I wonder if people downvoted this because they took it as some kind of political point about COVID-19. Maybe it was, but I agree with it as a serious proposal. Even if the government is not confident in its ability to get people to accept vaccinations, it should commit to pay for the doses either way, to incentivize the development of the vaccine. In general, a contest or prize is a smart way to fund a public good. Among left and right economists, this is one thing most would agree on.

Okay suppose the government commits to pay for it and keeps coercing people to take it. What happens when:

(1) TotallyGenuine drug company realizes that they can still get paid giving out fake shots.

(2) NotEvil drug company buys up it's smaller competitors and stops improving vaccines.

(3) KeyboardScientist makes a viral post that the government is sterilizing people of a particular ethnicity.

With a bit of googling, you can find events very close to all these three.

And yet we still have many successful mandatory vaccination campaigns. Certainly they've been hurt by all the antivax garbage going around since the pandemic, but that doesn't make them not worthwhile.

We have also had many successful wars. Doesn't mean wars are the best way to solve issues.

I was actually thinking of Gardasil but yes, it could be applied to anything. It was not meant to be political.