The vaccine side-effect hurting us all
How do you prove to someone you love they should get vaccinated? You don’t, because it won’t work. What you need to do is bribe, blackmail, trick or shame them into it. You need to use every dirty emotional method under the sun and, when they finally succumb, they’ll hate you for it. But at least they’ll be alive to do it.
Covid-19 has been ripping families apart in so many ways, and not one of us is immune. If we’re not separated by a broken MIQ system, the Auckland border or the nature of our jobs, we’re being torn asunder by the vaccine. Some conspiracists describe it as a poison, and it’s certainly poisoning our relationships.
It seems not a day goes past without another conspiracy about the vaccine’s side-effects. A woman told me it contained the tissue of aborted foetuses (it doesn’t); a man told me it was experimental (it’s not); and someone on Facebook with a teaspoon stuck on her chest swore it made her magnetic (it didn’t).
But nobody can deny the vaccine’s most perfidious side-effect: it may destroy your family. Symptoms include rage, remorse and good old silent treatment. Recovery is in no way assured.
I hate the vaccine for this. I hate the side-effect it doesn’t mention in the small print, and I hate that, in all its life-saving smugness, it’s divided us in away no other pandemic problem has.
I hate it for uniting disparate groups of frightened people and allowing them to spew hatred. I hate it for sowing conspiracies and distrust in good people; hate it for destroying a generation of families. (I hate how it’s torn us apart, darling.)
Professor Paul Spoonley has long studied the far Right and conspiratorial politics, two things that are contributing to vaccine hesitation here. He says that, while it’s tempting to quote facts and science at anyone opposed to getting vaccinated, that’s ultimately awaste of breath.
What you should do is appeal to their emotions and personal connections. ‘‘Ask how they’ll feel if they brought the virus home because they were unvaccinated and made everyone else sick.’’
But what if they don’t believe it’ll protect them? Or don’t even believe in the virus?
A colleague recently wrote about dealing with vaccine-hesitant family members and was amazed at how many people were keen to share their experiences. Every family’s got one, it seems, and other than locking them in the back room to keep them safe, there are bugger all other options open to us.
Which is why it’s time to play dirty. Issue ultimatums, promise rewards or, if nagging fails, try begging. Resort to threats if you have to – ‘‘I’ll kill you if you die of Covid’’ – or suggest a bit of quid pro quo if they’ve been urging you to do something for ages.
Sulk, rage, cry: the methods might not be honourable, but right now there’s too much at stake not to give it your damnedest. So do what you have to, but be prepared to pay. Because even if you win, the price of victory can be heartbreakingly high. You likely won’t lose them to Covid, but you might lose them all the same.
Because for all the families currently separated by borders and desperate to reunite, there are other families sharing a suburb and not talking at all.
And while many New Zealanders worry about whether they’ll get to travel to loved ones this Christmas, others know our distances will still be too great to cross by then. Or ever.