Carrot or stick? As the super-infectious Delta variant spreads around the world, threatening to stall the reopening and recovery in countries that thought their Covid-19 vaccine programmes were succeeding, governments are facing the delicate question of how to get hesitant citizens to take the jab.
The responses often involve a combination of incentive and coercion. Inducements to receive Covid-19 jabs are proliferating. In the US, states are offering rewards ranging from $100 cash to free beer, theme park tickets and lottery tickets. In the UK, freebies include fast food and free taxi rides.
But some governments are also starting to use on increasingly hard sticks — mandating vaccination as a condition of employment, travel and admission to entertainment and leisure venues. A striking example was French president Emmanuel Macron’s announcement of a new law making vaccination compulsory for healthcare workers and requiring a health pass to enter public places such as restaurants, bars and high-speed trains. The new rules came into effect this week.