No, I won't have a booster

Barely a day goes by without a government minister exhorting us all to ‘have a booster’; at times, they almost resort to threats - ‘Get a jab so you can enjoy Christmas’, or something similar. Sorry, Boris and co., I won’t, at least not for a long time.

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I’m no anti-vaxxer. I’ve had the flu jab annually for the last decade, including one this year. I even had the AstraZeneca vaccine in March and May this year, for  a number of reasons, including:

1. I was keen to see the end of the ‘pandemic’, and had naively understood that Matt Hancock had said the plan was to vaccinate as many of the over-50s as possible, then we’d all get our freedom back; maybe he did say that, and, like much of everything else this government has done, he later did a u-turn;

2. I was worried that there would be some things I might want to do that I wouldn’t be able to if I was unvaccinated - i.e. I didn’t trust the authorities not to introduce vaccine passports; 

3. I fell into the trap of thinking that the jabs would be effective, that they would stop the transmission of Covid, we’d just need one set of jabs and we would be protected for life;

4. I’m in my sixties, and was aware that the jabs hadn’t been fully tested; unusually I was aware of the Yellow Card scheme, and imagined that, after about three months, the authorities would provide a report on notifications they had received, together with at least an attempt at explanations as to why the side effects were seen, and updated advice regarding who might be negatively impacted by the vaccines; any such reporting has not been very well publicised, if it was done at all; 

5. I’ve got elderly relatives, and wouldn’t want to pass Covid to them.

Now, of course, it's clear I was mistaken on most counts. I was aware that there might be some ‘short term’ side effects of the vaccine, like a sore arm, but didn’t really imagine that the jab might actually leave me vulnerable to problems in the longer term.

 

Indeed, I feel I was coerced into having those first two jabs. But, in relation to the present, I believe that much was unknown about the vaccines back in March, some of which must surely be known now, yet we have heard little new from the authorities. This makes me distrustful of the jabs to begin with. 

Further, I have had two experiences that have given rise to me having more concern about Covid vaccines now than I did in the Spring.

Firstly, Viv, my partner, had two horrible seizures. The first was on the evening of 26th March, the second on 14 June, both required emergency medical assistance to resolve them. If you have never seen someone have a seizure, it's not something I would recommend. Following these events we had a call with a locum GP, to discuss what had happened and what measures we could take to prevent a further, potentially life-threatening, incident of this type.The GP considered the various causes of stress that Vivienne had been through on the days leading up to the seizures; there was little obvious in common. I pointed out that the first seizure had occurred thirteen days after Vivienne had had her first dose of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, and the second sixteen days after she had been given her second. I asked whether the jabs might have caused the seizures. ‘Very probably’, the doctor replied, rather as if the best step Viv could take would be to not have the vaccine. It rather seemed that she might not have been the only patient he'd had this sort of conversation with.

More recently I’ve had to think about my own health. I’d had problems with a bad molar from September, then had the beastie extracted; I hadn’t got over that when I was hit with what I think was what the Metro reported as ‘a highly contagious … bug’ that ‘has had a 37% increase in cases this year’ - a form of Norovirus. It was really not a pleasant experience, I can assure you; I hadn’t been that unwell since I was in my teens. 

In addition to the tummy bug, other germs are about. The BBC has talked about a ‘super cold’ going round, because, it says, of weakened immune systems from lack of contact during lockdown. That got me thinking … if everyone’s immune systems are weakened, why ....  that article could be right, a year of lockdowns has weakened them, maybe that was why I was ill as I was with that stomach bug… but there is an alternative explanation. Something else might have affected my, or indeed, everyone’s, immune system; something, perhaps, like an experimental vaccine, like the one I had in March and May.

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I don’t understand why there seems to be no easily-consumable published information on the long term effects of the covid jabs, or on how they affect the immune system, that might allay my concerns about what has caused my lack of good health in recent months. It may be that such information won’t be published for a few years, but until it is, or something else gives me a warm feeling that my immune system is ok, sorry Boris, I won’t agree to have any more Covid jabs. When it comes down to it, it's not what the government, or celebrities, say about something being safe - it is my experience that counts, and, at the moment, I am not 100% confident in the Covid vaccines.

Given the lack of clear information, how can I give informed consent?

Oh, and if all of the above weren’t enough, the local ‘vaccination centre’ where I’d have to go to have a booster jab is twelve miles away, is almost inaccessible by public transport, and I don’t have a car. It's almost as if they don’t want me to have it ...