DERRY JOURNAL Editorial: Take your medicine for the herd

If successful, it will yield mass protection from a disease unknown and unbudgeted for last December - an illness that has wreaked untold human and economic suffering over the past nine months.

If sufficient numbers become vaccinated, herd immunity will be achieved and we should be able to return to a life less extraordinary once again.

Vaccine hesitancy, however, remains a real potential stumbling block that could jeopardise efforts to protect the elderly and vulnerable and to re-open our society and economy - all goals of the vaccination initiative.

Last year, the World Health Organisation listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten threats to global health, up there with climate change, noncommunicable diseases, influenza pandemics, ebola, fragile and vulnerable settings, antimicrobial resistance, weak primary health care, HIV and dengue fever.

Though people are free to refuse the vaccine if they so wish - some will be unable to take the vaccine for medical reasons and others may decline for reasons of conscience or faith - citizens who do not fall into either of these categories might want to consider ‘doing it for the herd’.

If herd immunity is to be achieved and we are to get back to living our lives more freely, as many people as possible must get the jab. We need a high percentage uptake if we are to get to this point. People who have no good reason to refuse the vaccine will, ultimately, be freeloading on the public-spirited actions of their fellow citizens who dutifully line up to take the vaccine.

Everyone should seriously consider taking their medicine in order to increase the ranks of the vaccinated and break the chain of infection. In today’s paper, Dr. Bob Brown, the Western Trust’s Director of Primary Care and Older People’s Services, lays it down in black and white: “This is the best way of protecting people from COVID-19 and the roll-out of the vaccine is going to be really, really important.”