Jab hesitancy- logical or not?

THE VACCINE QUESTION-IS IT AS CLEAR AS WE MAY WISH?

The nation is in an atmosphere of fear and anxiety caused by the second wave. Many have died and many are under treatment even as I write. Corona, its symptoms and manifestations are not uniform. You may have it and not know you have it, you may have it, know you have it and may not be able to get the right treatment at the right time due to the heavy traffic in the medical and hospital firmament across the country. Then again, you may have had it, recovered and yet at high risk from follow up gremlins like Black fungus, white fungus or yellow fungus. So if you have that nagging cough, you may be already in mental terror wondering whether it is corona and thoroughly confused whether you should reach for the bottle of cough syrup or call your lawyer to make out your will. Add to that the despicable cheats and frauds who are out to profit through hoarding life saving medicines or oxygen or by contaminating drugs and selling death with the label of life and you are in a minefield out there.

The science of medicine has always been imperfect, but by and large, it has managed to deliver and people have faith in doctors and hospitals, medicines, vaccines etc. Let us say that it has hovered around the 70% correct and deliverable ambit pre-corona and the rest 30% who the doctors and medicines have not saved is just tough luck or karma or whatever.

Now Corona is another story. It is deadly-YES, highly contagious-YES, but is it now in the medicine man’s bag? Have we found a cure-NO. The steady fall in numbers in Covid#1 was largely due to CONTAINMENT by methods such as masking up, social distancing and enforcing lockdowns. The moment people became careless, it came back deadlier as Covid#2.

Now even doctors don’t know which strain is causing your problem and which treatment to administer. Because Corona is a shape shifting virus now and manifests different symptoms and mannerisms in patients. The vaccine made for virus A, may not even work on Virus B-so how safe is the jab? I am not even getting into the argument of side effects or after effects here. No doctor will certify beyond doubt that you take the vaccine and corona will not get you. People who have been jabbed have succumbed later although the numbers of such cases are negligible. Largely, the vaccines have delivered and remain definitely the only high percent proven shield against corona. Yet, there is still a small percent who the jab may not save and hence the hesitancy.

The jab is a 70/80% effective protection and so the country is pushing for it big time. It is making a difference too as the corona numbers are indeed dwindling as of this day of May 28, 2021. But there remain a large number of people, educated, uneducated wise and stupid, who are not interested in taking the vaccine. That element of doubt is a huge drag on ensuring the kind of numbers the country is planning to vaccinate. Availability of vaccines is only one side of the story. Willingness to take it EVEN if it is available is the question. This is not just about numbers but psychology because as the old saying goes, “You can take a horse to the water …..

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