Jab hesitancy is big problem
MEDICARE24: THERE IS ‘UPTICK‘ IN THOSE REFUSING TO GET COVID VACCINATION, SAYS CEO
Social media awash with urban legends and fake news.
Vaccine hesitancy is one of the biggest threats to returning to any semblance of normality and, says chief executive officer of Medicare24 Mike van Wyk, there seems to be an uptick in reluctance to get the jab.
Along with the pandemic forcing many people to engage online, the bedmate of social media interaction has become the continued spread of urban legends and fake news about Covid vaccinations.
While it’s not the only reason for hesitance, it seems to be more common than a few months ago.
“What we have to understand is that without getting the vaccine, neither herd immunity nor any possible positive outcome can be achieved,” says van Wyk.
And he says at Medicare24’s vaccination centre on the East Rand, people sometimes goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid the needle.
“We have had staff reporting bribes offered to fake vaccinations right at the moment before injection,” says van Wyk.
“Last week, Dis-Chem staff were arrested for selling fake vaccine cards. A growing number of companies are considering making vaccination mandatory, likely contributing to the surge in hesitancy-related shenanigans,” adds van Wyk.
“I was vaccine-hesitant until recently,” says a Joburg-based flight attendant who didn’t want to be named.
“I was not comfortable with what I understood of the technology and, along with what I kept seeing on social media, I was leaning towards not getting vaccinated.”
It was not until she challenged her doctor about why she should get jabbed that the penny dropped.
“My doctor used an analogy that brought the science into an understandable context and my counter-arguments did not manage to hold water over the logic of it all and the responsibility we have toward one another to get vaccinated,” she said.
“She explained to me that when a virus enters your body, it can turn left or right, depending on how your body responds to it.
“A left turn means your body recognises the intruder and has a fighting chance in protecting you against infection. A right turn, for example, sees the virus slipping through and causing disease.”
Her doctor then shared that getting the jab is your fighting chance. Without it, you have no defence against the virus.
Too little is understood about Covid to fully express long-term consequences of contracting the virus while unprotected.
Discovery recently announced it is making vaccination mandatory for its staff. Other corporates are likely to follow, despite cries of foul play from human rights activists and hesitants when it comes to protecting individual rights.
Van Wyk argues that while individual rights of choice are protected under the constitution, the greater good of achieving herd immunity must outweigh personal liberty in this instance.
Dr Teneel Noble, who has been at the coalface of the pandemic from the get-go, says getting vaccinated is the only real chance an individual has against the virus.
“It’s bigger and uglier than you could ever imagine,” she says, “and it is extremely dangerous.
“Getting vaccinated decreases the active disease that the individual experiences. It decreases the risk of hospitalisation and decreases the risk of going into high care or, quite simply, death.
She says to get back to a normal way of living, at least 60-70% of the population would have to be vaccinated first.
“Herd immunity is very important. Someone who has had previous exposure to the virus via vaccination is able to fight of the infection far easier than someone who has not,” Noble adds.
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