Let’s be reasonable

I am a big fan of The Economist’s accurate reporting and liberal values, but I was displeased to see you refer to “anti-vax protests” in Austria and Germany, describing them as “fuelled by the far-right” (“Must you be jabbed?”, January 22nd). You should have a better understanding about why some people are frustrated with covid-19 measures.

The vaccines have saved many lives. I think that getting the vaccine is the best decision for your health as well as other people’s. That said, I want to make the decision on whether I get vaccinated (which I have) after speaking to my doctor and doing my own research. It upsets me greatly that government officials want to make this decision in my stead through compulsion. And it is unclear where the line will be drawn once government has decided in effect to force adults into taking medication. I am in Germany being coerced into getting a booster shot. I am a young person. Government mandates cannot be fine tuned to fit all of us.

Many scientists and lay people have legitimate concerns over governments’ obsession with covid over anything else. Most people protesting in Austria and Germany are not anti-vax, but anti-coercion. They do not want government to micromanage their lives, for example deciding that meeting nine people outside is safe but 11 isn’t. I do not want to be dismissed as simply “anti-vax”.

JOSE GARRIDO RAMAS Machine-learning scientist Berlin

The word vaccine does indeed derive from the Latin for cow (Johnson, January 1st). But it was not named after a treatment for cowpox. Live cowpox was the vaccine itself. Edward Jenner infected a boy first with cowpox and then with the much more deadly smallpox (variola). Luckily for Jenner, us, and the boy, he survived.

BENJAMIN JOHNSON

London