To vaccinate or not to vaccinate; is that a question we are even entitled to ask?

I deliver live Q & A sessions for the British Wheel of Yoga, answering questions that arise for teachers during the ever changing covid landscape and doing my best, sometimes unprepared, to interpret regulations in the context of one particular teacher or one particular student’s unique teaching or learning scenario.  The topic of vaccination has cropped up a few times; as has conspiracy theory…

There is, apparently, a commonly held belief that conspiracy theory is rife amongst the yoga world.  I can’t say that I have noticed, but what I will say is that vaccination is a personal choice.  Somebody who chooses not to be vaccinated is not by default an anti-vaxer or a conspiracy theorist.  

There are numerous reasons why a sane thinking person might opt out of the covid vaccination programme and what gives anyone the right to make judgements about another person’s choices?  There is no discrimination amongst insurers, no authority for teachers to insist upon students being vaccinated, in fact no differentiation at all between those who do and those who don’t.  There is also no automatic succession from the status of non-vaccinated to the status of conspiracy theorist. 

A recent article on BBC World news online by Joshua Cheetham considered the issue of conspiracy theory within the yoga world.  As Vice Chair for the BWY, Governing Body  for Yoga in the UK, I gave him our position, which echoes my own.  People are entitled to reason things through, reach their own conclusions and decide accordingly.   It does not make them radical or in some way anarchistic.  It makes them human.  And that applies to vaccines as well as to theories.  

Joshua Cheetham for BBC News