This is one of the most common excuses I hear for not getting vaccinated from vaccine-hesitant patients. Well, what will it take to trust it?
How much more time?
How many more doctors who treat Covid patients begging people to get vaccinated?
How many more deaths?
How many more severe illnesses?
How many more kids getting sick?
How much more loss of work and closed businesses ?
How much more of a negative impact on education and socialization of our kids?
How many more of your fellow humans will it take, acting as “guinea pigs” on your behalf, will it take before you are convinced of the vaccines’ safety and efficacy?
Bullcrap excuse! Just like all the rest.
The numbers are climbing and it is getting scary out there once again. In many places, hospitalization and death rates are exceeding what was experienced last winter and spring. If Louisiana were a country, it would have the highest Covid rates in the world. The vast majority of those falling ill are unvaccinated.
But those who have been vaccinated and still are getting sick because of the Delta variant, are having a much easier time of it and very rarely need hospitalization and virtually none die.
In some places, kids are back to virtual learning because of outbreaks, and the school semester has barely started.
What will it take to convince you? Fear of the disease?
I have often read that fear of developing a disease or recurrence of some major health issue like cancer or a heart attack is rarely a long-term motivator for lasting change in behavior. People will make short-term changes but over time, they often lapse back into old, bad habits or patterns of thinking. They make exceptions, excuses and justifications. The next thing you know, they’re back to the exact same old behavior and thinking patterns. I have experienced this myself. Discipline wanes if you lack the proper motivation.
You have to dig a little deeper and find some other motivation. As far as getting past this reticence to getting the vaccine, you need to develop some new motivation other than fear of personal ramifications.
How about caring for your family and friends?
How about not wanting to spread it to others?
Bow about the fact that this disease impacts on every person on this planet and we all need to do our part to get past it?
How about some selfless altruism rather than just being worried about yourself?
I’m not saying you need to be Mother Theresa. I certainly am not. But looking just a little past your 2 foot radius is imperative for us to get past this.
I am glad that I live in a part of PA where there is a very high vaccination rate, but there are still people out there who are vaccine “hesitant”. The vaccine “hostile” are lost causes.
Please get vaccinated. It is really the only way for us to coexist with this virus in any kind of meaningful way. It will likely never go away and we need to re-think what “normal” will be since it won’t, and shouldn’t, be like it was.
Please try to patiently educate those who are “hesitant”. Sometimes, all they need is encouragement.
All those other protective strategies like masking and vaccination are important to slow the spread, but they are useless in the larger scheme of things if people don’t get vaccinated.
Stay safe and be well.
AC