I’d like to share my story of how I came to mistrust the Covid-19 vax and why I chose not to take it. Early on, before the pandemic propaganda machine was in full force, I encountered a couple of media warnings that people with allergies, who are vulnerable to anaphalactic shock, shouldn’t take them. I’ve got allergies. I’ve got hay fever, I’m allergic to bee strings, and stress and mangoes cause me to develop hives.
Knowing my body, I said, I am not comfortable taking this vaccine. My next step was squinting my eyes and thinking back to a community college biology class. It was all a blur of phylems and zygotes. However, I can remember one thing. As part of our unit on DNA, we learned about RNA. Action, reaction. To me they seem closely bound. It was hard for me not to think of it as a gene therapy. Then I started hearing horror stories. The young athletes were the most vulnerable, the canary in the coal mine. I never heard about so many kids falling dead on the soccer pitch, gymnastic’s mat or Indian wedding dance floor. To quote Biden, not a joke.
So here I had this combination of experience, legitimate concerns and a novice-level understanding of biology, just enough to trigger skepticism. I didn’t want to chance it with my kids. And then came the cognitive dissonance, the gas-lighting. I felt it was the right thing to do to avoid the jab, particularly because it was being pushed hard.
I forgot to mention the next stage of my skepticism. I was wary of vaccine propaganda and, in fact, propaganda of all kinds, that flourished a few years back. At one point the US president wished tee nation, ‘Happy Holidays’ with one caveat. Those selfish enough, needle-phobic enough, and anti-social enough to refuse a brand-new vaccine for a brand-new condition were, sadly, not going to be able to have a Happy Christmas. And this was because, Biden warned, we were about to encounter a winter of sickness and death.
The nurses made YouTube videos where they danced, and we were urged to applaud essential workers. People spoke of refrigerated trucks being ginned up to deal with all the deaths. We became afraid of every cough from friends and strangers. It’s great to hang around with people unmasked, but is it worth it? Will it ever be worth it.
And then I had other questions. Why were people getting so mean? Why did some people post that they wanted the unvaxxed to die? How was I supposed to wear a mask when I wear glasses? I spent my day, working as a substitute teacher at the time, with fogged glasses and so did my kids. And here’s the thing. If these masks we were all wearing could contain a virus, why was my breath escaping enought to fog up my glasses?
These are the things you think when you’re an over-thinker. You’re all but destined to become, at some time, a rebel and an outcast. I’m a people-pleaser but I was just wierded-out enough about the Great Unfriendening that I did something rash. Bold. And yes, entirely in character.
I told people I hadn’t been vaccinated. I didn’t pass because I didn’t want to. I wanted to register my dissent. Anyhow, as for me I wish everyone, vaxxed and unvaxxed, a winter and spring of happiness, unprecedented luck with their flower beds, a larder full of food and a home full of friends and family. All the good stuff, all the time.
–Sarah Torribio
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