Dr Yousuf Ali Al mulla
That patient felt the weight of time and gradually became indistinguishable between night and day, even coughing as he looked with his heart, not his eyes, at his nights in the hospital and he said to himself saying: I am still between life and death. Dramatically ,this is how the reality of some patients with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and this is their story between the meanings of the epidemic and the pandemic, between its beginning and looking at the horizon of its end and what their viewer exceeded in that suffering and anxiety about extinction.
Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to spread fiercely in many parts of the world, not only that but it continues to threaten large sections of highly-vaccinated countries, including some of their most vulnerable citizens .In fact, it is still a common societal problem, where such virus continuous evolving around the vaccine, while it may not evolve to be transmitted remotely through open spaces or make its way through masks. However, the country as is the case with various countries, doing its best to obtain and distribute the vaccine, even though most citizens or residents still have not received their first dose and despite the possibility of it being less than community immunity (herd immunity).i believe that at such point, Instead of asking (How do we end the epidemic?) it seems that we should ask, (What level of risk can we take?) or perhaps, (Who bears this risk?).
In a way, this pandemic made clear here, that the world is exposed to infectious diseases and we must normalize the idea of precaution always and forever, as we see in other countries that faced similar epidemics. This leads us to stress that creating incentives to vaccinate now is vital; while dealing with the removal of an important preventive measure or, as some think, after receiving one or two doses of the vaccine, it is true - if I may say so - foolishness. How can we tacitly support the individual narrative that preventive measures are burdens and people need to move away from them to return to a (normal) situation!?
What I mean here, is that during this pandemic the person who bears all personal responsibility may still be affected by the lack of safety and hygiene precautions. They have been vaccinated, but they may catch the disease by working in a grocery store among people who do not adhere to health precautions or do not wear masks...and it was!
Here, there is no doubt that an individual’s choices can outside to affect his family, his village and his city; a sick person can sow cases everywhere. On the other hand, the odds of each person contracting the disease depend on the choices of each person around him. Certainly, if you have not been vaccinated yet or are waiting for your turn to be immunized, your health is in your hands! However, since we are now aware that vaccines have become a collective solution to infectious diseases, especially if enough people are immune that epidemics will end on their own. And even if we don’t achieve community immunity, vaccines will provide a measure of collective protection and make people less likely to spread the virus to each other. Not to mention that in the rare cases in which fully vaccinated people develop a sudden infection, despite that such infection is milder and for a shorter period of time.
At end, my biggest concern is that those who are not vaccinated will have a false sense of security. You may feel like the threat has completely diminished if this is in the news, but if you haven’t been vaccinated and contracted this virus, your risk is still high. Perhaps unvaccinated people are less likely to encounter an infectious person, but in every such encounter, their odds of contracting coronavirus are greater than they were last year. And in a sense we know how this will end... but who will take the remaining risks?
Dr. Yousuf Ali Al Mulla. A physician, a medical innovator and a writer . For any queries regarding the contents of the article can be contacted at:
dryusufalmulla@gmail.com
