Anyone who wants to understand a society is well advised to understand what exactly is unevenly distributed within it. Let’s take the outbreak of Corona: Before the virus, everyone is the same, it was initially said. A misunderstanding. We were only able to uncover it when we understood that the possibility of reducing physical closeness is unevenly distributed. Now it is said: Everyone can be vaccinated, and it is your own fault if you do not. That also means: A vaccination requirement affects everyone equally. Hm.
Initial studies from Great Britain and the USA have shown that vaccination doses have not yet been evenly distributed in society: socially disadvantaged, mostly black milieus are less vaccinated than the white middle class. In this country too, studies by the Robert Koch Institute and the University of Mainz show that people with a migration background and poorer people are less vaccinated than the middle and upper classes. This is nothing new. For a long time now, the RKI has been encouraging health services to think about the social issue. Vaccination buses have been sent to places where people with little incomes live close together. And the numbers show: Yes, this increases the vaccination rate.
At the same time, however, women in France are fighting against vaccination pressure on the street. And the corona study by the University of Mainz shows another inequality: the willingness to vaccinate decreases with the social status. More than 90 percent of senior citizens want to be vaccinated. In the case of the lowly, it is less than 80 percent. This 80 percent has not yet been reached in practice. Doctors report: So far, the middle class has mostly come to vaccinate. In the meantime, the generation of guest workers, for example, only rarely accepted the vaccination offer at the time of prioritization. Many who once migrated to Germany from Poland or Russia, it is said, can hardly be convinced of a vaccination: They wanted to be left alone and did not trust the vaccine.
So what is unevenly distributed here? It is about a good that could hardly be more important for a functioning health system: trust. Without trust, people come to the doctor very late, often too late for prophylaxis, often too late for curative treatment. Health researchers measure a ten-year difference in life expectancy between rich and poor. This is also due to differences in the workload, too little sleep, too much stress, unhealthy diet, but: it is also due to the distance between doctor and patient.
Health has to go to people, as research has long known: multilingualism, social closeness and networking with the community are the recommendations. In practice, they have rarely been implemented. Then came the pandemic.
“What can you do? Talk to the neighbors? ”Someone asked recently. The mishap is: If you haven’t talked to your neighbors for ten years, you won’t suddenly gain the confidence that would be necessary to intensively discuss the benefits and risks of a substance that is inserted into the organism with a long needle.
The middle class has been speaking for years: to the middle class. The poor have been speaking for years: with the poor. You trust each other. One mistrusts the other. From the point of view of the poor, the others are now the ones with the syringe. From the point of view of those with an injection, it is now their own fault.
No, compulsory vaccination does not apply to everyone equally in this society.
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