The Dickins family cannot be called anti-vaxxers by any stretch of the imagination.
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But we've had enough personal experience and close encounters with the strange and scary side-effects of established vaccinations that would make anyone stop and reconsider the health advice promoting a vaccination that's supposedly "only just hit the shelves".
My grandmother, Joyce, watches the news constantly. Stories of life-ending blood clots filled her consciousness, the amount of coverage completely disproportionate to the rate in which it was affecting people - especially in light of the number of deaths COVID-19 is claiming by comparison.
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Data and figures and numbers are no match to personal experiences. When someone close to us died of a blood clot one week after getting the AstraZeneca vaccination, it was enough for me to seriously consider not getting one myself.
For Nanna, that one case proved all the stats and figures null and void. It was real. One death from a blood clot from a vaccination, when noone we knew had even contracted COVID-19. For this proud 88-year-old, the risk was greater from the shot than it was from actually even getting the virus.
Yet there are so many reasons to get the vaccination. I could sit here and list them: a vaccinated population means less lockdowns. More travel. Less transmission. Less death. Less uncertainty. ICUs free to handle the emergencies they were built for. A more stable economy. A more stable life.
Why? Because vaccinations work.
Polio, Rubella, Tetanus, Pneumococcal Disease, Whooping Cough, Rotavirus, Mumps, Hib, Measles, Diphtheria. All but banished to the history books.
There were also many reasons why the Dickins matriarch and I decided to get the "jab" (heaven help me, I said it). We weren't brainwashed. We weren't pressured. We weren't incentivised into getting it with the promise of a free 'slab' - although that would have been more of a deterrent in our alcohol-free household!
The one salient fact: the TGA approved the vaccination. It went through the same process as any vaccine approved in this country.
It was quick because, well, it was a priority. Researchers and developers dropped everything else to get. It. Done.
Going through the clinic together, the hardest thing to do was write out our Medicare number three times on the double-sided pages held together by a somewhat overworked clamp on a clipboard.
That, and trying to find the right way out of the maze of the Showground tracks!
A short sit and wait, a quick but thorough explanation of the side-effects and rare complications, a small twinge from the syringe, a 15-minute supervised sit in the outside tent, and voila! We were free.
While I doubt these past two years will be something we'll forget anytime soon, I'm proud we've done our bit to help get COVID-19 banished to that list, too.
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