vaccine mandates date back to 19th century smallpox outbreaks
vaccines were made compulsory during one of the last major urban smallpox outbreaks that took place in montreal in 1885.
aug 16 2021
3 minute read
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by: gordon hoekstra
with vaccine mandates and restrictions for the unvaccinated being implemented in canada and around the world as the highly contagious covid-19 delta variant rises, there may be some lessons to be learned from history.
it’s not the first time that governments have mandated vaccines for the public in the face of a deadly virus.
going back 100 years or more, there were compulsory smallpox vaccine mandates in western countries.
“during smallpox outbreaks in different times and places, you could certainly have extremely energetic public health enforcement, and a lot of the same kinds of concerns,” says university of victoria history professor mitchell hammond.
those concerns included vaccine resistance and hesitancy, over concerns of the safety of vaccines, but also suspicions of the authorities advocating the vaccines, says hammond, the author of the recently published epidemics and the modern world.
british columbia, like canada, has high vaccine rates (72 per cent of those 12 and older with two doses), but it has not been enough to stop an exponential increase in covid-19 cases as the delta variant takes hold. hospitalizations are also on the rise.
in the past week, the b.c. government announced it is mandating vaccines for health care workers in long-term care homes. ontario did the same.
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and the canadian government, just days ahead of an expected federal election call by prime minister justin trudeau’s liberals, stipulated that all federal workers must be vaccinated.
other jurisdictions around the world — including the u.s., australia and the u.k. — have taken similar moves.
hammond says vaccines were also made compulsory during one of the last major urban smallpox outbreaks that took place in montreal in 1885.
during the outbreak, health officials made house-to-house inspections and checked for telltale pockmarks showing someone had had the virus and survived or showed scars from the vaccine on an arm.
resistance to the compulsory vaccine campaign resulted in riots in the streets and a lack of success with the vaccination effort, said hammond.
children were forcibly vaccinated but still thousands died.
during the 19th and early 20th centuries similar compulsory smallpox vaccine measures took place during outbreaks in the u.s.
there were also vaccine requirement measures in europe during the same time period but it was not widespread, instead instituted by smaller groups or organizations such as for bavarian schoolchildren or the prussian military, noted hammond.
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even though today there is vastly improved technology, medical knowledge and communications, there are still challenges in overcoming vaccine resistance and hesitancy, observed hammond.
those include, for some people, a deep distrust of various kinds of authorities that interlock with other attitudes and assumptions including political, which are also fanned by access to information sources that are not scientifically valid, noted hammond.
“it makes it almost harder for the more advanced countries in some ways, paradoxically. we have a more fragmented media environment and more avenues for people to stand up and say, ‘no, this is bad for me, and i don’t want to do this’,” said hammond.
it may, as in the past, simply take time to overcome vaccine resistance and change attitudes, he said.
smallpox vaccines were first developed in the 1790s and were widely available by the 1810s.
yet, it still took another 170 years for smallpox to be declared eradicated, said hammond.
the delta variant, a virus mutation of the coronavirus that caused covid-19, first identified in india, now accounts for more than 90 per cent of cases in b.c.
research, including that compiled by the u.s. centre for disease control, indicates the delta variant may be twice as contagious as previous variants and may cause more serious illness than previous strains in unvaccinated people.
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