We provide ethical criteria to establish when vaccine mandates for healthcare workers are
ethically justifiable. The relevant criteria are: the utility of the vaccine for healthcare workers,
the utility for patients (both in terms of prevention of transmission of infection and reduction
in staff shortage), and the existence of less restrictive alternatives that can achieve
comparable benefits. Health care workers have professional obligations to promote the
interests of patients that entail exposure to greater risks or infringement of autonomy than
ordinary members of the public. Thus, we argue that when vaccine mandates are justified on
the basis of these criteria, they are not unfairly discriminatory, and the level of coercion they
involve is ethically acceptable - and indeed comparable to that already accepted in healthcare
employment contracts. Such mandates might be justified even when general population
mandates are not. Our conclusion is that, given current evidence, those ethical criteria justify
mandates for flu vaccination, but not COVID-19 vaccination for health care workers. We
extend our arguments to other vaccines.
