Covid 19 Vaccines
To vaccinate or not to Vaccinate – that is the question … but what is the answer?
Jesus commanded us in Mark 12:31 to “love your neighbour as yourself.”
Each one of us has the right to decide and answer the question whether to vaccinate which ever way we feel led as we ponder and mull over all the issues that are uppermost in each of our minds. To be honest, I was probably less in favour of being vaccinated in the beginning but have read, listened, studied where the information is coming from and am now at a very different place than I previously was. I think that to receive the vaccine if physically able is another way to practice loving your neighbour.
Doctors and medical scientists have worked for many years on developing vaccines. The vaccine that is now given for tetanus is not the same identical vaccine to the tetanus one I received in the ‘70ies. It has been studied and changes made to make it safer, with fewer side effects, and to continue to more effectively prevent disease. Likewise, the base of the Covid 19 vaccine was already known, already used in other vaccines and being studied so that only a portion of the vaccine needed to be tweaked and tested for effectiveness and safety when we quickly needed a Covid 19 vaccine.
The decisions and choices we make around vaccination are not only for our own personal sake but for the sake of our entire community…church and broader. One thing that the pandemic has shown us is that our lives, bodies and health are interwoven. Choices that we make can have a huge ripple effect on all those that we have contact with.
Jesus story of the Good Samaritan reminds us of our calling as Christians to consider the role we play in promoting the healing of the world. Only as more and more of us become vaccinated can we protect our children and those we come in direct contact with who are not vaccinated. If a significant portion of people in our communities are not vaccinated, the pandemic will continue. We are already seeing increased numbers of new cases and that a high percentage of these new cases are those who have not been vaccinated. A Toronto Star analysis of provincial data has found that unvaccinated Ontarians are ending up in hospital with COVID-19 nearly 20 times as often as fully vaccinated individuals and in the last week have been about 70 times more likely to end up in intensive care,
To receive the vaccine if we are physically able is another way to practice and show love for our neighbour…to be that “Good Samaritan”.
If anyone has questions or would like to further discuss these questions concerning vaccination, please contact me. I would be more than willing to hear your thoughts.
Some of the material is from Christianity Today articles by Daniel Chin, a physician with 25 years of global public health experience.