Compulsory vaccination rejected
Photo: AFP
Reykavik City Council has rejected a proposal to refuse unvaccinated children admission to the capital’s nursery schools. The proposal was rejected by nine votes to four in a Council meeting yesterday.
Mayor of Reykjavik, Dagur B. Eggertsson, spoke out against the proposal submitted by the centre-right Independence Party (‘Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn’) to admit into the capital’s nursery schools only those children who are up to date with their vaccinations in line with recommendations from the Icelandic Directorate of Health.
A precautionary measure
The Independence Party saw the proposal “primarily as a precautionary measure, but also as an incentive and precedent for action to reduce the risk of serious contagious diseases in the future”.
Eggertsson described the proposal as “ill thought through and too radical”, despite his overall support for vaccinations. “To my mind, the side-effects and risks involved are infinitesimal as compared to the benefit enjoyed by individuals and society as a whole by having as many people as possible vaccinated,” he clarified.
Unvaccinated children pose no threat
He could not, however, agree to the principle of banning unvaccinated children from nursery school. “Unvaccinated children pose no threat to vaccinated children,” said the Mayor, “There is no danger other than the individual children concerned catching a given disease.”
He stressed the principle of conducting a risk assessment before any specific measures were agreed upon. He indicated that just 2% of parents in Reykjavik choose not to vaccinate their children and quoted medical advice stating that the extent of the problem in Iceland has been exaggerated.
