Scientists at leading US, UK universities slam Australia’s expulsion of Novak Djokovic, urge leader to dump mandates

Scientists at leading US and UK universities slam Australia’s expulsion of Novak Djokovic.

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic.

Scientists at leading American and British universities have slammed Australia’s expulsion of tennis star Novak Djokovic as “authoritarian” in new research that condemns Northern Territory’s “lockdown of the unvaccinated” as “punitive, discriminatory and coercive… and counter-productive”.

Amid growing protests against vaccine mandates throughout the world, including in Paris, Ottawa and Canberra, nine leading scientists from universities including Oxford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, have urged mandates be dumped in light of evidence they were “scientifically questionable, ethically problematic, and misguided”.

“Denying individuals education, livelihoods, medical care, or social life unless they get vaccinated does not appear to coincide with constitutional and bioethical principles, especially in liberal democracies,” they added in a research paper published last week.

Singling out Australia, Austria and Germany for locking down the unvaccinated, the authors warned the “risks and harms” from mandates to combat Covid-19 had reached a point where they “far outweighed the benefits”.

Australia deported Mr Djokovic from Melbourne in January on public health grounds after the tennis number one refused to reveal his vaccination status, prompting an international furore.

“The explicit characterisation of Mr Djokovic as a threat to Australian ‘civil order and public health’ underlines concerns of vaccine man

dates and passports as a tool for authoritarian behaviour,” the authors said.

“Restricting people’s access to work, education, public transport, and social life based on COVID-19 vaccination status impinges on human rights, promotes stigma and social polarisation, and adversely affects health and wellbeing.”

The scientists said governments had systematically overplayed the effectiveness of the vaccines, underplayed the risks, ignored natural immunity, and mislead populations by not following through with promises to ease restrictions once targets had been reached, fuelling anger that might not quickly subside.

“They have become a source for collective rage and anger, notably for those who have been fired from their jobs or isolated and barred from social life,” they said, suggesting mandates were fuelling extremism on both sides of the debate and did little to lift vaccination rates among vulnerable who most needed to be vaccinated.

European nations and some US states including have dropped or planned to drop Covid-19 restrictions entirely in recent weeks, amid falling infection rates and polling suggesting voters had become tired of restrictions as the pandemic enters its third year in March.

The research condemned Northern Territory chief minister Michael Gunner, who drew international attention in January, ordering a lockdown of unvaccinated residents following similar policies in Germany and Austria a month earlier.

“If you are anti-mandate, you are absolutely anti-vax, I don‘t care what your personal vaccination status is. Your personal vaccination status is not relevant. If you campaign against the mandate…If you say ’pro-persuasion’, stuff it, shove it. You are anti-vax,” the territory leader said at the time.

Protests in Canada against mandates, originally centred in Canada’s capital, which has been in gridlock for weeks as thousands of protesters, many with trucks, blocked city streets, have spread to key crossings between the US and Canadian border, prompting calls for the military to intervene.

On Friday Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has blasted the protesters as racists, promised US president Joe Biden “quick action” to unblock the Ambassador Bridge, the world’s largest suspension bridge, which links Michigan and Ontario.

Evidence in the UK and Israel had shown passports that require vaccination to participate in public life increased anger, fuelled mistrust and did little or possibly even reduced, uptake of vaccines which had saved millions of lives.

“Forcefully implemented vaccine policies may entrench existing beliefs of distrust by creating a strong confirmation bias that governments and corporate powers are acting in an authoritarian manner,” they said, noting out some regulatory agencies appeared to be protecting the interests of pharmaceutical companies.

In December 2020, before vaccine were widely available, the World Health Organisation’s immunisation department stated: “I don’t think we envision any countries creating a mandate for [COVID-19] vaccination”.

The scientists said governments had become progressively more authoritarian throughout the pandemic, paving the way for a greater surveillance of individuals’ movement and health choices in the future.

“Will unvaccinated people face exclusions in society for years to come? Will we return to new mandates, and street battles between protesters and police, each time a new variant emerges?”