Our unwillingness to get vaccinated is killing millions
The Daily Scramble #3: Notes on why this isn’t about *your* freedom
While millions of us in economically developed countries wait comfortably on our sofas “for an advanced vaccine” that “doesn’t give us bad side effects” (or so some of the anti-vaccine arguments go), far more across the world are dying every single day while they struggle to procure enough vaccines to inject their people with just the first shot.
In Hong Kong, despite having originally ordered 7.5 million doses, as of May 2021 only a pitiful 20% of the population had sought to get injected with either the BioNTech or Sinovac vaccines. What’s worse, vaccines were due to expire mid-August.
Can we please at least all agree and recognize how spoiled we are to even have access to vaccines and the ability to choose whether or not to get vaccinated (wait for it, that part’s coming)? To have restaurants and food delivery, groceries, potable water, and various other amenities at our disposal, even during lockdowns?
As if we weren’t comfortable enough, wealthy countries have brokered deals with Pfizer and Moderna to secure billions of doses by 2023, essentially leaving poorer nations with few leftovers despite accounting for a large chunk of the world population.
Let this one sink in for a minute:
Rich countries — including Canada, Australia, the US, and members of the EU — will have received enough doses of Covid-19 vaccines to vaccinate their populations four times over before many countries receive any at all. (Source: Quartz)
But as the world continues to fight against COVID-19 and its variants, countries in Europe and the U.S. have begun to implement restrictions on the unvaccinated, which has sparked protests across cities. And as one would expect, France is in the mix.
The biggest recent argument going against getting vaccinated has been around taking people’s freedom away by imposing such restrictions.
And what’s infuriating about this argument is how short-sighted it is.
Let’s look at this question of freedom objectively by diving into a few connected facts:
1/ As long as the virus continues to spread, it will continue to make copies of itself. So far the world has been stricken by the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants, with Delta proving to be an increasingly alarming strain that countries are having trouble containing.
2/ The longer we wait to get vaccinated, the easier it will be for the virus to spread. And a big concern is that we aren’t getting enough vaccines, fast enough, around the world, which is giving the virus more time to evolve and ravage areas of the world that are still waiting.
3/ Meanwhile, friends and families in western countries — vaxxed and unvaxxed — began to flood beaches, highways, music festivals, and other public areas of urban cities as if the worst had already passed, while millions of people in India, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and others continue to die every day.
According to UNICEF, which is tracking the doses distributed across the world both through Covax and other agreements, the majority of high-income countries have secured at least 350% of the doses they need (without accounting for vaccines that they have optioned but are yet to be released). Meanwhile, the agreements reached by low- and middle-income countries for doses to be delivered up to 2023 cover half their populations, or less. (Source: Quartz)
4/ As variant cases continue to rise due to the spread of the virus, lockdowns have to be put back into place. Hong Kong just listed 15 countries as high-risk due to rising Delta cases overseas, thereby bringing its controversial 3-week mandatory hotel quarantine back. New Zealand is back into full lockdown. Japan just extended its state of emergency. It’s very likely that the U.S. and European countries will follow suit.
5/ Now that lockdowns are back for the n-th time, this means:
- We’ll all have to stay home again.
- Businesses will have to shut down again. Those that managed to survive however many waves in the past may not come out of the latest one (this may hit you hard if you know someone who owns an SME.)
- Families continue to be separated. For those who have already suffered unimaginable losses, these lockdowns and mandatory quarantines are making it even more difficult for family members to reunite.
- Even if our cities and countries in developed nations can sustain more lockdowns from an economic standpoint thanks to stimulus schemes, poorer countries cannot afford to completely shut down all the while exhausting every human resource at their disposal to look after those who have been contaminated by the virus (and essentially left to die due to massive shortages of COVID vaccines, as evidenced earlier in this article.)
- Lockdowns also mean more and severing mental health conditions.
- And the list goes on…
I understand that some of the restrictions introduced on the unvaccinated may be difficult to bear, including the fear of losing one’s job. But we have to look at the bigger picture.
To all the unvaccinated, how much “freedom” does a life lived under several lockdowns per year really grant you? How in the world do you expect us to stop the spread of this virus without playing your part? Can we not recognize that this is an issue that requires global unity and that we can’t afford to just “wait” for a better vaccine?
Can we really continue to live our lives knowing exactly just how much other countries are suffering as a consequence of our inaction? Or can we recognize that the world, today, needs our help?
In the end:
- Reasons reportedly going against getting vaccinated are personal: waiting for more clinical trials to have less side effects; less choices for restaurants and bars; not liking to be told what to do; not wanting to get fired; etc.
- Reasons going for the vaccine are both personal and about others: contributing to curbing the spread of the virus so we (personal) can eventually go back to living normal unrestricted lives, while at the same time saving the lives of others in poorer nations by helping to stop the spread.
We’re almost in September 2021, and the state of humanity has not improved since early 2020.
We can’t keep living this way.
Please. Let’s work together on this.
