Kate Hawkesby: I've got my Covid jab and I feel good about it

Got my jab yesterday.

And here’s the rub on that.

It was easy as.

No queues, no faffing around, very efficient, very slick, very well organised.

The jab itself is a non-event – and no one is more needle phobic than me, so if I didn’t feel it, you certainly won’t.

I was, to be perfectly honest with you, vaccine hesitant.

I felt like I was in no rush to get it, I didn’t need it, I thought it was too rushed of a vaccine, and I didn’t need that in my body.

I’m into holistic healthcare and alternative medicine.

My husband joked with me that what was I expecting to do when and if Covid hit me, was I just going to rub myself in orange peel, he asked.

I’m not sure why he’d think that given I’ve never rubbed myself in orange peel, but I took his point.  

I wasn’t anti-vax, I just wasn’t in any hurry.

But then a few things dawned on me.

Well firstly Delta hit Australia and I thought, wait a minute.

This is not good.

This is a bit close to home, this is a bit out of control.

But also, I realised, getting vaccinated was not actually exclusively about me.

It’s actually about those in our community who’re vulnerable and immune compromised, and how would I feel if I passed it onto them?

Also, it’s a collective effort to help our country get back into a connected functioning part of the world.

We cannot remain an isolated hermit kingdom forever.

Also, basic logic.

How often do we rock up for jabs in our arms if we’re travelling for example to foreign countries that require us to have certain vaccinations?

How many of us have paused or refused those, suspicious of what's in them?

I'd argue very few.

How many of us have had the flu vaccine and not asked once what’s in it?

Or whether we are being micro chipped by having it?

How often do we put antibiotics and other prescribed medications into our bodies without thinking twice about what’s in it.

So I found fewer and fewer reasons to question it.

On top of that, the data shows the percentage of reactions to the vaccine are infinitesimally small.

The conspiracy theorists are winning the fake news war though.

There’s a plethora of literature floating about the web against the vaccine.

Don’t worry, I’ve been sent all of it.

You Tube videos, interviews with ‘insiders’ from pharmaceutical companies, digital leaflets from ‘those who know’.

It’s on high rotate and you or someone you know may've seen some. It can be alarming, that’s the point of it. 

But you have to drill down into the sources of these things, you have to rely on facts.

You can’t rely on fear to make decisions for you.

And so much of the fear mongering rhetoric is fuelled by this propaganda.

So while I absolutely respect everybody’s right to make their own decision about their own body, I just wanted you to know I feel good about getting it done. 

Even if I do have a sore arm today.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.