With months of hard work, trials and dedication the medical scientists are now distributing batches of the vaccination out to healthcare workers, the elderly and the vulnerable.
Margaret Keenan was the first person to get this jab, 91 years of age in the next week and described it as “the best birthday present”. This was the first of 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that was dispensed in the next few weeks after that event.
And now, 2.3 million people in the UK have had their first covid vaccine shot alongside many citizens receiving both doses.
The NHS, and medical advisers state that the starting goal is to vaccinate every single person in the top 4 priority groups.
The Vaccines are being administered at hospitals, care homes, GP surgeries and vaccination centres.
Although some call this vaccine a blessing- others degrade it using conspiracy theories to back their hatred up over it. Hesitation has surrounded many minds of the public when it came down to having an opinion on the jab.
The pandemic hasn’t created the best of environments and time space to produce a cure as important as this one. However there are many aspects to the public’s mindset as to why this vaccine shouldn’t be used. Here are just a few:
The virus isn’t a real problem.
The backed up fact that this virus affects everyone differently is one of the biggest reasons as to why people from the UK do not believe in this vaccine. Evidence shows that some may not catch the virus- even if they were not following the rules and guidelines from the government- or if they did the symptoms and process would be quite mild.
This then followed through to be a reason as to why people believe the pandemic, virus and vaccine to not be as important as the parliament members make it out to be.
Vaccine development is a complex, long process.
It tends to take around 10-15 years to create, complete and perfect a safe and effective vaccine. So the fact our miracle cure only took a fraction of time to make this- the public deems it unsafe.
However, the fact that this is a world-wide issue- the vaccine ended up using global cooperation. Working in bigger medical groups enabled the time to be used efficiently.
Although, due to the circumstances others argued that the results and treatment was rushed and therefore dangerous. The fastest vaccine before Covid-19 was for the mumps- and this still took 4 years.
From a source stated by the university of oxford, “6% of the population are very unsure about receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, and another 12% are likely to delay or avoid getting the vaccine. One in twenty people describe themselves as anti-vaccination for COVID-19.”
Suspicion of falsifying information and data.
When asked in a small survey, 21% believed that everything was fabricated. The government was against this rumour significantly due to the fact that more people without the vaccines means the more chance the virus has to spread.
Doubt and distrust was distributed mainly around the public who fell into the groups of younger woman, ethnicity groups and those who were on a lower income
From this we can take away that those who are against the vaccine are mainly those who don’t specifically understand the vulnerable, and those with health risks. Those who are against the vaccine tend to only think about their own situation, when I asked someone who was for the vaccine they said “I am not taking this vaccine just for me, but for those that I am around daily or even occasionally.”
Distrust of those in authority
The scepticism over the CoronaVirus vaccine can be shown to be linked to the idea of distrust towards people in power.
When researching ⅕ people who said they were against the vaccine admitted that they had no faith of the government or the medical team. All participants were also of a lower status compared to those who were for the vaccine.
One person who I interviewed stated that “They (talking about the government and doctors) do not care about my well-being, or yours- or anyone else’s. We are like guinea pigs”
The truth
With rumours, disbelief and hesitation many people are not cooperating with taking the vaccination. But is this really the best thing for the world, or are people just looking out for themselves?