As chains loosen somewhat

THE EDITOR: Considering that we were once free and are now in chains because of covid19 and those who manage it, I am obliged to be grateful for the half-measures being put in place for the vaccinated, like in bars, in gyms et al. Because half a life is better than no life at all, which is the likely prospect if in gambling with your life you happen to catch covid19, worst yet the much maligned delta variant.

The reality of six to ten deaths per day in a small country like ours tells a story that only the stupidly nonchalant or the hard-headed misinformed would disregard that it may just be your lot to contract a fatal covid19 infection which, needless to say, you would do well to try and avoid.

The latter, of course, is somewhat of an oversimplification of the challenge of taking the vaccine because there are so many anti-vax stories coming out of social media in more graphic ways that you can imagine that those without the critical faculty of weighing the danger of contracting covid19 as against the perceived risk of taking the vaccine are likely to hesitate

The recent tirade of a prominent doctor against our incarceration even as Floridians are enjoying an unfettered life may have had a huge impact on the hesitant. There is no better platform for anti-vax sentiment to thrive and produce the “herd defencelessness” we now seem to be experiencing than gullible, unquestioning simple-mindedness.

The latter situation evidenced by increasing empty vaccine stalls in recent times is a very worrying scenario for even as we are grateful for half a loaf we must necessarily hope and strive for the whole when life would return to normal with a drink at dinner or our children back in school. And best of all, to return to the playground of our every-day dreams, the nation’s beaches.

But if delta moves from the ten cases we have now into something more dramatic and the vaccination trend continues its downward spiral, will we ever get there?

Which is why we must take half the loaf and be grateful, and even as policies like “safe spaces” or job requirements and attendance at school will be motivation to speed up vaccination, keeping in mind that the latter are more “compulsive” than voluntary and that there is a huge anti-vaccine culture still out there being fed by narratives of the kind recently from a prominent citizen, ours must become a personal responsibility to try to persuade the vaccine hesitant in our immediate setting that taking the vaccine is not only for their own protection but for the society as a whole, if ever it is to return to a state of normalcy again.

Tell them that their continuing recalcitrance points to a future too frightening to contemplate. If they retort by pointing to the freedom of Miami or the exuberance of spectators in the English Premier League, tell them as a small country, lacking in the sophistication and enlightenment of these larger countries in their management of covid19, we can only take the small steps that we are taking at the moment to reach that goal.

DR ERROL N BENJAMIN

via e-mail