Underneath the refusal to get vaccinated against a world wide pandemic is a need to belong, it seems to me.
I think there are two groups of the vaccine refusals - the
New Age/holistic healing/energy healing/nutrition and essential oils/superior immune system/we are superior to allopathic medicine which is just a
bunch of pill pushers Group - and the the Right Wing/Fundamentalist Christian/Jesus will protect us/tough guy & gal/we hate the government/nobody tells me what to do Group.
And the real problem for people in both groups is that to take vaccines is to turn their back on their group, to lose their identity as evolutionarily superior or tougher than thou people - and most of all to no longer belong to their tribe.
But, sorry to say, there
are just some things that can’t be stopped without vaccines.
If the only person at risk would be the one who chooses not to vaccinate, then their fate is on their heads. But of course others breathe their air and some of them could be very vulnerable. And some of those will travel to where the unvaccinated person will never see, who are perhaps very vulnerable.
To my New Age unvaccinated friends, I understand how hard it is to
dedicate your life to alternative holistic healing and then confront a
world wide virus that can pulverize that approach. Broken bones need
splints. Polio needs vaccines. The old graveyards are filled with small gravestones of young children that died of terrible communicable diseases who were killed before the vaccines were available.
COVID with its variants need vaccines.
They have been proven safe by over 200,000,000 vaccinated Americans as a
test sample. The complications are very rare. I wish this was just
about respecting each other’s choices, but it’s like telling people to
respect someone who chooses to run red lights. Others are impacted.
Choosing to vaccinate for some seems like a repudiation of a lifetime’s
philosophy. But it’s not. I am in awe of the benefits of at least some
of the miracles of modern science and this vaccine is one of those
miracles, it seems to me.
Heart surgery saved my life. That was an amazing miracle done by a masterful magician who had dedicated his life to that particular scientific knowledge and skill. All I can say is thank you, and I will also say that allopathic medicine has a lot of knowledge and magic in it and I hope people do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I welcome the "alternative" healings, and pursue a very healthy immune system, and am grateful for the New Age modalities. But there are places for each, and protecting against deadly pandemics is a place for vaccines.
To my Right Wing no-government-is-going-to-tell-me-what-to-do friends, it is harder for me to get inside your heads, as your world view is further removed than mine. But I think it has something to do with what a dear friend of mine calls "fierce independence" - pride in independence, a pride in not needing any help from anywhere, a pride in a kind of hyper masculinity and toughness that says who cares if I get it, I'm tough and I will be tougher than the virus. OK. Maybe. Maybe not.
But...you don't run stoplights, even though the government tells you not to - and you don't drive drunk, even though the government tells you not to - and you obey the police if pulled over for a traffic stop, even though the government tells you to - and you accept Social Security, and Medicare if you qualify, and welcome firefighters, and the Army Navy Marines Air Force Interstate Highways Libraries Air Traffic control Banking regulations, etc- even though they are government run entities.
And to those who think Jesus will protect them from the virus, I don't think that is what Jesus does. I think Jesus loves you deeply and weeps when you fall short of his teachings and example, and weeps when you suffer, and weeps if you get COVID-19 but I don't think he is in the job of keeping you from sicknesses, I think his job is empathy and helping with healing.
That's about the best I can do to try to help those who refuse vaccinations against a world wide pandemic to open to becoming vaccinated.
One of my biggest puzzlements is what are the motivations? My motivation in asking people to get vaccinated is to help keep them healthy, to keep their vulnerable loved ones healthy, and to keep those they will never meet but who could get the virus because of them healthy. And biggest of all to stop this terrible painful disease and make it go away like polio, smallpox, etc. all went away before it thanks to vaccines.
But what are the motivations of the New Agers who try to keep people from getting vaccinated? To prove that allopathic medicine is a fraud? It seems that the drastic drop in hospitalizations and deaths after the Federal Government created a nationwide vaccination program proves that the vaccines actually do work. So, I am baffled.
And what are the motivations of the tougher-than-thou folks? To prove how tough they are? to prove that they don't need any help from anybody? Really? No thought about what happens to others?
I guess I can understand the fundamentalist motivation, to prove to themselves and the world that Jesus loves them and will protect them. Oh well. America is filled with gravestones of the Faithful.
Please get vaccinated. Please don't try to convince others not to get vaccinated.
I have done my best to be convincing. I don't have anything else I can think of to say.
