Indian Supreme Court Declares Forced Vaccinations to Be Illegal | Hacker News Reader

Indian Supreme Court Declares Forced Vaccinations to Be Illegal

hindustantimes.com

tl;dr. Is this some covid-specific bit of handwaving, or did the court outlaw ANY kind of mandated vaccination? Such as kids going to school, healthcare workers, those working in medical/biotech research, travellers to hot-spot countries, ...?

My reading is that it covers all vaccinations.

I couldn't find a link to the actual opinion, but I think this is just COVID vaccines because the argument presented in the article hinged on evidence presented that the vaccine did not materially decrease transmission (versus what the court considered inadequate evidence to the contrary from the health office).

The court cited a three-pronged test for public health restrictions, which included "proportionality", which means that the suffering caused by the restriction (loss of access to society) was proportionate to the public health gain (apparently minor decrease in transmission risk)

No, but it sure as hell cut down on, y’know, clogging up icu and dying. Or does a haircut > preventing surgeries due to covid crowding?

And if it’s govt provided health care, what (if any) rules can they set on delivery of services?

I guess that would come down to how assertive the taxpayers who fund the government decide to be.

In general -- and we are talking about India here, a country on which I am NOT an expert -- theories of government powers -- especially emergency powers (which are much less subject to review by the people and their representatives) are much more about protecting people from the actions of others than protecting the people from their own poor choices.

Therefore the evidence bar a government agency would generally have to reach to issue a human-rights destroying emergency decree based on evidence that a person might choose treatments providing worse average outcomes for themselves is vastly higher than the standard based on a disease transmission theory.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com