GETTING A VACCINE NOT JUST ABOUT PROTECTING YOURSELF

TARA COLLUM | Contributing columnist

Sometimes the subway needs to shut down at rush hour and it can take a long time to get people back on their way. And long lines form as people wait for shuttle buses.

A few years ago a dog somehow got on the tracks and the TTC shut down so the dog could be removed safely.

I heard many people express concern for the dog. I felt glad living in the kind of city that would bring traffic to a standstill to rescue a dog.

I’ve been really lucky during this pandemic that my friends and family have been on the same page. We wear our masks, socially distance. And when it was our turn we got our vaccines if possible.

I’m vaccinated and I still wear my mask in all the places I’m supposed to — in empty laundromats and sometimes outside.

Mask mandates have been pretty consistent in Canada, but we are getting into uncharted territory with the vaccine.

There have always been pandemics. Every 100 years or so a contagion has always come around in every human era of recorded history, which our immune systems don’t know how to fight off.

And now we have vaccines that can help. And instead of counting their lucky stars, some people are distrustful.

If people don’t trust doctors to take a vaccine they recommend where does that logic start and end? Watching an online video when they have a broken bone and trying to set it themselves?  Digging out a bullet yourself if you’ve been shot?

I don’t mean to be flippant. But I’m not sure when society decided they know more than the medical community when it comes to vaccinations.

We all have yellow paper immunization records. Mine is nestled in a file box in a plastic sleeve.

Once at a doctor’s appointment the nurse said I needed tetanus shot. I rolled up my sleeve I didn’t do any kind of calculation to determine the odds of me stepping on a rusty nail.

Admittedly for COVID some people can’t get a vaccine because they have compromised immune systems.

Getting a vaccine isn’t about just protecting yourself. Not everything in life is about looking out for No. 1.

I personally think the reason people are putting up such resistance is they don’t want to have to look out for strangers, or have any responsibility toward anyone else.

They can say they don’t want to be made to “live in fear.”

But to me it seems like they don’t want to be inconvenienced.

I really would like to understand.

But from what I’ve seen I’m not sure how much more understanding we can afford to be anymore. I’m not sure how people can look at a situation and see such dramatically different things.

How some states in the U.S. are forbidding schools to make masks mandatory.

I might distrust auto mechanics, but if I had a problem with my brakes, I wouldn’t fix them myself. I would ask around for a reasonable mechanic and get advice from someone I trusted who knows how to fix brakes.

I don’t know anything about plumbing, electrical, or shingling a roof. I don’t think that reading a blog post about it or watching a YouTube video would at all illuminate my understanding of these things, or make me question someone who has years of experience and education in those fields.

When it comes to complicated public health issues like contagious diseases, we can’t “do our own research.”

I took a course once on program evaluation and it was one of the most difficult classes I’ve ever taken.

There is a lot that goes into research, gathering different types of data, and analyzing the data, and making conclusions based on it. I wouldn’t even know where to start with understanding medical research or the work that goes into it.

I don’t think we should do things without questioning them at all.

But where do we draw the line if we start second guessing experts, or assuming that we have the knowledge or the capability to make the kind of decisions they do for public health and safety like how we need to wear seat belts, can’t leave pets in hot cars, or drink unpasteurized milk?

There’s a lot of information. Too much information. We need experts to decode this information for us, and help us reach conclusions that are best for everyone.

There are stories of people in hospital begging for the vaccine and doctors telling them gently that it’s too late for that.

It’s not just about the pandemic. We are in a world full of raging wildfires, unseasonable droughts, record flooding, astronomically rising temperatures causing heat waves and people displaced by dangerous governments.

But after the responses to COVID, I’m doubtful everyone is capable of even seeing the same devastation, let alone feeling the urgency to do anything about it.