MY TAKE
A SHOT IN THE ARM FOR PUBLIC HEALTH
Image credit: AUGUST DE RICHELIEU from Pexels.
By SHAGORIKA EASWAR
One of my neighbours travelled frequently to visit family in other parts of Canada and in the US, also taking the occasional holiday in the Caribbean with friends.
She was a strong, independent lady who had raised her children on her own after the early passing of her husband. She worked hard, held them to high standards and was hugely proud of their academic and career success.
“I learned to be tough,” she’d say. “I had to, if I wanted to pull this off by myself.”
So, a lady who brooked no nonsense. And yet she submitted meekly to removing her shoes to have them checked before being allowed to board many flights.
She didn’t grumble about why they thought fit to check a Caucasian lady in her mid-70s – tiny, and the most unthreatening person you could think of to boot – she went out and bought a pair of slip-ons to make the process easier.
Her reasoning was simple. “If taking off our shoes keeps everyone safer, just do it!”
I think of her these days when I read about the COVID-19 vaccine. Still in the works, still many months away, it has already generated much debate. According to some reports, only about 60 per cent of Canadians think the vaccine should be mandatory for all.
Now before we go any further, full disclosure: I am firmly in the yes camp.
We gave our sons every single shot that was available when they were kids. Their immunization records were so impressive that when we walked into their first school in Canada, the staff said they’d never seen anything like it.
“I don’t even know what half of these are for!” one of them confessed.
For a brief moment I wondered if she thought we had come from some wild place rife with unknown and horrible diseases, but it was too late for that – the record was there for posterity!
We continued to keep their shots up-to-date. We took our flu shots regularly.
We also took precautionary shots before we travelled back to India. And these were not covered by Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). The visit to the travel clinic, the meds for diarrhoea and malaria and the shots to prevent Hep A cost a pretty penny. Multiply that by four for the family and let’s just say my shopping budget for India took a substantial hit. It also caused much amusement among our desi friends.
“We go all the time and I’ve never taken a single shot,” said one.
I mumbled apologetically about not wanting to deal with sickness on a short visit, wanting to prove that we were not being disgustingly touristy.
But the shots continued.
I knew, of course, that some people are wary of vaccination, that others dismiss them outright. It bothered me that while schools insisted on shots being up-to-date before admitting a child, there were adults among us who hadn’t been vaccinated.
Didn’t they know that vaccines had eradicated small pox and have all but eradicated polio, two of the worst diseases mankind knew? Didn’t they want their children to be safe? Didn’t they want that safety to extend to their community?
But I admit that I shrugged the thought aside with the catch-all, “Oh well, it takes all kinds”.
The fact that I am a firm believer in individual rights might have had something to do with this. In a good society, in a good country, people should have the right to choose.
But if ever there was a time when the greater good trumps individual rights, this is it. As those of us who come from places where the wealthy get treatment while the underprivileged line the corridors of dirty hospitals know, our public health system is one of the greatest gifts that Canada provides for everyone.
And so, when the vaccine is finally available, when there’s enough to go around for all after the frontline workers and the most vulnerable have been protected, everyone would get this shot.
For we can’t have those who choose not to get the vaccine walking around in the malls, we can’t interact with them on public transit and in restaurants and at our workplaces. We can’t risk a second or third wave of deaths. We can’t risk another lockdown of the dimension we are all living with currently.
And we can’t let the efforts of all the frontline workers who risked so much to keep us safe count for naught. Or of those who are signing up to participate in trials for a vaccine to speed up the process, who are – knowing the risks involved – willing to be exposed to the virus.
We don’t know yet if the vaccine will keep everyone safe forever – after all, the flu vaccine needs to be tweaked every year to counter new viruses or mutations of existing ones.
What we do know is that it will be our best shot at protecting everyone and we all have to take it. As Bill Bryson writes in The Body, a successful virus is one that doesn’t kill too well and can circulate widely.
Thus the more people that are vaccinated, the more others will also be safe.
This should not be optional.