Enlarge image
Corona vaccination (archive picture)
Photo:
Sven Hoppe / picture alliance / dpa
This is a personal text that I am writing because dear people around me have not yet been vaccinated. It is not aimed at advanced vaccine
opponents
. After extensive experience with such groups, I am convinced that exchanging arguments with them is too often not very fruitful. But it is anyway a loud, but still very small minority. It depends on those who hesitate or are skeptical about the corona vaccination or somehow have a bad feeling about it. Perhaps you are such a person, then this text is for you too, and I would like to address you directly and describe you as "vaccinator-hesitant".
You may be surprised, but I can understand you. Because I've had an experience that caught me a little cold when it came to classical medicine. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease some time ago. Not a disaster, at least for me, but definitely worth treating. Therefore, after a visit to a family doctor and prescription of medication, I went to an absolute luminary in this field. The following dialog resulted:
Seconds later I had a recipe in hand and a mixture of irritation and suspicion in my head. Sometimes anger mixes in, but the gist is: My trust in medicine was shaken that day. It is not unlikely that you or someone you know have had similar experiences - which in turn is a very common reason for a certain amount of suspicion. But by no means the only one who hesitated to vaccinate. In fact, the unwillingness to vaccinate has been researched quite well. In addition to the mistrust, there is primarily a perceived lack of information and the lack of opportunities behind it. And unfortunately also doubts as to whether certain rumors might not contain a grain of truth after all.
My personal experience with those who are hesitant to vaccinate coincides with the research results: tough opponents of vaccinations are rarer than you think, but for some people concerns, worries and irritations have condensed into a floating intermediate state. You do not categorically rule out vaccination, but you could not or did not want to decide to vaccinate. Let yourself be told, that's okay, because you don't owe society to get vaccinated at any cost. I am convinced, however, that you owe society - in which, with and from which we all live - to deal honestly with the situation and your own reasons for the hesitation to vaccinate.
Personally, I got vaccinated against Covid very early on. But in other, roughly comparable health situations, I had to do it myself, namely to ask myself - where does my hesitation actually come from? So, to a certain extent, I speak from experience. You have to decide for yourself whether this can be transferred from me to you. But for me it was a mixture of a certain defiance and a vague fear. There was also a lack of low-threshold opportunities.
This last point is the finding from almost all studies on the topic: In addition to information, very, very low-threshold offers must be created, vaccination on the side, whether at the hairdresser, in the shopping center or at the train station. I'm also a big fan of a vaccination bonus, if only because we live in capitalism, time is money. That is why I find it completely appropriate, roughly as with donating blood, to receive around 100 euros for getting vaccinated, for the solidarity portion, so to speak. That is not in your power, but you can make a pact with yourself in your preoccupation with the subject (this is how I did it): If something specific happens - then I get vaccinated.
For example: If there is more than 50 euros for it, make a vaccination appointment.
Or when a mobile team comes near you.
Such forms of self-motivation work better than many people think.
But I would like to comment on the two areas that you can influence.
Despite
Many people feel the so-called reactance: If one is asked to do something unconditionally with pressure in the wrong way, then resistance arises almost automatically. Defiance is a natural, often sensible feeling; it gives you the strength to defend yourself against mischief. The problem: In my opinion, the vaccination is unfortunately the result of a bad communication of the state about the vaccination. Connected to the overzealous people in my own environment or on social media who believe that ridicule and degradation are clever (which unfortunately I can't always free myself from). The opposite is the case.
If you feel a certain defiance of the vaccination and admit yourself, then you are like me at the time.
I was able to tame my defiance with a simple knowledge.
I want to be free to choose and not be told what to do or not to do.
But this defiance was in a way just as obedient to me as it was to listening to other people.
I realized it like this: whether I wear yellow shoes because everyone is wearing them or not wearing yellow shoes because everyone is wearing them - in both cases I act according to other people.
When I understood that for myself, the defiance was almost gone and I could look the subject in the face more freely.
anxiety
Admitting fear to yourself is not easy, but sometimes it is necessary because fear is one of the worst advisors around.
But fear, that is the difficulty, can arise from a lack of information, from incorrect information - and also from correct but threatening information.
Next to the trail is who is
not
afraid of
a rabid tiger in the room
.
My approach was therefore: No matter how I decide, I want to counter my fear through research.
I think that is the key for you too.
Do your research on your own, read, listen, look up everything that concerns you.
However, you need a certain amount of equipment to do this, because there is an infinite amount of false information on the Internet.
Incidentally, this is not only due to the fact that both Russian and Chinese propaganda agencies demonstrably want to stir up irritation through vaccination propaganda.
In addition, there are serious studies that there is a real anti-vaccination industry that wants to sell its own dubious remedies to people who are insecure by themselves.
And you don't want to be manipulated, I think.
When researching, arm yourself with the question: Is that really true?
Does this study that someone talked about on Facebook even exist?
And does it actually contain what this person claims?
So do a source study.
That means: Always look at the sender (s).
Would you also trust them when it comes to other drugs that you take for granted?
Unfortunately, when it comes to science communication, there are unfavorable conditions that you have to pay for in your research.
Not only does science often have an exclusive effect on non-specialists ex works.
That can hardly be turned off.
But unfortunately science has placed too little emphasis on comprehensibility for too long.
In addition, there is sometimes condescension towards the lay public.
Worse still, there have been a number of instances where scientists have been bought or otherwise acted disastrously.
Supplemented by the fact that some of the doctors did not highlight possible vaccination complications over a longer period of time.
Don't get me wrong: Science is existential and great, we owe most of the comforts of our lives to science - including the fact that Covid has not been fatal for a large number of people since vaccines have been around. But when it came to science communication, there were major failures in the pandemic.
But do not let these omissions by third parties rob you of a clear view of the current situation.
I almost felt like this in the case mentioned at the beginning.
I was so angry by this medical insolence that I almost dropped all treatments, leave me alone!
I almost sacrificed an incredibly life-improving measure to an arrogant doctor.
Protect yourself from such mistakes. Just because there is undoubtedly corruption, not all are corrupt.
advertisement
Sasha Lobo
Reality shock: ten lessons from the present
Published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Number of pages: 400 pages
Published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Number of pages: 400 pages
Buy for € 22.00
Price inquiry time
09/15/2021 5:39 p.m.
No guarantee
Order from Amazon
Order from Thalia
Order from Weltbild
Product reviews are purely editorial and independent.
Via the so-called affiliate links above, we usually receive a commission from the dealer when making a purchase.
More information here
In the end, I countered my fear in the context of health with a risk assessment.
What exactly happens with what probability?
I would recommend that to you too.
Because of course there is a very low, but existing vaccination risk - by the way, nobody denies that, a very precise record is kept of this.
There is even an app from the Paul Ehrlich Institute just for this.
But there is also an increasing risk of illness.
And Corona is just not guaranteed to be harmless to anyone.
If I could just give you one piece of advice, it wouldn't be: get vaccinated.
Because you've heard that five hundred times.
My advice would be: talk to someone who survived Corona or who was there when it was severe.
Or talk to a doctor you trust.
For this conversation, try to shake off everything that you have built up in terms of feelings and only evaluate the conversation.
And then act or not - in any case, as a person hesitating to vaccinate, you have fulfilled the social duty of dealing with it (from my point of view).
Stay healthy.