BHOPAL: While the district administration claims to have vaccinated 120% of the targeted population in Bhopal, there are some people here & there who have not got even a single dose of the vaccine.
Virender Singh, 56, is one such a person. Ask him why he didn’t get vaccinated and he has no reasonable answer. “I thought, I have enough immunity power to fight the coronavirus. To me, the vaccine appeared to be more of a placebo. A psychological treatment. My wife and both sons have got vaccinated. I can also take it, but I don’t think it makes much of a difference,” said Virender, who had fallen ill with symptoms quite similar to corona virus in the first wave itself but didn’t get himself tested for Covid-19 and recovered from medicines prescribed by a doctor.
When told that his reasoning for not taking the jabs doesn’t seem convincing, he said “I believe the more you fear a disease or anything, the more prone you become to it,” while putting the phone down.
Virender is among a few people in the city who have stayed away from vaccination but there are many, who got the first dose very late for reasons of their own and are yet to get the second dose.
Activist duo, Rachna Dhingra and Satinath Sarangi, got the first dose only last month and would be getting the second dose after almost two months. Both had contracted Covid in the first wave and remained admitted in the hospital. Rachna, later, also set up a helpline for Covid patients at Hamidia Hospital.
When asked why she got the first jab so late, Rachna said “ I had to be convinced about the efficacy of the vaccine. I was witness to how trials of Covaxin were conducted. They didn’t had data of the third phase of trial when the vaccine was given approval. Data from Pfizer and other RNA vaccines was available and when Covishield came up with data, we decided to get the jab of Covishield”, she said.
If Rachna delayed vaccination because she wanted to be sure about the efficacy of the vaccine, Kishore Mali, 25, a resident of Khajuri Kalan on the outskirts of the city, had not got vaccinated for quite some time because there was rumour in their village that people are dying after taking the vaccine jab. Nobody in his family and the village at large was ready to take the vaccine. In the meanwhile, 2-3 people in the village died of the disease.
Kishore also fell ill with symptoms akin to that of coronavirus infection but he didn’t get himself tested. He treated himself with the medicines that he had seen in the viral prescriptions, which were quite in vogue in those days, and recovered.
Mali, a driver, was already being persuaded by the owner of his company to get vaccinated. After recovering from the disease, he went for vaccination but was told that he could only get the vaccine after three months. He took the vaccine somewhere in August and now waits for his turn to get the second jab.
In fact, till the second devastating wave of coronavirus hit the city in March, not many were taking the vaccine. Vaccination centres were empty and after the second wave, which saw a lot of people perishing to the deadly virus and many more falling ill, crowds surged at the vaccination centres for taking the jab.
Those who had recovered from Covid were told to come after three months and that’s how their first dose got delayed. Many people, particularly the elderly decided to wait for some more time fearing that they might contract the infection at crowded vaccination centres but shortage of vaccines persisted for some months and so did the crowd at vaccination centres.
But, there are people who were not taking vaccines not because of any specific reason (fear, rumours or distrust) but because the head of the family decided that nobody in the family would take vaccines.
“My elder brother decided that we won’t take the vaccine. So, we didn’t take the jab for quite some time. Once my younger brother and I went to a vaccination centre to meet our friend, who worked there. He insisted that we should take the first jab. We tried to resist saying we don’t have our Adhar card and things like that. He said that can be taken care of. We shall get your Adhar no. later on. Ultimately, we took the vaccine and also put the pictures on Facebook and next day, everyone in the family had the jab”, said Asraf, who works with a private firm.
