We need to talk about vaccines

It would be nothing short of dishonest to describe the country’s latest vaccination numbers as anything less than impressive; as of Sunday, nearly 95% of the country’s over-30 population are said to have received both doses of a COVID vaccine. These numbers correlate with a recent drop in the number of COVID-related deaths in the country – this despite the fact that the ongoing lockdown hasn’t been as strictly enforced as it could or should have been.

In that context, the vaccination numbers surrounding the 20-29 age group are definitely a growing concern. As of Sunday, roughly 38% of 20-29 year-olds had received the first dose of a vaccine, while that number dropped to just 12.5% when it came to second dose coverage. The reasons for this are manifold. The first and most obvious is that the under-30 age group have been eligible for vaccines for a much shorter period of time than the rest of the population. Be that is it may, it doesn’t take away from the growing vaccine hesitancy among the younger demographic of the population. 

Some of this hesitancy is indeed understandable. Some are waiting for the far scarcer Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, as these are the only ones accepted by Western nations – without these, many of these youth will be unable to travel abroad for higher studies. This point brings to question Western attitudes towards vaccines such as Sinopharm and Sputnik V – most of which arguably stems from political interest as opposed to any real medical concerns – continue to have a very real impact on countries such as Sri Lanka, which has far less access to ‘Western-approved’ vaccines. That said, if the only reason you’re waiting for one of these vaccines is to travel abroad in the future for leisure, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your priorities.

Further to this, there is also a lot of disinformation floating around surrounding potential Ayurvedic and home remedies for COVID-19. The opportunistic individuals proliferating these ‘alternative cures’ are capitalising on the very real concerns individuals may have with regard to vaccines and side effects – a problem that even Western nations are presently dealing with.

However, what many fail to realise – and something that could easily be clarified through conversations with any medical professional – is that the chance of vaccine-related side effects are far less than the chance of contracting COVID, a chance that becomes even smaller when you compare the possibility of dying from COVID to the possibility of dying from taking a vaccine. The choice is an obvious one – take the vaccine if you can. 

Moreover, with the Delta variant now likely the prevalent one in Sri Lanka, unvaccinated adults and youngsters alike remain at far more risk of contracting severe symptoms. And while it’s true that vaccination does not prevent someone from contracting the virus, it does reduce chances of contraction, while the symptoms once contracted are also very likely to be mild to none at all.

Indeed, such has been the effectiveness of the vaccine in reducing symptoms, countries such as Germany have stopped using ‘case detections’ as the primary metric for gauging the health impact of the pandemic, instead opting for ‘COVID-related deaths,’ as symptoms contracted by those who are fully vaccinated are no longer being considered as something that requires mandatory hospitalisation or Government-mandated quarantine.  

On the whole, if the country is to return to some semblance of normality, then everyone that can be vaccinated needs to be. This is not a matter of personal choice, rather one of the collective good.