The COVID 19 pandemic struck the world like an asteroid. The moment 2020 started, our world changed, and we were waiting for 2021 to arrive. And low and behold, 2021 came with what we wished for throughout 2020- vaccines. Although the pandemic is nowhere close to its end, the long journey to reach its halt has begun.
While many first world countries like the United States and Australia have vaccinated a lot of their population and lifted the compulsion on masks, India’s process of providing vaccines has been extremely slow, and that mixed with the people’s resistance to taking the vaccines is a deadly combination. This brings me to the Anti-Vax Movement. Anti-vaxxers are a group of people who refuse to take vaccines despite its availability due to religious beliefs, rumours and overall doubt in the existence of the pandemic and the virus.
When I heard of the vaccine drive, my first thought was that this will end the pandemic and life will be back to normal soon. But unfortunately, that was before I came across the rumours about the risks of the vaccines on the internet. Ignorance really is bliss. For a while, when my parents got their vaccines, I was in a state of fright due to some of the articles I had come across which called the vaccines fatal, and the pandemic a method of population control. But after further research and pondering, I came to the conclusion that if we want the pre-covid days back, we must cooperate with the government and take the vaccines when it’s our turn to. False rumours about the functioning of vaccines and communities of anti-vaxxers have existed since way before the COVID-19 pandemic. Every pandemic and epidemic has seen a group of unbelievers in vaccines, but the issue has only been resolved when the population has been vaccinated. The vaccines aren’t harmful, the rumours and superstitions are.
While I am aware that the vaccines cannot entirely cure the virus, they do reduce the rate of COVID casualties and also decrease the rate of transmission. Although we cannot erase the pandemic by being vaccinated, we can definitely start the process of its eradication, and help our country stand on its feet again.