Oooh I hate the tone of so many of the threads on here about this vaccine.
I’m 41 and I had my first dose last week. I am incredibly grateful to have had it.
Let me be clear, I’m not a diehard patriotic fan of the British vaccine. It’s not the best vaccine that’s been created, that is clear. But it is a highly effective and safe vaccine. The main reason people are turning away from it is because we are so incredibly fortunate that the other even better vaccines were also created. If we didn’t (which was a high possibility) then I rather imagine people would be able to better put the tiny risks into perspective. But we have alternatives and we are so lucky to be in that situation. If you want to wait for Pfizer or moderna then go for it but please stop being so incredibly dramatic over the risks relying to the Oxford vaccine!!!
This vaccine is one of the main reasons we are now in such a good position as a country, and it will go on to help many other countries get out of this as well. If we’d been relying on Pfizer and moderna we would be so much further behind. I can well foresee in this country that Astra Zeneca will end up getting phased out as the immediate danger of the pandemic passes and that’s ok. But it did a job and it did it well, and it is needed in many other countries.
And I for one would like to acknowledge what an amazing job they have done. The work and pressure involved must have been immense. And now to see people acting like they’d be getting a dose of poison and guaranteed death if they get this vaccine must be so hard. Never have we been in this situation were millions and millions of people are getting the same dose of something in such a short period of time. If we’d been seeing the tiny number of clots come in over the course of years, again I think it would be much easier for people to rationalise the numbers.
So thank you to the team that created this. I appreciate all you have done. Thank you for getting us to this position where we can hopefully begin to put our lives back together again. Thank you for being willing to supply this amazing vaccine so cheaply that poor countries can afford to use it unlike the others. Thank you.