When I Didn't Want to Take the Vaccine!

While reviewing my upcoming book Thank You, President Corona! I bumped in many outdated paragraphs I had to erase. However, one stood out. I had to remove it from the final book as the info herein no longer applies, but this text still offers a glimpse on how my opinion about COVID-19 vaccines changed over time. This paragraph was written more than a year ago, when vaccines were still in Phase III of the testing journey. Back then, the knowledge regarding vaccines was very limited. Vaccines were far from demonstrating their incredible efficacy.

Here is how I felt about vaccines at the end of 2020...

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Why am I not going to get vaccinated? Why am I acting like a stupid anti-vax?

Well, first of all I'm not saying that I will never take the vaccine, but that I won't take it at the beginning of the roll-out. To understand why, you have to recall your newly acquired poker skills. Yes, Expected Value comes into the equation here! I have both selfish and altruistic reasons to avoid vaccination.

All these vaccines are band new

This means that we don't know the long term effects. This is normal and even the vaccines developers acknowledged it in total transparency. Indeed, the vaccines began to be available with emergency approvals as early as December 2020, only 9 months after the beginning of the pandemic.

There is an unknown chance to get in the long term some side effect. I realistically rule out death as not even the original virus has a high death rate. What I expect is that vaccinated subjects might develop the mysterious long term effects left by SARS-CoV-2, such as loss of smell and taste or amnesia. I rule out respiratory complications as you need a real infection to spark those.

Considering these aspects we can state there is a tangible risk in taking a vaccine at this early stage, though we can't quantify this risk. If you can't assess, don't bet.

Nevertheless, I still recommend to bet if you are in the high risk categories, those ones that would die anyway from the virus. In this case you have nothing to lose and the risk is worth the reward. If you are a young healthy subject, I believe it's too early to get your shot.

I don't need a vaccine for this virus

Let me be even more selfish and even arrogant! I don't need the vaccine. I'm young, healthy and I work out more and more. I never ever suffered of respiratory problems. My heart suffered only for love, never for cardiac complications. I don't smoke, I rarely drink, I avoid junk food more than I avoid infected people. I don't even eat much meat for that matter. I never get even the common flu. On top of this, yes, my blood type is O+, which further lowers down my chances of getting and developing COVID-19. I also believe that I met the President at some point, since my social life during 2020 didn't slow much. In Malta we were lucky and audacious enough to continue our social interactions almost at the same pre-pandemic levels. But if I met the President, I didn't notice. It would be interesting if the President left me a present in form of antibodies, but I didn't get the antibody test yet at the time of writing.

What do I mean with this self-appraisal? That the chances I die of COVID-19 are the same needed to close a royal flush. If you always expect your opponent to have those cards, you will never win a single pot in your life...

Or maybe I'm so sure of my position because I made a pact with the President... If I write the Devil's Bible, the Devil will spare my soul...

Natural immunisation could be enough

There were speculatons that antibodies developed naturally last only for a few months, after which you get infected and sick again. This rumour is based on some real cases of people who actually got sick twice with COVID-19. But do you know how many people exhibited this behaviour in 2020? 31... In the whole world! Who's advocating the use of the vaccine at any cost often bases the argument on a sample too small to be statistically relevant. Yes, it still raises the question on why these people got sick twice, but you can't ignore all the other millions of people who never got sick again once infected! It's like saying that the Sahara desert is green because you spotted an oasis in it! There is an oasis of course, but what about the dry sand everywhere else?!

The truth is that we don't know how long natural immunisation lasts. Looking at the other viruses, we can be cautiously optimistic that it lasts, quite long, if not for the lifetime.

We don't know how long the vaccine protection lasts either! And looking at the other vaccines there is no reason to expect that it will last for a lifetime. We can only hope it will last long enough to make the virus go extinct.

I heard some politicians trying to convince their people that "vaccine immunisation is proven to last longer than natural immunisation". At the time of writing these claims are baseless and unproven.

I must give priority to who really needs the vaccine

And now let me return to my altruistic side. Delivering the vaccines is going to be a logistic nightmare. As we have already said, there will never be enough doses for everyone, let alone during these early caothic months of 2021. Due to the reasons I exposed above, I sit in the last category that should be served with the vaccine.

Vaccine should go (and it's actually going thank goodness) to the young people with medical conditions first, then elderly and healthcare workers, then civil servants and finally teachers, so exposed being in constant contact with children.

I'm saying all of this, but I still recognize one valid reason to take the vaccine. I may take it should my caution on long term effects decay. Taking the vaccine can help protect those vulnerable people who cannot get vaccinated. There are many people who cannot get a shot either due to their medical condition or due to allergies. This is something important to remember. Because of this, I should take the vaccine straight away, but on the other hand I also think I can help when I will feel like it.

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Now, my trust in vaccines grew strong. I've got two Pfizer doses under my belt and I'm going to get the booster. I'm glad of it, but I also think this is not enough. While the West is getting the boosters, billions of people in the poor countries are still waiting for their first dose. This situation makes the booster pointless. With billions of humans still unvaccinated, SARS-CoV-2 will have plenty of ground to grow new variants, capable of escaping vaccines. We must remember this is not a national issue, it's a global issue.

Please, ask your leaders to provide vaccines to the third world first!