The European Union Commission has authorized the first safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 developed by BioNTech and Pfizer, last Monday on December 21.
While vaccination of EU citizens is expected to start before the end of the year, the Commission is planning to have 200 million citizens vaccinated by September 2021, and is currently working to activate an additional 100 million doses on the meantime.
However, with the high volume of fake news and conspiracy theories that have been going on for months now on the pandemic and vaccination, the real challenge for the EU will not be to purchase the necessary vaccine doses, but rather to convince people to be vaccinated.
And while it may be a bit harder to convince each EU citizen to be vaccinated, the EU countries may have it easier to handle incoming travellers.
In April 2020, SchengenVisaInfo.com had reported that once the vaccine is available, travellers would be obliged to get vaccinated in order to be eligible to enter the EU countries. An EU official had confirmed that once the COVID-19 vaccine is confirmed and available for all, visa applicants would also be required to be vaccinated in the future.
If the EU obliges travellers to vaccinate, even if anti-vax travellers find a loophole in the requirement and manage to enter any of the Member States, travel insurance providers may refuse to cover them.
Insurance Providers Will Require Travellers to Be Vaccinated Only If EU Does So First
In an exchange of emails with SchengenVisaInfo.com, Elvio Chilelli from Europ Assistance, a company that provides Schengen travel insurance for individuals, families, groups, leisure and business travellers, with no pre-screening or medical exams required, said that currently, vaccination is not a requirement for the EU and thus not a requirement for purchasing their policies.
However, Chilelli noted that if the EU makes vaccination obligatory for travellers to be eligible to enter its territory, then Europ Assistance would update its policies in compliance with the EU regulations.
“If the European Union updates its own requirements, our policy will be immediately updated to be, as they always are, 100 per cent compliant,” the spokesperson said.
Europ Assistance is not the only insurance company which intends to make vaccination obligatory in order to provide coverage for travellers to the EU, in case the latter makes vaccination a mandatory requirement.
AXA, a French multinational insurance firm headquartered in Paris, also plans to refuse coverage to those who have not taken the vaccine, in case the EU Member States make it obligatory for travellers.
“It is likely that countries are going to require people to have had the vaccine to enter. Therefore, if customers haven’t been inoculated, they will not be covered,” the company predicts.
However, if the EU does not impose such a requirement, then AXA will also cover travellers who are not vaccinated.
“If there is no requirement from the entering country, we cannot enforce that people have had the vaccine – as customers may not have had the opportunity to get one,” a spokesperson of the company told SchengenVisaInfo.com.
Travellers without vaccines are currently being covered without any exclusion by insurance broker DR-WALTER as well.
Reinhard Bellinghausen, the CEO of the company, notes that in principle, insurance companies should not be allowed to change their insurance policies on reasons of discrimination just because someone does not want to be vaccinated.
However, the company does not reject the possibility that in the future insurers may develop a specific insurance tariff aimed primarily at people who do not want to be vaccinated, though there are no such plans at current.
“What is certain at the moment is that our insurance companies will cover even if someone is not vaccinated/refuses to be vaccinated and becomes infected with COVID-19,” Bellinghausen told SchengenVisaInfo.com.
He also pointed out that if additional costs are imposed for people without vaccines, they might be more expensive or no longer cover COVID-19.
Only Half of World Population Willing to Be Vaccinated, Survey Shows
Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) and YouGov have recently conducted a survey on the willingness of people to be vaccinated, carried out in 15 countries – including, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
The results show that only about 51 per cent of 13,500 participants were willing to get vaccinated in 2021.
According to the survey, which was conducted in November, French citizens were the least willing to be vaccinated – only 35 per cent. At the same time, 66 per cent of French citizens surveyed showed great concern about the possible side effects of the vaccine.
Back in May, protesters in Germany had accused Chancellor Angela Merkel and pharmaceutical companies of inventing COVID-19 to “impose dictator-ship like conditions on the country.”
Conspiracy theorists, in Europe and further in the world, have targeted Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is known as a supporter of vaccination, claiming he is responsible for the Coronavirus pandemic.
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