The unholy Trinity of vaccine mandate

Yet in this case, churches appear to be the handmaids of power and deniers of free will.

As a religious organisation, the Church has no role to play in an individual’s physical health, or in advancing a government’s agenda. Indeed, they should oppose it if they think it is unjust or immoral, as some have done with abortion and voluntary euthanasia laws.

Vaccination decisions should be left to the individual in consultation with their medical practitioner and other proper people. There are risks in taking the vaccines, and there are risks in not taking the vaccines. These risks vary dependent on age, health, diet, and inherent biological qualities and are not susceptible to a blanket pro-vaccine directive.

Worse, there is no point in the coercion because it won’t reduce Covid infections. There is little difference in the infectiousness of vaccinated or unvaccinated. Vaccination may limit the severity of the disease, but it does not significantly limit the chances of catching it, or of transmitting it.

If infectiousness is the critical factor, there is nothing to be achieved by excluding the unvaccinated. Logic dictates that if anyone is more vulnerable it is the unvaccinated person, but they are obviously relaxed with that risk or they would not want to gather in a crowded place with other Australians.

The Work Health and Safety Act requires businesses to take reasonable steps to keep their premises healthy. Good. Ban anyone who has Covid, be they vaccinated or unvaccinated, from participating to the extent that is possible and for the time they are infectious – but no more.

When it comes to church, their policy appears to allow anyone, irrespective of vaccine status, to attend – which exposes the nonsense of their employment policy.

As an unvaccinated church organist, I won’t be able to contribute to worship by playing the organ, where I sit away from the congregation, but I can sit in the pews amongst everyone else and bellow out the hymns. In which role am I most likely to infect someone else?

The church appears to be partly relying on old information. They claim vaccines remain highly effective ‘…at preventing severe disease and death six months after vaccination’ when new information suggests vaccine effectiveness reduces quite considerably over six months – which is why we’re all lining up for boosters after five.

There’s little difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated at the end of six months, except being able to fully participate in their parish.

Then there is natural immunity. Omicron has just surfaced, so the church couldn’t have taken it into consideration for their policy. With its rate of infectiousness and ability to evade the vaccines, Omicron effectively equalises the vaccinated and unvaccinated. It won’t take long until almost everyone has the strong protection of natural immunity.

The church doesn’t refer to the ‘Good Neighbour principle’, but it underlies much of their thinking. They misapply it here because they have a binary view that ‘vaccinated equals good’ and ‘unvaccinated equals bad’, without taking into account that for a number of people the vaccines actually ‘equal’ bad.