Record-breaking COVID-19 cases. Never-ending MCOs. Vaccine scary reactions. Should we leave behind our fears in hope of achieving herd immunity?
I feel that we’d all agree by now, we’re all wishing for the WFHs and MCOs days to be over. I don’t remember what my colleagues look like anymore and as for the MCO… well, MCO seems like a Netflix series — just when you think it’s over, they release another season.
So, when the Malaysian government announced the National Immunisation Programme (NIP) in February, to say that I was excited would be an understatement. When the COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) announced the first round of registration to opt-in for the AstraZeneca vaccine, they should have just said, “Let the vaccine war begin.” It was a life-battle met with system glitches and sighs of frustration when being put on a waiting list — for me at least.
The second round of opt-in, which was also conducted on a first-click, first-served basis, broke its previous record of 3 hours 20 minutes in a mere hour. This drastic difference may be due to the increasing, all-time-high cases or the sentiment behind the heart-wrenching condition of quarantine treatment centres. Thankfully, we no longer need to battle for any more vaccine slots (yay!) and, fingers-crossed, our NIP runs smoothly and efficiently.
However, since way before the vaccine rollouts, many people have expressed concerns about their safety and effectiveness. If you have vaccine hesitancy, here are 3 reasons why you should get vaccinated.