As soon as the coronavirus started battering humanity, a number of doctors in the country got infected and died. That pained (okay, distressed and alarmed) me, because son #2 is a doctor in the US. I prayed that a vaccine would be available soon to protect him from this invisible but lethal enemy.
In America, the number of deaths hit the roof! It shattered all global records.
However, testing of vaccines for safety and effectiveness by pharmaceutical companies in various countries showed promise. But skeptics—scoffing at the danger of the virus and violating safety precautions—have been rude and rowdy, mocking the idea of a vaccine.
Refusing vaccines began back in the 1800s when the smallpox vaccine was used in large numbers. Since then, vaccines have met a wave of opposition because (as I have culled from health magazines): they are linked to neurological disorders, allergic reactions, autism, and mistrust of science and pharmaceutical companies.
Many scientists and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assured us that these fears are medically unfounded.
Despite that pronouncement, anti-vaxxers continue to rise on social media. Campaigners are working full-time to foment fear in vaccines, directing the doubters to online stores which sell products purporting to have health benefits. These undermine the roll-out of any future vaccine against COVID-19.
On the verge of panic, my mommy heart danced when I read on my son’s FB page that he had been injected with a vaccine, with a photo to boot!
“Tonight as I go to sleep, I feel a dull ache in my arm where I received my COVID vaccine.
“I also feel something I honestly haven't felt in quite a while: Hope.”
Double grace:
“24-hour update. Soreness in the arm continues, but really no worse than what I'd get a few days after a vigorous workout. I'm tired, but I was even before the shot. No fever or new body aches.
“I think I am developing x-ray vision.”
Triple grace:
“48+ hour update. Arm feels a lot better, no other symptoms to speak of. I feel able to leap tall buildings with a single bound.”
Quadruple grace:
“72+ hour update: arm soreness barely noticeable, everything else working as expected.
“I accidentally nicked myself with a scalpel blade this morning. Or at least I think I did. The blade broke off and my skin was unbroken. Curious.”
Grace galore:
“96-hour update: arm is back to normal”
Pro-vaccine groups (which include my family) need to throw light on those who malign the vaccine.
At the risk of courting the ire of my son, I am blogging about his vax experience, his sense of humor versus my sense of horror, in the hope that anti-vaxxers would see this light.
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How did the second shot go? See for yourself:
1 comment:
Hope! I like that. Especially for those in the medical field and for seniors like us who seem to have been drawn closer to the grave because of this pandemic. Not that we put our hope in the vaccine per se but God has given us a way out of this horror.
By the way, I love JC's sense of humor. Chong na Chong. Hahaha!
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