When Stubbornness Will Not Pay

People registering for their vaccine shots at a vaccination centre in Shah Alam

By Sanjit Singh

Life is short. This is an indisputable fact, yet there are those who wish to hasten their own by being absolutely stubborn and unreasonable.

As I write this, I have an immediate relative currently in the ICU at a local private hospital struggling to fight off a severe case of COVID 19. The cause of this situation, a refusal to get vaccinated even though this person is
elderly, and a refusal to wear a mask when outdoors talking to others.

To me, this is worse than ignorance, it is actively inviting trouble. So many needless casualties in this pandemic especially now when we have vaccines very readily available. Do they not care about what their actions entail for their immediate family members, friends and not to mention the high financial burden of hospitalisation.

Stubbornness in the face of a changing world seems to be one of the great issues hampering the fight against getting COVID 19 under control.

The amount of misinformation spread by the anti vaccine groups, or even pandemic deniers on the internet has allowed the masses to access it due to search engines and trending tags, going down social media rabbit holes. This reinforces the spread of misinformation creating a whole group that may not even have glimpsed accurate information due to the nature of how search engines work.

One great example of this is a show I recently caught on Amazon Prime one where a highly controversial character named Borat spent some time with two strangers who harboured anti vaccine and other false views of the pandemic. It was interesting because after the main part of the show, these two individuals had a few experts try to convince them
otherwise. Yet they did not budge one inch from their strongly and wrongly held views.

Many deaths could have been avoided during this pandemic, especially now when a simple injection with an amazingly effective and swiftly designed vaccine is available. Get vaccinated.

To those fighting for their lives now, regardless of their views, I hope they pull through. I really do.

The views expressed here are that of the writer’s and not necessarily that of Weekly Echo’s.