Thread by @sickofacebook

I've been a little quiet about the whole vaccination issue. This has afforded me some time to reflect on why there's so much inertia in the general population as regards receiving the covid vaccines, and I have come to one simple conclusion:
We're focusing on the wrong issue.
1/n

What is this wrong issue? What is the misconception?
That the people have a problem with the vaccines.

They don't. Stay with me, I'll explain.
2/n

First of all, we need to remember one thing: Not EVERYONE reluctant/refusing to receive the covid vaccine is an "Anti Vaxxer".
And that is why I find the whole "You won't take the covid vaccines but you've been receiving vaccines all your life" rhetoric ironically shallow.
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Because seriously, you think they didn't know that?

The proportion of people reluctant/refusing to receive the covid vaccine that are actually "anti vaxxers" is actually very small.
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Is it because they don't understand what the vaccine is, or that they've been misinformed?
Nope.

Well of course, there are a few who are holding on to some clearly bs information about the vaccines. But again, a small proportion.
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For anti vaxxers, though, it's not that they don't understand the science. They do. Believe me, a true anti vaxxer knows a lot of immunology because they've studied it.

I saw a tweet; someone inviting any anti vaxxers on the TL to come for a lesson on immunology.

I laughed.
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Lol anti vaxxers know more about the immune system and how vaccines work more than the average vaxxer in much the same way that atheists know more about the bible than most Christians do.

Relax.
7/n

And it's the same for the majority of people who are reluctant/refusing to take the vaccine. They know what the vaccine does.

So what then is the problem?
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The problem is very simple:

THE COVID-19 VACCINES WERE DEVELOPED A LITTLE TOO QUICKLY.
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I know how that sounds and many of you who think you know where this is going are wrong.

Many of you are immediately forming responses along the lines of, "Oh but there's been advancement in science and technology over the years, processes have become faster etc etc..."
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Everybody knows that. That's besides the point.

Let's go back into history a little.

The earliest case of Acute Flaccid Poliomyelitis was recorded somewhere in the early 1900s. It wasn't until the 1950s that Salk and Sabin were able to develop safe and effective vaccines.
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Of course the vaccines didn't hit the ground running, but the record shows it didn't take long for parents to pick up their children and be clamouring at vaccination centers to enrol them for trials.

Over a million children.
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What is the point here?
For over 50 years, parents had seen their children wither away because of a deadly virus. They had 50 years to experience the devastation the virus was causing their families, their finances etc.
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The situation was so dire, that even after being told that the live attenuated form of the very virus they were scared of was going to ne introduced into their children, many parents still gave the 100% go ahead.
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What's different with COVID-19? What's the problem with COVID-19?
The issue is that:

THE COVID-19 VACCINES WERE DEVELOPED TOO QUICKLY. THEY KNOW THE VACCINES, THEY JUST DON'T #KNOW COVID-19.
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Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a bad thing that the vaccines were developed this fast. It's a huge Nobel Prize achievement in my books.

What I'm saying is, there are still too many naive, unexposed minds.
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To many, covid is still abstract. They read the news, they see on TV that people are dying from the disease, but the covid they see is the "flu symptoms for 5 days, fine in no time" kind of covid.
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In Brazil, 66% of the population is FULLY vaccinated, and nobody needs to explain to you why.
There was a point they had to make coffins out of cardboard boxes. Families had to leave their dead in the streets. They were digging graves in advance.
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I've been managing covid cases for about a year and a half now.
NONE of my moderate-severe covid patients has been in two minds about receiving the vaccine. Some are even disturbing me now about booster shots.

When you KNOW covid, you know covid.
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So the issue is not that people are antivaxxers - there will always be antivaxxers. Neither is it that people don't understand how vaccines work - they do.

The inertia is because they can't be bothered, cos as far as they're truly concerned, what is covid?
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So if you ever find yourself in a conversation with someone reluctant/refusing to take the covid vaccine, don't be upset. They're simply not "exposed". Don't tell them about the vaccine... tell them about covid.

Maybe, they'll understand.
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