Thought of the Day - July 12 2021 - Is Vaccination a Selfish Act?

I have been fascinated by the logic of people who have been vaccinated as to why they chose to do so. So what are some of the reasons given, other than making money for the pharma companies?

The two most common reasons:

To decrease my chances of getting severely ill or dying of COVID. This makes sense, there is now real world evidence that vaccines do achieve significant reduction in the severity of COVID and as little has been done to develop other options like therapeutics ( Thought of the Day - June 23 2021 - India Does the Right Thing ) vaccination is the sensible thing to do;

So I can get proof of vaccination to be able to travel again. This makes sense, while we still have a long way to go to sort out how vaccine passports will work around the world ( Thought of the Day - July 8 2021 - Vaccine Passports Update ) vaccination proof will be required at some point;

Both valid reasons, but you have to admit both are also rather self-centred.

Then there is the altruistic reason given:

To decrease the spread of COVID around the world. Sorry, there has never been any claims from pharma companies that vaccines stop the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. While you might think it makes common sense that less severe symptoms mean less inoculum to transmit, real world evidence is suggesting the opposite maybe true. The logic being that vaccinated people believe they are immune and so are less responsible in attempting to limit the spread.

What real world evidence, you might say?

• The UK is now in the throes of a third wave. Their new health minister is now saying, despite having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, they may soon see 100,000 new cases a day - this would be their highest infection rate yet;

• As we reported yesterday, guess which are the four countries with the highest per capita new cases at present? British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, Fiji and Cypress. Why? Because tourists, particularly from Europe, are travelling again. Most of whom mistakenly believe vaccination means they cannot spread the disease. Remember Seychelles are also at the top of the list for vaccination (at over 70% fully vaccinated this is higher than the UK and Canada). While vaccination means their fatality rate is decreased, more cases still mean some additional deaths as well as more cases of "Long COVID".

In short, you getting vaccinated and travelling is not actually good for the world - face it you are just being selfish.

Cheers

Cliff