![]() Mandatory vaccination began just a few years later. Inoculation gave way to more sophisticated vaccination once the English doctor Edward Jenner developed a smallpox vaccine in 1796, based on the milder cowpox virus that infects cows. For example, during the American Revolutionary War, in 1777, general George Washington required all troops to be inoculated against smallpox. As it spread around the globe, eventually some leaders mandated this kind of inoculation. Eventually the technique spread to Europe and the Americas, where it generally involved rubbing infectious material into a puncture in the skin. In the 17th Century, Chinese physicians found that when certain preparations of smallpox were blown up the nose, they could lead to a milder illness than a natural infection would, followed by immunity. In some ways, attitudes towards the current Covid-19 vaccine requirements reflect the patterns of previous centuries, making it important to understand the historical lessons of compulsory vaccination. But it can also be a highly contested one. The mystery of why some vaccines are doubly beneficialĪs Virginia Mason's experience suggests, a vaccine mandate is a powerful tool for safeguarding public health.What we know about Covid-19 jabs for kids.Covid-19: How effective is a third vaccine dose?."When there's such clear science to this – when the vaccine has been proven to be safe and highly, highly effective – we’ve moved forward with these." "We don’t take mandates lightly," says Tachibana. The other aspect was a heavy focus on communication around the new requirement, including information sessions and documents in multiple languages. One aspect was ensuring that it was as convenient for staff to receive the jabs as possible. ![]() The lessons learned from that experience informed the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine requirement. The combined carrot-and-stick approach proved very successful, and the influenza vaccination rate of Virginia Mason staff shot up from 54% to 98% in two years. ![]() The administration held focus groups and other activities, including quizzes and a party, to encourage discussion of the new requirement. (The other 5%, including partially vaccinated staff, are currently on administrative leave.)Ĭharleen Tachibana, an executive who has spent her entire career at Virginia Mason, believes that this high vaccination rate is partly because "we have a long history of vaccination requirement… it's pretty well been normalised".īack in 2004, Virginia Mason reportedly became the first medical centre to require all of its staff to be vaccinated against influenza each year. It was a potentially risky requirement, given the shortages of medical staff and the resistance to vaccination rocking other parts of the US medical sector.īut when 18 October arrived, 95% of staff had met the requirement through vaccination or an approved exemption. Ten weeks earlier, the centre had declared that all of its staff would be required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by that date in order to protect both those working at the medical centre and their patients from the disease. For Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, a medical centre in the US state of Washington, 18 October 2021 was the day of reckoning. ![]()
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