”
Hancock replied:
“Up to a point and the point is should you take that as an absolute principle, then there is a challenge, should there be an overwhelming demand on the NHS that would impact on others. And of course with a communicable disease, there is an impact on others in terms of spreading the disease so we do have to have an eye to that.
That’s why I phrased it as I did. But in terms of the argument that my right honourable friend is putting, I think she and I concur in the broad thrust of the case being made.”
Nobody in the chamber batted an eyelid. The Secretary of State for Health said that those who refuse a covid-19 vaccine, might be left to die if they contract a respiratory infection and the NHS is otherwise engaged, presumably treating those with vaccine injuries. Welcome to dystopia.
