Unfortunately, Covid-19 is being supported by the pernicious antivaxxer movement. It’s filling up hospital beds as the latest month’s figures show that two-thirds of the under-50s admitted with the virus are unvaccinated.
The knock-on effect of this is that the NHS is limited in its ability to treat others who are critically ill with conditions such cancer.
As important as booster shots are, it is still vital to reach the millions of adults who have not received the vaccine.
These stories are not enough to stop anti-vaxxers from defying medical advice.
It is believed that half of professional footballers haven’t even had a first jab. Refusing the jab is not merely irrational, it’s taking a chance with your life. It’s a gamble that could endanger lives.
There have been tragic examples – such as a 58-year-old Cambridge-educated lawyer who said he hoped he had got the virus because he’d prefer to have the antibodies in his blood than take the jab.
‘I’d rather take my chances with my immune system,’ he added. He did just that – and died.
These stories are not enough to stop anti-vaxxers from defying medical advice.
This leads again to the question that won’t go away: how much longer can we tolerate seeing the NHS clogged up with people who get Covid really badly because they won’t be vaccinated? Is this a matter of individual choice? Or are the consequences for society too serious to overlook – particularly with the threat of a return of social restrictions for us all, and perhaps even another lockdown.
Being a Minister for eleven years, I know that the choices are difficult. It’s tempting to suggest that anti-vaxxers should be denied treatment, or treated only at their own expense. This has been seriously discussed in Australia. But I doubt it would work there and certainly won’t work in the UK.
The choice is stark: a vaccine passport system – or disruption, misery and irreparable damage to millions of lives and to the economy
But a vaccine passport might. Why shouldn’t we ban those who refuse the vaccine from visiting places of entertainment or – as Italy has done – from going to work?
It is not an exaggeration for me to say that anti-vaxxers’ actions could be compared to someone running down a street and randomly stabbing passers-by.
Unpalatable as many will find it, I am convinced that we must act, otherwise there’s a terrible danger we’ll be saddled with unmanageable Covid outbreaks for as far ahead as we can see.
The choice is stark: a vaccine passport system – or disruption, misery and irreparable damage to millions of lives and to the economy.
The gods will first make mad those whom they want to destroy. Ask any anti-vaxxer.
On Tuesday, a group of them were recorded hollering at Michael Gove while he walked along Westminster. Why?
To support the vaccination of people with Covid-19. This is a high-crime and serious offense.
This was undoubtedly an offence against public order, but the police did not take any action (typical).
It didn’t seem to matter that it happened just a few days after the killing of his colleague Sir David Amess.
Gove was left alone to decide if the people he was speaking to were just going to shout at him, or if they were going so madly on the internet that one of these people would assault him.
Take a look online at the type of trash being promoted.
According to our sources, Covid was designed to control the population.
It was caused by the World Health Organisation working in concert with Big Pharma and Bill Gates. It’s a side effect of 5G mobile telephone upgrades.
Oh, and did I mention that those disposable blue masks are infused with asbestos?
There are many crazed voices in the anti-vaxxer community.
Piers Corbyn, by example, seems determined not to be more of a loony song than brother Jeremy.
Here’s the gospel according to Piers: ‘Bill Gates wants vaccinations to control you, and to control women’s fertility to reduce the world population.
‘That’s his game, and he’s going to get loads of money of it. You will pay with your life and your money. We say “No”.’
Meanwhile, he distributes leaflets comparing the UK’s covid vaccine rollout to Auschwitz.
His Indian equivalent, Swami Chakrapani, claims you don’t need a vaccine because applying cow dung to your body will do the trick.
Perhaps coronavirus would be a better choice.
You might think it is best to laugh at such absurdities and just let the world go.
I don’t agree. This is pernicious stuff. It is helping to sustain Covid-19, prolonging suffering and death.
It’s filling up hospital beds, thereby constraining the health service from treating patients desperately ill with other conditions like cancer – treatment put on hold during the pandemic with often devastating effects.
Let me give you a few statistics to help you focus your mind.
Four out of ten patients who are hospitalized with Covid-19 do not have their vaccines up to date.
