Writing in the Daily Mail today, Brendan Wren, Professor of Vaccinology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said that “a third wave caused by vaccine refuseniks would devastate our return to normality.” He also said that “there is no excuse” for not having a vaccine. He writes:
...a worryingly high proportion of British people will continue to refuse the jab — preventing us reaching the crucial ‘herd immunity’, whereby the virus cannot spread because it cannot find enough people to infect.
We know, for example, that more than three million over-55s — including half a million over-65s — have still not been vaccinated, even though all are eligible and could surely have had the vaccine if they wanted it.
In both Britain and Europe, the costs of this vaccine hesitancy are now all too clear. France’s history of ‘anti-vax’ thinking — up to 60 per cent of French people have previously said they wouldn’t take a Covid jab — is now surely playing its part in the country’s third wave.
Here, we know, sadly, that vaccine hesitancy is particularly high in certain sections of the black, Asian and minority ethnic [BAME] communities.
Wren goes on to say that while he “ordinarily baulks” at the idea of compulsory vaccination, he does support making covid jabs mandatory for care workers. He then writes that Britain cannot be held to ransom by refuseniks:
Though I do not believe we are there yet, a third wave caused by vaccine refuseniks would devastate our return to normality. Britain cannot be held to ransom because of a minority who don’t understand the value of the vaccines, risking their own health and that of others in the process.
There it is. We, who will never take their experimental medicines, which are already causing real harm, will be blamed for delaying the exit from lockdown. We’ll be blamed for future lockdowns too. They’ll use every trick in the book, to get us to roll up our sleeves.
We know that Covid Status Certificates or Vaccine Passports are a reality. That’s effectively mandating by coercion.
Now a leading scientist is saying that the country cannot be held to ransom by refuseniks. This will lead to families, friends and neighbours falling out and singling out those of us who won’t have a jab. It’s going to get uglier, that’s for sure.
