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Risk and responsibility

May 13, 2021   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

We, by which I don’t really mean you and me but I do mean people in authority, scientists, Bill Gates, knew that another virus was coming our way. We knew it years ago. Bill Gates and others lectured about it, urging preparation, strongly recommending military efficient plans for dealing with it.

Inevitable. It was considered inevitable as long ago as 2015 but the usual response to such warnings being offered: nothing. No plans, no effort to stem the dangers. No designs for vaccines.

So, Coronavirus arrived amid a collection of theories why and it hardly matters because all those theories, with their mixed degrees of veracity, will likewise be ignored and, in due course, another virus will inflect itself upon the people of this earth to similar surprise and inefficient handling…

A scrambling of panic driven research and testing have gone into making vaccinations to protect us from this virus, with varying levels of safety; others with dangerous side effects. It could hardly be any different.

What this means is we – and I do mean you and me – have to choose to take the vaccine, do our civic duty but take the risks. This time, it seems, health authorities, doctors and scientists are paying attention.

AstraZeneca with its mysterious and deadly blood clotting has been withdrawn in Ontario but it took a sharp increase in patients developing potentially fatal blood clots for the decision to be made.

People are talking about not taking their vaccinations. Reasons are the usual aversion to medical treatment, to vaccinations in general with the myths that grow up around them, the fear that they only provide limited protection from a disease that is constantly deviating. 

Lots of people reckon they don’t need to get vaccinated because they are strong; they have taken good care of their immune systems; they will readily survive contact with Covid-19.

Yet and yet: say you don’t take the vaccine; then, let us imagine that you come in contact unknowingly with an infected person, who is still asymptomatic; you have a magnificent immune system which handles the infection so well, you don’t even know you are sick. There could be a little headache, an inclination to fatigue at the end of the day – minor, so minor, you deem yourself well and go about your business, interacting with people you know and, equally, strangers in the line up in front and behind you. 

You are still wearing your mask, keeping that impossible distance that never really completely happens in any busy shop. If you have the virus, you will infect others, inevitably, with very dangerous results for them.

Only if the app on someone’s phone sounds the COVID- alert would you realize the harm you have possibly done nor to how many people. Friends of mine, reasonably healthy and in their 40’s, came into contact with Covid-19 last year and they are still suffering the aftermath of the virus. This is an insidious infection, can be treated, can kill. It is really easy to pass it on.

No matter your circumstances or the number of people with whom you are involved, you are still part of the fabric of society, still a potential danger on the move, without being vaccinated.

It is an issue of responsibility to protect others from ourselves. Imagine that? That we are now called upon to protect others from ourselves, while, as we hope, we are being protected. There is a bigger picture here than a disease and its off-spring; there is a whole better way to see ourselves within our social structure, locally and globally.

It is currently a debate about the intellectual property of the different vaccines being designed and distributed, that the ownership of the intellectual property of each vaccine be released and not held. The pro is to allow vaccines to be manufactured wherever they are needed and the con is the sacrifice of future profits in ownership.

Rarely, so rarely, is profit considered less important than the needs of the many and this debate is not settled yet. Let us imagine the needs of the many win and the vaccinations are given to the world, magnanimously.

Could that be a tiny wedge under the door to sanity? A small beginning to running the world as it needs to be with the betterment of -wait a minute, not just people. Many years ago, New Zealand passed laws, recognizing the rights of Nature. Rivers have rights as much as a person, to good air, to be free of pollution, that sort of thing. Not just New Zealand but, in the 1990’s there were countries, including in South America, where the mighty forests are now being decimated, that declared animals and landscapes – Nature – to have rights the same as humans.

Coronavirus will rage for a while longer; people will die in the thousands, maybe millions but it could be that lessons about protecting each other could spread as well, lessons learned.

Each of us has to set the example: get your vaccine, mask, distance, hands washed.

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