Anti-vaxxers are three to one more likely to have their pensioners admitted to hospital with covid.
Initial results show that booster jabs are 95% effective. That’s why I’m having mine on Wednesday.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard is the distinguished head the Oxford vaccine group that created the AstraZeneca jab. He points out that boosters are important but not the immediate priority. However, millions of supposedly adults who refuse to receive a life-saving injection are the priority.
Many of them are now in intensive care.
In some parts of the country, as low as half of the critical second vaccine are being received.
It is thought that half of professional footballers haven’t even had a first jab.
Refusing the vaccine is not merely irrational, it’s taking a chance with your life. A risk where lives are at stake.
Leslie Lawrenson, a 58 year old Cambridge-educated lawyer, blogged: ‘I hope I’ve got it because I’d rather have the antibodies in my blood than take the jab…the potential dangers from taking these experimental jabs weren’t worth the risk. I’d rather take my chances with my immune system.’
He did and he lost. His 11-year old son found him dead just a few days later.
Matthew Keenan was ‘a wholly confirmed vaccine sceptic’, when he fell desperately ill last July. He claimed that he could go back in time if he wanted to. But he couldn’t.
This proud father and football coach, who was only 34 years old, died suddenly last July. It was a terrible waste.
Throughout history tens of millions have died of diseases that wouldn’t kill them today because of vaccinations.
Two infants are buried in a quiet graveyard in Dorset. My aunt and uncle, who both died from diphtheria during the 1920s, when it was one of the most devastating diseases of children, are buried in a quiet graveyard in Dorset. Diphtheria was known as ‘the silent strangler’ because of the awful manner of their death.
Today, most children have never heard of diphtheria.
There’s a word for some people’s rejection of a life-saving jab, and that word is decadence.
I look back on six decades to Geoff Hall. He was a hero of mine as a child. This fullback from England, Birmingham City, was enjoying a tremendously successful career. Then, polio claimed his life.
Wouldn’t he have loved the opportunity to be vaccinated? One sadly didn’t emerge until a few years too late for him.
Children today don’t know anything about polio.
We cannot simply turn off the anti-vaxxers. I wish so.
A few months back, I was riding on a tube train and was attacked by a loud man who began ripping down posters of covid and then, after dragging a ghetto blaster in the carriage, started playing anti-vax music and dancing around.
What did the London Underground do? Nothing.
So, again, the question that won’t go away: how much longer can we tolerate seeing the NHS bunged up with people who get covid really badly because they won’t be vaccinated?
Is this a matter of individual choice? Are the implications for society too serious not to be considered?
Ask those who aren’t receiving proper treatment for cancer.
Ask the people whose lives have been disrupted by the Covid meltdown.
The court system is in shambles. All manner of cases – some say 60,000 – are held up, a lot of them really serious like murders and rapes.
What will happen to justice when they are finally heard?
All those empty public offices. The banks that won’t talk to you because everyone’s at home. Perpetual closures have turned schools upside-down.
Today, we are seeing the return of restrictions and perhaps the abyssal of another lockdown.
Being a minister for 11+ years, I am well aware that there are many options.
Anti vaccination protesters march through Newcastle warning of the supposed dangers of COVID-19 vaccinations
It’s tempting to suggest that anti-vaxxers should be denied treatment, or treated only at their own expense. It’s been seriously suggested in Australia.
But I doubt it would work there and certainly won’t work here.
But a vaccine passport might. Why shouldn’t we ban those who refuse the vaccine from places of entertainment or – as Italy has done – from going to work?
It can be argued that it is necessary to force anti-vaxxers away from their homes in order to protect the public.
Let them make their own decision if they choose. But not in a way that is detrimental to you or me, or the wider public good.
The anti-vaxxers’ actions are, in their way, just as harmful to society than if they ran down a street and stabbed passers-by randomly.
Unpalatable as many will find it, I believe we have to act or there’s a terrible danger we’ll be saddled with unmanageable covid outbreaks for as far ahead as we can see.
All that chaos. All that misery. All the destruction to the economy and businesses.
I’m not up for that.