To vax or not to vax?

Good morning and look at me going! Flexi furlough really is boring when the weather is as miserable as it is lately, even if today the sun is shining.

With all the chaos in the news regarding Covid, the vaccines, the blood clots, the contraindications, the blown out of proportion stories about what happens when you get one.

This comes after the day I was booked in at 4.42pm (a very exact time, I know)  my first jab of the Covid vaccine. Firstly, don't know why I have been offered it. I received a text from my GP saying they had slots and I could call in to book an appointment.

I don't think I ever pressed on a number so quickly, not even when I was trying to get through the Italian embassy to renew my passport and I had to keep calling because the line was always busy. I could not believe, and still possibly can't, that a year into the pandemic people have worked tirelessly to produce a vaccine that is, now, been given to everyone free of charge (at least in the UK) and that could help us go back to normal some time in the near future.

For this reason I, personally, don't understand no-vaxxers. There is so much scientific evidence against their claims.

Be it that I grew up in a family where science beat almost everything, be it that I always thought that not getting vaccinated was even an option; Ihad no issues with letting someone from the NHS prick my arm with a syringe.
I have been having a flu jab for the past few years, had my MMR booster some time ago and I think I am probably due a tetanus shot as well. If my GP called me right now to remind me of some other vaccine I forgot, I'd take that too. And it's not because the NHS is free so flip it I'll take the lot, but because I believe in the work of science and if something has been created for the greater good I will trust the researchers and the medical staff.

Luckily, in my close group of friends, I haven't had many encounters with no-vaxxers but I have seen so much disinformation and misinformation on the internet.

Do I consider myself superior because I don't let conspiracy theories affect my judgement? No.
Do I seriously believe that Bill Gates, China and Google are out there to chip me and follow me around? No.
Do I know anyone that does? Possibly.

Honestly, anyone who owns a smartphone is already under a constant watchful eye and, as I have nothing to hide, I wish Bill Gates enjoys me watching Gilmore Girls almost every day during my furlough week.

Talking about side effects, I still don't have 5G coverage in my house, neither have I grown and extra limb, or head (which my friend suggested I should name Margaret). There is quite a long list of side effects that anything between less than 1 and more than 1 in ten people get. I personally have only been fighting with a pounding headache which honestly, in the fight against covid, seems to be like the most miniscule of inconveniences.

My personal advice is take the vaccine, when it gets offered to you. Why? Because even if you think you won't be affected because you might be young or healthy (which has been dimonstrated to be worth bugger all anyways), you could pass on the virus to someone who is immunodeficient, or have just come out of cancer treatements or simply would love to be vaccinated but can't for a health reason or another.

If there is anything I wished this pandemic had thought us is to be more thoughtful about others and be a lot more selfless. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case for most people.