Public Hysteria !

 This weekend, thousands of people took up signs and marched through the streets of Australian cities in protest against the vaccination campaign which starts today.  This protest has a civil rights theme.  The protest movement claims that they will be forced to vaccinate because only the vaccinated will be able to hold down a job or enter many forms of entertainment.

Some express doubts about the safety of this medication.  We already have protest groups who refuse to have their children vaccinated against a range of diseases that in earlier years caused many child deaths.  They make spurious claims that these vaccinations are responsible for spreading diseases  which retard mental growth despite this being rejected by the medical profession.

That " anti Vacc " campaign has been assisted by the Facebook phenomenon which allows ordinary citizens to exchange their views widely.   The most scurrilous claims are often believed because there is no overview to bring lies to account.  As a result, many child centres refuse to enrol unvaccinated children as a public safety measure.

The vast majority of the Australian populations will gladly bare their arm to received a vaccination against this coronavirus that has swept the world.  We need a high proportion of the population to be treated to achieve " herd immunity " and when that happens we can dispense with face masks and most of the restrictions that have made life a misery for the past year.

In this early stage of the inoculation campaign accepting the needle is voluntary.  Initially, it will be offered first to health workers tending coronavirus  victims and people in aged care and nursing homes where the virus delivers the highest death rate.  It will progressively spiral downwards until the entire population is covered.

There are plans to issue personal accreditation with each vaccination which will allow people to personally prove they have received their shots. How that will be received by employer groups remains to be seen, but it seems likely that some may refuse to employ the unvaccinated.  It is also possible that entry to group entertainment may be restricted to those who can show a vaccination certificate.

Perhaps the parallel to consider here is the annual influenza injection.   Each year the formulae is tweaked to cover the strains of flu expected and this reduces the severity of the annual infection, but a high number of the population do not apply this remedy.  As a result, every winter we have a flu epidemic run rampant in the community.

The government runs an expensive advertising campaign urging people to get their flu shots and the flu kills many elderly people each year.  We will probably have pockets of this coronvirus active in the community amongst people who have refused vaccination.  Whether the government will enact legislation to make vaccination against the coronvirus compulsory depends on what ratio of take up comes from this vaccine release.

The more public hysteria mounts and results in a larger refusal rate, the more likely that will eventually happen..  The wise will evaluate the facts, and make their own decision  !