Why I've Just Turned Down A COVID Jab

Today, my wife and I were contacted by our GP surgery to be offered a COVID jab.  Having been isolating for nearly a year, you can imagine that I would be quite keen to get a jab that would ensure that I didn't have to continue doing so.  Indeed, I am keen to do so.  However, we have turned down this opportunity, and here is why.

Firstly, I asked which vaccine we would be given.  I was told it would be the Astra-Zeneca vaccine.  Herein lay the first problem.  The trials of the A-Z vaccine included very few people in the over 65 category, the category in which we both, now, unfortunately, come.  That A-Z should trial the vaccine without doing so with a large cohort from the over 65's is strange given that 90% of deaths and serious illness from COVID are amongst that group.  Consequently, there is little scientific evidence showing how effective that vaccine is for our age group.  Its for that reason that Switzerland and other countries are not using it amongst the over 65's.

Now, it could be that the A-Z vaccine will be as effective in the over 65's as for other age groups, or as vaccines produced by others such as the Pfizer-Biontech jab, but so far we simply do not have the data to support that assumption.  I asked if it would be possible, therefore, to have the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine, for which there is such data, but was told no, because, although they had been given supplies of the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine initially, the only vaccines they were now getting were the A-Z ones.

Now, you can see my problem, because without knowing whether the jab would actually be effective, I could not possibly put myself at risk, by assuming it was.  So, jab or not jab, it would not allow me and my family to change our behaviour and stop isolating ourselves.  What then would be the point of having a jab if it made no difference to what we could do?

I considered it for a minute, and decided that I would go for it anyway, because, before any safety could be assumed, it would be necessary to have a second jab in the next twelve weeks, which might be with a different vaccine, or else by that time further scientific data might be available showing that the jab did indeed give the required level of immunity.

However, I then asked what precautions were being taken in giving the jabs to people.  When we had our annual flu jabs last year, we were able to sit in the car, with the windows open, and wearing masks, in a car park, whilst the nurse administered the jab through the open car window.  But, now I was told that it was necessary to go into the doctor's surgery for the jab.  "Will there be other people in the surgery," I asked.  "Yes, its a surgery," came the reply. 

In other words, I was being asked to go and sit in a doctor's surgery, for an unknown length of time, with an unknown number of patients carrying an unknown quantity of COVID and other pathogens, to get a jab whose efficacy itself is uncertain for the over 65's.  At this point, I decided that the risks far outweighed the benefits.

If this is the way the NHS is operating in failing to ensure that those at serious risk from COVID are protected from contracting it, then its no wonder that it is the NHS which is itself the biggest superspreader of COVID.