This virus will still find you wherever you are (II)

In the previous article, an attempt was made to explain how the various vaccines that have been approved by credible health authorities to combat this dreadful COVID-19 disease are normal and as such there is nothing inherently fearful about them. People were, therefore, urged to get their jabs in the face of this rapidly mutating variants of this COVID-19 virus, particularly, that of the highly contagious Delta variant since there is nowhere to hide from this virus,

Vaccine availability

In view of this, the pharmaceutical companies as well as the western world have a moral duty of care to put human safety and lives everywhere above profits and anything else. It would be unconscionable for them to hoard surplus vaccines to protect their citizenry at the expense of the rest of the world. It is equally appalling to hear of these pharmaceutical companies talking about and seeking approval of booster (3rd) vaccine shots in the western world when some people in other countries have not even received the 1st let alone the 2nd vaccines. These companies should rather scale up production and make the 1st and 2nd vaccines available to the rest of the world even for purchase. How dare they even dare to think of profiting from this unfortunate pandemic when about 3/4 of the world’s population is yet to receive a single dose of the vaccine? Very sad indeed.

Albeit it is quite reassuring and encouraging to hear the U.S. and the other G7 countries pledging about 2 billion vaccines from their surplus doses to COVAX to help distribute these vaccines to the rest of the world but the sense of urgency on making them available for use cannot be over emphasized because the high transmissibility of the virus variants gives the virus the opportunity to mutate rapidly in population not yet vaccinated. As the saying goes; No one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere.

‘Natural Selection’ and ‘Survival of the fittest’

In the absence of vaccines, what meaningful alternative do people have other than nature’s ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ to defeat this virus?

It is estimated that because this disease is very much infectious, it will require between 70 - 80% of people in a particular population to be vaccinated or immunized before the ‘so-called’ herd immunity kicks in. In other words, without vaccination, it will also require the same above percentages of people to be infected with the disease and then managing to survive the disease to elicit the same herd immunity response. That is to say that, without any intervention of curing this disease such as the medicine/drugs to treat this viral disease effectively nor the vaccines, nature will find a way of crudely selecting those who have the necessary adaptations to survive the disease when they get infected and, unfortunately, leave those without the proper adaptations to die hence the survival of the fittest. The vaccine route and the ‘natural selection’ route will both achieve the same end goal of herd immunity in the end but the dire consequences of the later route i.e., ‘natural selection’, need no further elaboration and cannot be stressed or overemphasized enough. The mere contemplation of it is chilling, to say the least. As the saying goes, ‘prevention is better than cure’.

Herd immunity, by the way, is simply the protection from an infectious disease when enough percentage of a population has become immune to an infection through whether vaccination or previous infection thereby reducing the likelihood of infection for others who lack immunity.

Conservative controversies

It is just unfortunate that certain individuals, mostly from conservative ultra-religious circles, have deliberately chosen to kick against any measures that are employed to fight this virus and they have decided to use propaganda and conspiracy theories to thwart all reasonable efforts. Whilst they do not hesitate to agitate to have the right to make decisions on their own bodies and that of their families as to whether to have the vaccines or not and even to wear masks, ironically, they vehemently deny the same right to others to make decisions on their own bodies. They want to have the right to make their own health decisions, but they are eager to impose mandates/requirements when it comes to others making their own health decisions. When it suits them most, they are ardent pro-choice and whenever it is very convenient for them, they are pro-life. On top of that these same conspiracy theorists are against the wearing of face masks to combat the virus while twisting science on its head to encourage unnecessary mass fatalities/casualties from this virus without proffering any real alternative.

Get your jabs/covid shots!

Therefore, the only sensible alternative is getting yourself vaccinated. So, if you get the chance to have this COVID-19 vaccine, please grab and take it without any hesitation. Until then, please continue to keep yourselves safe and protected by following all the public health guidelines and protocols in view of the high transmission rate of this highly contagious Delta variant. Do not let these doomsday conspiracy theorists tell you otherwise.

May reasonable heads prevail in this world.

"Facts Are Sacred but Opinions Are Free"

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