Rio de Janeiro Records Refusals to Covid-19 Vaccine Among Healthcare Professionals

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The second day of the vaccination campaign in Rio has been marking exciting records of elderly and healthcare professionals being vaccinated. However, there have also been cases of refusal.

On Wednesday, January 20th, Municipal Health Secretary Daniel Soranz said that six elderly people have already refused vaccination against Covid-19, as have some healthcare professionals.

In a morning interview, the Secretary had confirmed the information of the six cases in nursing homes, but this number has been increasing, despite still being the minority.

“Now we also have refusals from healthcare professionals,” said Daniel Soranz, who was unable to provide further details, for reasons of privacy, but confirmed that the refusals were based on “ideology”.

In this first vaccination phase, 34% of healthcare professionals are being covered – an estimate of the number of frontline workers against Covid-19 – elderly and disabled residents of long-term care institutions (ILPIs) and indigenous people.

“The great majority of people are very keen to be vaccinated, they are very excited about vaccination. Unfortunately, there are still people who are resistant to the vaccine, and this is very negative, because they put their lives and the lives of others at risk,” explained Soranz, who appealed against concerns of priority groups. “This vaccine is very safe, without any documented serious adverse effects, all the adverse effects were very mild in the studies.”

‘Legal limbo’

Despite being rare, these situations concern authorities, also because of the legal questions on the issue. Experts pointed out that there are still no specific rules and regulations for such cases. Although mandatory, vaccination cannot be compulsory. For the time being, the advice is to intensify information campaigns on the need for vaccination.

On Tuesday, GLOBO disclosed the first reported case of refusal to the vaccine, at the Recreio dos Anciões nursing home, where an elderly couple said they did not want to be vaccinated. On the issue, attorney specialized in geriatric homes Ariane Angioletti, legal advisor of the National Front for the Strengthening of ILPIs, explained that the legal discussion is new, but her position is to guide nursing homes to rescind contracts with these elderly.

“Vaccinations on the national immunization calendar are mandatory, but the vaccine against Covid-19 is still an exceptionality for now. What we have is a Federal Supreme Court decision that allows states and municipalities to take restrictive measures against those who do not accept the vaccine. In theory, it is mandatory, but it cannot be coercive. So it remains in a legal limbo. We don’t have any defined penalties yet,” explained Ariane on Tuesday.