Security forces and compulsory vaccinations

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a lot of confusion among nations’ security forces ever since it became a global challenge. This is completely understandable to an extent and very much unacceptable in some ways.

This pandemic has from the onset shown that health security issues are very much threats to states, requiring that they be dealt with in an all-of-government or holistic approach. The Caribbean with all its threat scenarios has feared no differently and has very quickly discovered that the present pandemic provided avenues of increased criminal activities, deliberately, or opportunistically. In the States where there are numerous capacities among security forces, these have become just as stretched as a result of they being required to assist overstretched health resources in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. The UK comes to mind in this regard as the British Army has been used to erect field hospitals or convert existing structures into COVID-19 hospitals. The US Armed Forces did not escape this additional tasking to help the national effort, they were deployed throughout many states to help with the vaccination roll-out across the nation, among other duties. In the Caribbean, our already overburdened security forces have the thankless task of enforcing critical COVID-19 protocols. The challenges being experienced are well documented.

Policing a nation under these circumstances has, therefore, not been an easy task. In many cases, it has been observed to involve the traditional use of primary law-enforcement agencies as well as the deployment of the military. The use of the military in these circumstances has been accepted traditionally across the Caribbean in times of crises, in order to assist the police in the maintenance of law and order.

CLOSE CONTACT

The policing of a nation requires close contact with the populace on a daily basis. Close contact does not relate only to walking the beat in open spaces, creating the desired visibility but also interacting/conversing with people, making arrests, physically handling persons, tending to prisoners, guarding quarantine sites, resolving physical and other altercations, conducting operations of various natures, as well as distanced tasks, as in the case of directing traffic, among other duties. The same applies to the military, whether operating on their own or jointly.

The security forces, if they are to be effective in what is required of them, present themselves as being in the line of danger at all times; danger from the adverse reactions of unlawful elements; danger of contracting the COVID-19 virus; danger of being the conduit of the spread of the virus to their colleagues, their families and all areas of the general public. From a health perspective, members of the security forces would need to be regarded as one of the largest groups of potential spreaders of a harmful virus, if the correct procedures are not enforced and maintained in such organisations.

Recent articles and comments in the social media have highlighted degrees of vaccine hesitancy among these categories of public servants. As the author has stated before, compulsory vaccination protocols are not policies that are supported for everyone but a notable exception, I believe, has to be made for this category of persons.

Nations depend upon their security forces to provide them with the necessary protections in times of adversity. The COVID-19 pandemic is one such occasion. It is a virus easily contracted from infected persons through inhalation, in the main. An examination of the tasks that our security forces are expected to carry out on a daily basis, in the public interest, puts them directly in the “path for contracting” the coronavirus and subsequently becoming superspreaders, if appropriate actions are not taken.

The security forces, in my view, have a duty to protect themselves and also protect the public. They have done this in the past, prior to the advent of this virus, as a normal matter of course. In deployments overseas, for example, members of the security forces have taken their compulsory jabs prior to taking up their duties, and done so without question. These organisations have a responsibility to ensure that their members have all the protections they need in order to carry out their functions in the interest of the State. Why then is there vaccine hesitancy today? Is it a case of the loss of organisational ethos, or their reason for being? Are there leadership crises? Are there communication problems? Should the discipline and effectiveness of these organisations be brought into question?

SORRY DAY

It will be a sorry day when the ability of the Caribbean’s security forces or those of any state, for that matter, become so influenced by social media that they begin to think and operate like the sceptics in society. Current observations tend to suggest that such a notion is not far from becoming a reality and points to the need to have the authorities address the issue before the systems in place become impotent and irrelevant in the eyes of the public. Security forces are there to provide services in the public interest under all circumstances.

The job descriptions/specifications of each individual must make this quite clear so personnel are aware of what is required of them and, therefore, how they will need to be prepared to provide the services required of them. The management of these organisations must see to their proper administration, and this includes the health of their members. Where there are individuals that cannot comply for whatever reason, then they should be required to seek alternative employment. It is grossly unfair to these organisations and the nation for them to have among their ranks persons who do not serve the interest of the State, cannot function as required when needed to do so, and are merely occupying a slot for employment purposes only.

For these reasons, the security forces must of necessity be entities that are treated and administered differently. In some cases, I am advised that there are provisions for what has been tabled here; these should be enforced. The reality, however, is simply that we cannot sit back and allow such organisations to claim professionalism, if it cannot be displayed to the satisfaction of a greater scrutiny.

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