Why you shouldn’t take vaccination for Covid-19?
The situation in our country is grim, but it took us this day to understand the gravity of the situation. Everyone was living in denial and was not ready to accept that some invisible virus could hit the world this hard. Though we have many examples in the past from Ebola, Zika and SARS viruses to learn from, where such viruses have proven to be potentially apocalyptic and warned the human kind to be better prepared.
Now there is no time to waste in retrospect and all we need is a solution to address this problem in a more coherent and cognitive way.
An effective vaccine is the only answer that is promising enough to get rid of this dreadful virus from our lives, but it takes years to develop and test the efficacy of a vaccine let alone formulate a perfect formula without any severe adverse effects.
It’s the first time in the history of mankind that scientists across the globe have developed vaccines against a virus in less than a year and these vaccines are available for immediate use. This in turn has raised many eyebrows and caused speculation on why we should and shouldn’t take the vaccine.
So, let’s dig into some of the reasons which are conjectural against getting vaccinated.
Vaccination can give you COVID-19 infection
Many of my patients told me that they were perfectly fine before getting the first dose of vaccination but developed symptoms and tested positive within a few days. Most of them believed that it must be the virus in the vaccine which has caused them the infection.This is a classic correlation vs causation problem.
While it seems plausible to a lay person to draw that conclusion, let’s understand what could have actually happened.
There are two vaccines available in India — First is Covishield, a vector based vaccine and second is Covaxin which is an inactivated virion vaccine. None of the vaccines contain any live virus to start with.
Whichever vaccine you get, after the first dose it takes almost two-three weeks for antibodies to develop. If you have contracted the virus within days of getting vaccinated then you are still at very much risk of developing Covid-19.
It’s not the vaccine that gave you infection but you caught it before your body was prepared to deal with it.Therefore it is absolutely vital to follow strict COVID protocol even when you go for vaccination and afterwards.
Vaccination can lead to blood clotting
It is true indeed that a few vaccines e.g J&J, AstraZeneca have been found to have blood clotting as their side effects. Therefore J&J was temporarily withheld for public use in the USA and many countries discontinued use of AstraZeneca for the same concern.
Now let’s think pragmatically and see what the stats say?
The risk of blood clotting with COVID-19 is around 16.5%. If you compare the risk with the AstraZeneca vaccine, it is around 0.0004%. So there is no denial that vaccines do have some clotting side effects but risk is much higher with COVID infection itself. Thus, in the current scenario, the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risk of thrombosis(clotting) and other minor side effects.
Lately many variants of the virus have come to existence and the most talked about variants like Indian double mutant B.1.617, which are highly infectious and lethal. But so far the good news is that both Indian vaccines have shown promising results in dealing with new variants.
You have developed your very own immunity
People who have got infected with Covid-19 will develop immunity against the virus. This can be a false assurance for them that now they won’t contract the virus again.
There have been instances where people got infected a second time within a few months after recovering from the virus.
What does it imply?
The durability of the immune response is uncertain and people can become vulnerable for reinfection. Thus, Irrespective of past covid infection every one should take a complete dose of vaccination for better immune response.
CDC has recommended that a gap of 90 days can be taken after recovering from COVID-19, however MoHFW in India recommends a minimum wait of 14 days after recovering. This is to make sure that antibodies made by natural infection won’t blunt your immune-response to the vaccine.
Virus is a scam and so is vaccination
Most people initially believed that the virus was man made. It was introduced to sell masks, sanitisers and many new drugs launched during the pandemic. They thought that vaccination was another addition to the same profit making agenda. Flouting the COVID protocols, not wearing masks and not following social distancing became a norm from politicians to common citizens. This growing mindset was hit hard by the double whammy of losing lives on one hand and livelihood on the other.
India is going through a massive second wave. Deaths, every day, are uncountable. It doesn’t seem like any other ordinary virus anymore. We shouldn’t have taken the virus so lightly in the first place and the only hope we have is the vaccination. Vaccination may not protect you 100% from the virus but certainly has proven to reduce the serious implications of the disease. It’ll help to reduce the load on hospitals by keeping the illness manageable.
We all are aware of the elephant in the room and not addressing it on time will be the biggest mistake. Therefore -
Don’t be scared of getting vaccinated.
Be sure to get your shot of vaccine even after recovering from covid-19 infection
Make sure you complete your vaccination dosing schedule
Don’t forget to continue with COVID protocols, even after getting fully vaccinated
While there are many drugs like Molnupiravir in the development phase, which may eventually make COVID-19 treatment much easier and manageable like any seasonal flu virus. But till that day comes vaccination is the only hope.
Perhaps, you can still count many reasons why you shouldn’t take the vaccine but there is only one reason to take it : “Survival” and the choice doesn’t seem that difficult now.
