Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

A few thoughts about vaccination.
1. Once a vaccine against Covid-19 which has received regulatory approval is offered to you, please accept it. It will help protect you and other people. Getting vaccinated is a pro-social act.
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2. There could be some risks associated with it. But once it has received full approval, we can be pretty confident that any risks of vaccination will be much lower than the risks of not vaccinating: namely allowing a pandemic that kills people and ruins lives to keep raging.

3. Everything we do is risky to some extent. Even doing nothing (sitting at home all day without exercise is really bad for your health). But you will almost certainly face higher risks travelling to the clinic to get your injection then you will face from the injection itself.

4. It is highly unlikely that a vaccine will be a complete solution to the pandemic. We will still need an effective test, trace and isolate system and a strong health service. No vaccine can inoculate us against an incompetent and corrupt government.

5. Even with a highly effective vaccine, widely deployed, it’s unlikely that we will get back to “normal” (whatever that means) very soon. Gatherings will probably still need to be restricted throughout the first half of 2021, and perhaps beyond. Masks should still be worn.

6. Alongside vaccine hesitancy, we should be concerned about vaccine overconfidence. Large numbers of unvaccinated people gathering in the belief that the pandemic is over, governments prematurely removing all restrictions in the belief that they have a complete techno-fix.

7. Yes, a vaccine is an essential tool in suppressing and eventually eliminating the pandemic. But it is only one tool, and the rest of the box will still need to be deployed for a while yet.