Last Friday there was a Dutch news item reporting that the amount of hospital beds occupied with COVID19-patients is rising rapidly. Of this group, about 80 percent is not vaccinated. We read that this leads to frustration with hospital personnel. After all, if those patients did have vaccinations their chance of ending up in a hospital would have been much smaller. If they would have gotten a vaccination, the hospital personnel wouldn’t have been so exhausted. Nor would it have been necessary to postpone so many surgical procedures because of the COVID19-patients which keep the Intensive Care beds occupied.
In the same news item is a video report on two vaccine refusers. They present themselves as reasonable people with principal objections, not anti-vaxxers with conspiracy theories. But are there arguments so reasonable? Let’s evaluate them:
- I don’t trust the long-term side effects because they are unknown.
- Vaccines have been tested on healthy people, while I have heart- and lung issues. That’s why I want more about the side effects first.
Even more arguments from another news item:
- I see COVID19 as comparable with the Mexican flu and I survived that disease. I don’t take an ordinary flu vaccine either and I’m afraid to combine the vaccine with my rheumatism medication.
- I’ve had bad experiences with medication in the past, side effects of vaccines are unclear and after a vaccination I’m still vulnerable for COVID19.
- I’m 44 years old and healthy. I think that there’s a minimal risk of COVID19 being dangerous for me. After all, I step into my car each day as well with the minimal risk of a deadly car accident.
- I’ve already had COVID19 and was okay again after a week without entering a hospital. I think vaccines have been developed to quickly and that there still is too much uncertainty over the side effects.
The unknown side effects on the long term are minimal. The vaccine was also tested on and judged to be safe for those with underlying medical conditions, including those with heart- and lung diseases. Especially that group of people is at a greater risk of severe illness from COVID19, so they have much more to gain from a vaccine. Same for the person with the rheumatism medication. While the vaccine doesn’t protect from infection completely, it does slow the spread of COVID19. Those who have already lived through an infection still benefit from a vaccine because it’s unclear how much resistance they’ve built up after a first infection.
Let’s take a look at the 44 years old man who compared COVID19 with a car accident. In 2020 there were 60 men in the age group of 40 to 50 years who died of COVID19. The amount of male traffic deaths in 2020 in the same age group was 38 however. If we consider that merely a third of all people who died in traffic that year was inside a car, you end up with 12 deaths in that age group as a consequence of a car accident. Probably the 60 male COVID19 victims would have already been in bad health as opposed to the healthy 44 year old, but on the whole COVID19 is a factor four more lethal for these man than driving in a car. While it was interesting to investigate the statistics, it’s irrelevant. My objection to this argument is that it’s a bad comparison. Dying of COVID19 is mostly preventable by taking a vaccine, which gives almost no side effects. Using a car is unavoidable for many people who need to get to work.
The arguments of vaccine refusers seem to originate from a lack of information on the one hand. If have doubts on medical care I consult my general practitioner and don’t make all kinds of wild assumptions myself. On the other hand they seem arrogant to me. How do they know for certain that there hasn’t been enough research on side effects of vaccines? They didn’t have any relevant education like medicine, epidemiology or virology and have no expert knowledge on the subject. If you do not have that, you trust on the knowledge and ability of a specialist.
Then there’s a special category of vaccine refusers with strong religious convictions. Especially in the municipality of Staphorst the vaccination coverage is, except for Urk, the lowest in The Netherlands with just 48%. Not surprisingly the infections in this municipality are rising the fastest and the neighboring hospital in Zwolle has to deal with a huge influx of COVID19 patients. What are their arguments?
The deeply religious Protestants from Staphorst which were interviewed by RTV Oost explain this. It all comes down to trust in God according to the vaccine refusers. He decides whether we get ill or not. Taking a vaccine to prevent us from getting ill is therefore a violation of that trust in God. For the same reason they don’t like insurance in Staphorst. But medical treatment and taking medication is okay, because treating an illness is different from preventing an illness.
I think this strict interpretation of God’s will goes very far. There’s nothing in the Bible about vaccines being undesirable. In some way I can understand their reasoning, but I still think it’s a weak argument. It doesn’t make clear why medical treatment doesn’t violate trust in God, while a vaccine would be in violation. But none of this is relevant because the Bible demands the faithful to love their neighbors. Love for the health care heroes which become ever more exhausted by the influx of vaccine refusers at the Intensive Care unit. Love for other patients who see their surgeries postponed again and again. The question for those living in Staphorst is what comes first: trust in God or love for thy neighbor, or the other way around?
The vaccine refusers already receive a lot of criticism from people who think they’re antisocial. Sometimes others are simply right about the consequences of your stubborn and antisocial behavior. It’s great that vaccine refusers can be so principled in this country. The pulmonary physicians are on the losing end however, with mountains of unpaid overtime in the evening and on their days off.
If vaccine refusers want to be so pricipled and refuse a vaccine, they should also be consequential and refuse health care for COVID19. But when push comes to shove these people are cowards and don’t have the backbone. Let’s help them to remain loyal to their principles by no longer admitting anyone who refused a vaccine to the Intensive Care unit for COVID19. No more life-saving treatment for them, just palliative care to sedate them when they bite the dust in the terminal phase of COVID19. I think the group of vaccine refusers would disappear like snow before the sun with such a prospect.