Is having a vaccine more dangerous than COVID-19? I meet someone who believes that to be true.

by Rick Johansen

I have mentioned before that, in order to maintain a bearable level of mental health, my social networks are an echo chamber. It started with nearly five years of lies and distortions about Brexit and it culminated with the sheer idiocy of anti-vaxxers and COVID-19 deniers. Today, I came face-to-face, at a safe social distance, with one of the most stupid comments I have ever heard about vaccines. This person said they were not having a vaccine yet because “they’ve been developed too quickly and we don’t know the long-term side-effects.” I resisted the obvious answer, which goes along the lines of, “are you an epidemiologist or virologist or just a fucking idiot?” Instead, I made the fatal mistake of trying to debate the subject.

I went down the road of “Don’t you think it’s incredible that science has come to the rescue so quickly? Scientists came up with the vaccines with days of the COVID genetic code being published – the next 10 months involved trials to prove they worked and were safe. There is no evidence that there are long term side-effects.” You know the sort of thing. The response? “It’s all happened too quickly, I’ll wait until next year and how do you know there won’t be long term side-effects.” I gave up at this point, deciding that further debate would not be productive. I was bursting to say, “So you’ll be happy to spend the foreseeable future wearing masks, socially distancing, not going to pubs or on holiday abroad (or at home for that matter? You really fucking want that do you? Well, do you, punk?”

But this is where we are. People are more scared of a vaccine that was developed by the finest scientists on the planet and trialled to near destruction, having been proven to be both safe and effective than they are of a virus that has killed well over two million people worldwide. And we live in a country with the highest death rate in the world.  But hey, let’s avoid a safe and effective vaccine in favour of possibly dying, eh? Give me strength.

Of course, people are scared. I kind of understand that. Nothing is completely safe but I’ll wager I was in more danger walking down the stairs this morning than when a nurse stuck a needle in my arm last week in Southmead Hospital. It really does matter that as many people as possible have the vaccine. If large numbers don’t have it, COVID will continue to circulate more widely in the community, people in large numbers will get infected, more people will die, hospitals will remain busier than they need be and we will be stuck in some form of tiered system forever and a day.

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Anonymous January 19, 2021 - 19:41

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