Show up for the Shots
It’s here.
My mother just got vaccinated with her first dose this morning. That’s half a relief since she would be getting the second shot early next month. Initially, the report we gathered was my mother was just one among two senior citizens who agreed to have the vaccination in the whole barangay. We would later realize that that tally was just for our zone. It would turn out that there was a good number of numbers in the whole barangay and a better turnout for the whole town. Now, this is promising. I was starting to think there was this wave of anti-vaccine movement at the local level. It was sort of a big event for my mother and her friend. They actually looked forward to it. It was a monument moment of excitement. Despite the international, national and local situation not looking any better, and the government response not corresponding fairly to neutralize the crisis, at least, this is some bit of good news. I’m not really sure if the turnout of a few hundreds for a small town is low, but it is still gladdening to know that there is agood number of people who are willing to offer their contribution towards herd immunity and return to normality, or at least, just to stop a possible chain of infection.
The local authorities have to do something about the heat in the waiting areas. Don’t get surprised when a vaccine recipient’s blood pressure has escalated when he/she gets his/her turn, because It’s simply too hot. But on the other hand, we’re just right smack in the middle of the most humid months of our part of the planet, so unless we have budget allocation for full air conditioning for some hundred vaccine supporters in a spacious place that would permit honest to goodness social distance, which a municipality probably would not have, it’s good enough that we have vaccines.
I find it casually comforting that the doctors administering the vaccination actually recommended that those vaccinated take Biogesic to intercept or preempt any adverse side effects of nausea or any of that sort. I love that endorsement. Who kenw that the antidote to those dreaded side effects is worth a few pesos, and available at the nearest corner store.
My sister who accompanied my mother was actually prowling for a chance that one of those senior citizens get cold feet and the nurses suddenly need a quick replacement, (like what happened somewhere in Mindanao where all health care workers refused not to get the vaccine, so Philippine Information Agency employees got the shots instead, so as not to waste the vials) and she would be the first one to raise her hand up. But then, unfortunately for her, this batch is exclusively for senior citizens.
Mama’s so happy that she didn’t even feel the needle piercing her arm. It went inside her like a breeze, then she went home like she just came from the mall. I’m going to give this a couple of months after her second dose, then I’m going to brag this to the faces of the vaccine paranoid androids, who seem to be more scared of the vaccine than the virus, whose solution for the pandemic is to wait for the virus to miraculously dissipate, everyone who’s sick gets well and everything just goes back to normal. Oh ridiculous wishful thinking which does not solve anything and even makes matters worse.
Of course, there are neighbors who decided to use their human right to set themselves up as vulnerable channels of a chain of infections which still continue to rage across the nation. There are people who are just afraid just because. There is simply not just enough logic to back it up. Well, yeah, each of us has the right to choose whatever we want to decide what to do. But that right should not infringe other people’s safety and security. By making oneself vulnerable to a virus, one puts the rest of the community in danger. So, is that a right or a violation of other people’s rights?
Yes, a person has a right to exercise his career and perform his trade. But if you’re carrying a contagion in your physical body, perhaps you could consider not just your personal commitment to your cause (whatever it is), but the well-being of the very community you would want to help, in the first place. But in the drifting drafts of protocols, of when, how long and how should restrictions and quarantines should be, of who declares, on what mode and through what manner should positivity and negativity should be affirmed, my head just whirled until I said to myself, I don’t know.
“do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Caring-For-Others”
Galatians 6:2