Subhash Chopra | Clarion India
To vaccinate or not to vaccinate that is the question facing millions of people across the globe. Indeed it has acquired Shakespearean depths of self-doubt about life itself. Or in the Bard’s own soul shaking words: To be or not to be
That is the question.
Doctors, physicians (Lukmaan Hakeems) and medical sages across the world are locked in awe of the pandemic raging all over from end to end of our world today. In Little England or Great Britain where this non-entity or (na cheeze ) speck of living earth is perched today, the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges told a London news daily :” The vast majority of health professionals are already vaccinated or will have legitimate exemption.
“For the small percentage that still hold out ( against vaccination), they will inevitably be redeployed or lose their jobs which is a great sadness and a great waste.”
The academy, the coordinating body for the U.K. and Ireland’s 23 medical and royal colleges and faculties, had been opposed to mandatory jabs for NHS (National Health Service) staff calling the move ” not sensible or necessary.”
Such is the weight of medical gravitas against vaccination. Paradoxically the bandwagon of vaccination is unstoppable all over the world. The scare of pandemic is tightening its grip over millions by the each passing hour and the day. There seems to be no escape from it.
Yet against all odds there are a determined, thoughtful minority among the medical fraternity who spot a chink in vaccination brigades. Britain’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid has been challenged by an unvaccinated hospital consultant over the government’s policy of compulsory Covid jabs for NHS staff. Consultant anaesthetist Steve James who has been treating Coronavirus patients since the start of the pandemic told Health Secretary Javid that he was not convinced. ” l am not happy about that. I had Covid at some point I’ve got antibodies, and I’ve been working on Covid ICU since the beginning.
” I have not had a vaccination, I do not want to have a vaccination. The vaccines are reducing transmission only for about eight weeks for Delta, with Omicron it’s probably less. And for that I would dismissed if I don’t have a vaccine? The science is not strong enough.”
Mr Javid responded:”I respect that, but there is (sic) also many different views. I understand it, and obviously we have to weigh all that up for both health and social care, and there will always be a debate about it.”
The consultant suggested the Health Secretary to ” reconsider” the rule.
Alternatively, Mr James (the consultant) suggested that the government could “nuance” the rules to allow those who have antibodies — but acquired from infection and not vaccination — to not be required to have a (compulsory o) jab. He told the Health Secretary that it ” did not make sense” to dismiss doctors who already had Covid antibodies, but who did not want to be vaccinated.
The debate continues with or without the opt-out ” nuance.” Take your pick.
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Subhash Chopra is a freelance journalist and author of writings like ” India and Britannia — an abiding affair.”
