With a significant number of people remaining unvaccinated, or refusing to be vaccinated, the risk of increased community infection, hospital admissions and even further fatalities persists.

In the last two weeks there have been over 17,000 positive cases recorded. 60% of Covid patients currently in hospital have not been vaccinated. Twenty-eight people have died in the last seven days and infection rates are now twice as high as they were during June.

Refusal, or reluctance, to get vaccinated against the worst global pandemic in over a century raises serious questions about how we discharge our social responsibility to each other, the value we place on institutions like the NHS and what role, if any, citizenship plays in our society.

Many of those refusing, or reluctant, to take the Covid vaccination rely on spurious claims based largely on social media generated myths and deliberate misinformation to justify their ‘freedom of choice’ arguments. Others fall back on conspiratorial, religious and paranoid beliefs.

What does this say about citizenship and collective responsibility in our society? 

Amongst other things, it says that there is an unashamed culture of “I’ll do as I please and to hell with the consequences.” It says that many people don’t believe they have a responsibility to others, let alone to themselves, and that they are sufficiently emboldened to proclaim that publicly.

It says that the core values of the dominant culture in our society – individualism, selfish disregard and an absence of personal accountability – are now jeopardising the vulnerable, the future health of the population, the resources of the NHS and the possibility of a further wave of infections.

What is welcoming is the fact that the majority of people are and have acted with a real sense of social responsibility in spite of the lead given by many so called political and social elites. Recent months have been littered with examples of well-known people and organisations blatantly flouting their responsibilities and compounding the indignity of their actions with self-justifying and insulting ‘apologies’.

The very concept of responsible citizenship has been under assault for many years – indeed the many social gains of post-World War II era, including the NHS, have been subject to systemic undermining since their inception. Margaret Thatcher’s infamous ‘… there is no such thing as society- only individuals’ speech encapsulates the campaign to erode the principles of citizenship.

Thatcher’s declaration in 1987 was a demonstration of the determination of the class she represented to wage war against the unions, dismantle social benefits and gains and to privatise health, education and public utilities in favour of individualism. It was also an open assault on the socialist principles of benefit for the many not the few. 

Failure to take responsibility through firm and decisive action at the outbreak of the Covid crisis, rapidly led to managing the pandemic through a reliance on personal responsibility, social distancing and mask wearing.

The combination of government failures, the arrogance of elites and the ignorant and self-centred attitude of those who have bought into the capitalist myth of ‘personal freedom of choice’ has serious consequences throughout society. 

It puts health and well-being at risk, it provides cover for corporate exploitation and challenges the concept of social responsibility and citizenship.

Educating children, and adults, in the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship is an important and ongoing task. However, only a radical transformation to a socialist society can ultimately establish citizenship, social responsibility and a collective society as our core values.