Soon the vaccine will be widely accepted by all

IT is widely accepted that to finally regain control of our society from the grip of the killer Covid-19 virus the population must be vaccinated into the high 90 per cent.

Then herd immunity will be achieved (if the police referred to mass gatherings as ‘herds’ I feel sure they would be criticised).

So, what of those who are refusing to be vaccinated? Are they ignorant and/or being utterly selfish?

Not necessarily. I am a man of the Christian faith and occasionally have interesting discussions with my friends and associates about my faith and how that impacts on my life as a contrast to those who have no belief in a God.

The simplest of these impacts is getting up on a cold, wet, miserable Sunday morning to go to church when I could so easily remain in a warm bed.

I do it not because God would abandon me if I didn’t go to church, but because as a human I am a herd animal. I, like all humans like to be in or close to my kind.

This is, by and large, for some the issue with the vaccine.

Some faiths disallow certain foods, clothes or practices because their faith leaders or teachings have determined that to steer clear of these undesirables is personal tribute to their God.

I recall many years ago there was a parental recoil in our society against the children’s Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

The wide parental opposition was based on mistrust, generated by some limited research that suggested the MMR vaccine was unsafe.

The General Medical Council later found the limited research that created the mistrust to be in error and misleading.

No doubt in my mind during the period of MMR mistrust, some children contracted one of those three awful diseases unnecessarily.

However, the MMR vaccine is now part of the program to protect our children from common communicable diseases.

The current opposition to the Covid-19 vaccine is not a lot different.

Some trusted faith and community leaders are making statements about the Covid-19 vaccines that may be sincerely held, but are clearly untrue.

However, the misinformation has set in place mistrust, equivalent to the MMR mistrust once prevalent.

As with the MMR vaccine, the resolution lay not with programs of rebuke and finger-pointing, but for some with reasoned discussion and for most the accumulated evidence that the vaccine is not harmful or contains any substance that conflicts with a faith belief.

In education there’s a mantra that holds up well here – what you hear you forget, what you see you remember, what you do you understand.

I feel sure in a year or so, the Covid-19 vaccine will widely accepted and become a regular part of our GP visits for everyone.

How many people will suffer unnecessarily in the meantime will be a discussion the conspirators and opponents to the virus vaccine will need to face.

Stephen A Warden