My Body, My Choice
I am a fully vaccinated Canadian citizen who was born in Jamaica. Because vaccination is mandatory in my part of Canada (Alberta), I was forced to get vaccinated - if I wanted to live a normal life. Like Canada did some months ago, Jamaica is now embroiled in the debate about mandatory vaccination. There have been protests by the United Independents’ Congress (UIC) the only political party in Jamaica actively opposed to mandatory vaccination.
Even though I am fully vaccinated, I remain uncomfortable with some aspects of the lockdown and mandatory vaccination measures whether they are government imposed like in Canada or what I call ‘the drip drip method’ where employers, entertainment venues, restaurants and so on impose a vaccination requirement on their customers or employees.
We need to learn from our history. This is not our first pandemic. I was a child then but I am old enough to remember the polio and tuberculosis (TB) pandemics in Jamaica in the 1950s. With polio, we built a special facility on the grounds of the University. That facility is now a facility for the physically disabled. With TB, we built the TB Sanitarium on huge grounds on Barbican Road near to Liguanea which at the time was a semi-rural area. During the TB epidemic, people were taken to the Sanitarium, quarantined and treated. Some survived TB and many died there but at least they did not infect the rest of the population. The Jamaican public health system in normal times, is usually at full capacity and often overloaded. Therefore, it is not fair to the public health system and its workers to expect them to bear the brunt of any pandemic. During the polio and TB pandemics in Jamaica, the public health system was not expected to bear the burden of the epidemics. Specially built, equipped and staffed facilities were built to serve the victims of those pandemics. After the pandemics, those facilities pivoted from serving polio and TB victims to serving the physically disabled and the TB Sanitarium became The Chest Hospital.
During both the polio and TB pandemics, vaccines were available and easily accessible. I remember a van coming to my Prep School with specially trained nurses who tested and vaccinated the whole school. In those days, no parental permission was sought (!) and I don’t recall any student rebelling. Our school never closed. Some of the younger children cried after the needle but we all took it simply because our teachers told us to do it. It was all done in a very orderly fashion. Class by class we were sent to the testing and vaccination vans. I seem to recall that those who tested positive and had no symptoms were not vaccinated as it was assumed that they already had natural immunity. During the polio and TB pandemics, I don’t recall schools being closed. Education was important. Cinemas were empty as people avoided them and people walked long distances rather than take crowded buses. There were no crowded ‘Route Taxis’ in those days. In the polio and TB times I don’t recall any elections being held or politicians being front and centre in the pandemic drive. Medical professional dealt with it. I don’t recall any protests. Different times….
Now comes the Covid pandemic. An election (with marches!) was held during the pandemic. My sources in Jamaica tell me of waiting all day in long lines (super spreaders?) to get vaccinated. Instead of learning the lessons of history: making vaccines easily and readily available, making medical professionals (who we trust more than politicians) lead the charge and building special medical facilities to deal with the victims, we have made it very difficult to get vaccinated, politicians are front and centre in the vaccine drive, our hospitals are overloaded and now Jamaica is deliberating following the example of Canada and other countries by mandating vaccination. Holness on at least two occasions has hinted that the government is going to mandate vaccination. Some countries are even thinking about mandating third and fourth boosters as the vaccines only offer temporary protection. The more we vaccinate, the worst the situation is getting and the amount of breakthrough infections is rising. We seem to be chasing our tails. THE VACCINES ALONE ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT A SOLUTION. Don’t get me wrong, the vaccines seem to work temporarily but no cost/benefit analysis regarding various demographic cohorts has been done. For example, young healthy people are at extremely low risk of severe illness from Covid. Why force them to get vaccinated with the attendant vaccine side effect risk? Each time I got vaccinated, I got sick. If a person is very frail, vaccination could kill them so there are risks from vaccination. Very little effort seems to be made to develop anti-virals and other treatment protocols for Covid. In our panic, we have become obsessed with vaccination as the only response ignoring other possible prophylactic and treatment protocols. This in a situation where polls show the vast majority of Jamaicans are against the Covid vaccines. This is a recipe for disaster. Protests are already popping up.
We need to ‘wheel and come again’. The politicians need to step down from the vaccine drives. The logistics of vaccination need to be improved and made more orderly avoiding crowding and super spreading. Here in Canada, I went to my local pharmacy to be vaccinated – in and out in less than ten minutes! No line ups, no hassle. The government needs to build or convert some existing non-essential government facilities to become Covid treatment and quarantine centres. We need to ramp up treatment and quarantine and fund them properly. Leave the politicians out of it. Jamaicans don’t trust their politicians – with good reason! MPs are involved in the selection of vaccine workers. Why?
How we treated the polio and TB pandemics preserved an adult's freedom of choice. Most got tested and vaccinated during the polio and TB pandemics. Many, including the vaccinated, were crippled and many died but the public health system was not overloaded and we survived both the polio and TB pandemics without arresting or pepper spraying people, and no social chaos. Choices have consequences. Is it better to force people to get vaccinated or is it better to leave them alone, free to make their own choices? The answer depends on how important you think it is for people to have freedom from government intervention and for people to have power over their own bodies. In Canada, I was forced to get vaccinated – if I wanted to have a normal life. I had no choice. Will Jamaica follow? Has the battle already been lost? Is resistance to mandatory vaccination futile? The vaccine makers have been exempted from liability – even though the chorus is that the vaccines are safe. Why then no liability? Like Thalidomide, will we suffer serious side effects in the long term? Time will tell….I am old so I don’t have much time left but vaccinating children when they are practically at no risk from Covid? A lot of this vaccination business makes no sense. Make no mistake, vaccination is super big business. It is ironic that in Colonial Jamaica, we had more freedom of choice than in the so-called 'Independent Jamaica' of today. In my opinion, freedom is so important, I think we need to leave people free to make the choices regarding their bodies while making them aware of the possible consequences. Once they make a choice, we respect it. My body, my choice.
Raymond D. Grant
'The medical establishment’s bias against preventive medicine and the black middle class’s prejudices against their lower-class and invariably darker-skinned brothers and sisters was so engrained that even with the CDWA-funded expansion of preventive medicine and the gradual ‘blackening’ of local legislatures in the years surrounding the BCG campaigns, the Caribbean colonies failed to achieve an optimal balance between preventive and curative services.'
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