DEAR News Of The Area,

IN answer to W Duesbury, Boambee (‘The Right to Choose or Refuse’, p30, Coffs Coast News Of The Area, 5 November 2021 Edition).

I hope the following clarifies some people’s stance on the issue.

The 1930’s comparison you allude to was a political situation and not a health crisis involving health orders that are only in force for a limited time duration.

No one is taking a person’s rights away, you are still free to choose or refuse, albeit under limited circumstances.

I get what you are saying about the unvaccinated being second class citizens but it is deserved and below I’ll tell you why.

You make a further statement: “I am vaccinated solely to protect me and no other, for that is all the vaccine does”.

Unfortunately, this is how misinformation circulates, I’m calling it that and not disinformation because I believe you are misguided in your summation of the situation, with no malicious intent.

I have divided people up into different groups and you seem to have a foot in each camp of two specific groups, alas there are too many groups to list here.

Never before in human history have we had so much information concerning vaccines instantly and on a global scale, involving billions of people.

Studies and research are coming at a blinding pace, thanks to technology, unfortunately misinformation and disinformation also follows.

The following facts should be noted: 1) the jab is to protect you, although it is not 100% effective; 2) to prevent transmission to family, friends & community – see latest data from studies and research – 40-60% rates, maybe even 63% one Israel study finds; 3) to alleviate overloading of our health system – which anyone who has cause to go hospital will know, is already on a knife each; 4) to help health workers alleviate having to work in intolerable conditions in full PPE for long periods; 5) to protect people who can’t have the jab such as the vulnerable due to underlying health conditions or immunocompromised or patients who have undergone recent medical procedures or due to anaphylactic reactions – unfortunately these people are often lumped in with anti vaxxers who are a separate refusal group; 6) to protect children who can’t yet have the jab.

Anyone who can’t see the logic in the aforementioned items and take protective steps, I believe to be pretty selfish.

Yes, I’m angry, increasingly, the vast majority filling the hospitals are severely ill unvaccinated people, some who remain adamant that COVID-19 does not exist even when they are seriously ill with the virus.

Others come to the realisation too late that the deadly virus is real, begging for a vaccine before being hooked up to a ventilator, unsure whether they will regain consciousness; sorry it’s too late, you can look forward to long Covid if you survive.

“It has been incredibly challenging and distressing,” Western Health intensive care director Craig French said.

“Patients and their families have expressed the belief that they don’t have COVID, it’s not real to them, even though they are critically ill or somebody they love is very, very sick.”

Considering events overseas, where hospital medical staff have to make critical decisions who gets beds and who they save, my opinion concerning people who refuse to be vaccinated – they should be placed at the end of the queue, because they failed to try and protect themselves, and may God have mercy on their souls.

I am angry about the unvaccinated, but unfortunately you’ll always have the 5-10% who are against anything.

Some anti vaxxers would rather consult social media than a doctor, would they do that if they had a broken leg?

When we had previous vaccines polio, flu etc you never asked what brand it was, you trusted the science.

If they are worried about the vaccine, I say to them, wait till you’re in hospital and see the cocktail of drugs you’re about to be served.

As one American music celebrity said about the dissenters “put them in a Covid ward without a mask and then report how you go”.

Remember last year we were praying for a vaccine and the Federal Government was tardy getting it.

Maybe anti vaxxers should trade places with a person in a poor Third World nation and see how they go.

I’ll conclude with the following.

In the US one of the legal precedents for public-health emergencies is a 1905 legal case, JACOBSON v.

MASSACHUSETTS, in which the Supreme Court interpreted vaccination as a form of self-defence, finding that “a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic disease which threatens the safety of its members”.

Legally, a person carrying an infectious disease is not unlike a person carrying a weapon.

“And in the end – the love you take is equal to the love you make” – The Beatles.

There doesn’t appear to be much love from the selfish unvaccinated who choose this course, and I don’t have much love for them either, may God forgive me.

Pretty hard ‘to love thy neighbour’ under these circumstances when some people deny the facts.

I hope this clarifies the situation for you and may I dare say it’s probably how the majority of vaccinated people feel.

Regards,
K BANCROFT,
Coffs Harbour.