Vaxxie: Vaccination drive and our attitude

As news of the coronavirus sweeps around the world, panic is observed throughout the world. Considerable awareness campaigns have been launched in the developed countries regarding precautionary measures. The public took security measures seriously. But some countries of the world and most of the citizens of these countries were not prepared to accept the “Corona Pandemic” as a reality. Pakistan has almost topped the list of these countries. Now that millions of people have surrendered to this deadly virus and left us alone, many of our close relatives, loved ones, and friends have perished, so we have come to our senses, and have accepted the reality. It was a depressing situation that the civilized world was urging caution while we were proving Coronavirus a “Jewish conspiracy” and many more names we used for this.

Countering these conspiracy theories, time passed with struggling to make our people accept the actual reality. Now, thanks to the tireless work of scientists, we have been able to develop vaccines to some extent. Vaccination drives began in every corner of the globe. The government took initiatives to persuade its people to be vaccinated.

We, after failing to prove Corona a Jewish conspiracy, started a new trend that some ‘known’ elements are trying to install a chip in our bodies to keep our eyes on our movements. To prove this up to the logical reasoning, we even tried to stick a magnet on our body and strived to give the impression that a chip was being inserted into our body through a “small syringe”. But somehow, people began to understand and started vaccinating against coronavirus.

In this regard, a new positive trend started everywhere. That is, when someone was vaccinating, he would take a selfie /photo and share it with his circle of friends on social media platforms. It’s called a “vaxxie” or ‘Vaccine Selfie’. The photo taken during the vaccine began to yield tremendous results. Everyone in the world, including political leaders, artists, celebrities, businessmen, took part in this new trend. People are encouraged by this trend. All false claims disappeared and people were ready to be vaccinated after seeing their friends, and colleagues.

It is clear that when the country’s celebrities, significant politicians, and other dignitaries take part in a trend, people start to follow them back. That’s why these people are being cast in advertisements to attract a large population towards a specific product. James Clear explains this method in his book Atomic Habits. According to him, the people around us build their habits by imitating three kinds of people. One is, those who are very close to us, that is, family, relatives, etc.; others are people who have different habits in society but in a large number adopt a certain habit; third is the celebrities and dignitaries; which affects most parts of society. That’s why we often see videos and photos filmed during the vaccinations on social media to attract common people towards vaccination. These gestures are copied by the public and become a no-cost public service advertisement.

Because of these pictures, people’s doubts began to fade away. People proceeded to believe that vaccines are safe and effective and that they too should take part in the vaccination drive. It also gives people a chance to contact those who have been vaccinated to ask how they can register for the vaccine. What is the procedure for vaccination? How does the vaccination process go? Or what are the effects of vaccination and after vaccination? They find the answers to all these questions to some extent.

People always trust those people they know very well. The words of those who know them mean more to them. So thanks to the ‘Vaxxie’ we get all kinds of information from our acquaintances.

What could be a massive victory when you go to get vaccinated and take a picture with a hopeful smile? Isn’t that enough to defeat a dangerous virus like Corona?

It is also a pleasure to get out of the dark moments of lockdown and get vaccinated in the hospital. Some people get vaccinated to show the same happiness, while some people just follow the trend and get vaccinated and take pictures.

But alas, Pakistanis like me are not left behind here either. We did everything we could to make these vaccine drives look controversial. A clear example of this is a viral video on social media last month. A vaccination drive was underway at a shopping mall in Israel. Vaxxies are very much appreciated by them. One person comes back after the vaccination and asks the doctor to act as if he is vaccinating the man because he has forgotten to take pictures the first time. So the doctor acted the same and his friend captured the moments through his mobile phone. Meanwhile, a man in the mall filmed a separate video from the top floor. This video went viral in our country with the caption reads: “this person is a Jew so he is not being vaccinated while anyone who is a Muslim would be vaccinated. Therefore, vaccination should be avoided.” This video and caption went viral, and our naive people began to be misled. It is very unfortunate to adopt such an attitude considering the leisure of the Pakistani people!

We observe a lot of such pictures, and it was even more pathetic to see people’s opinions on them. First, we plotted Coronavirus a Jewish Conspiracy, and then charge the vaccine with our negative propaganda. Now that people are ready to be vaccinated, some people in our country are making it even more dubious and difficult. Often, According to people, uploading a picture on social media while vaccinating is not a good practice. These people ridicule the process. We also saw some youths who did not upload the photo saying that the photo was not uploaded, will their vaccine work? Many people often criticize other people who upload vaccines on any platform.

Our celebrities almost have a similar attitude. Due to this, people are mentally reluctant to participate in the vaccination drive. Psychological stress increases and so, many people avoid vaccinations to avoid this ridicule.

All of these people are kindly requested not to make this process of vaccination questionable at least! Help the government to communicate a positive message to the people. The government is doing all this for us. What can be expected of common people if we continue to do so?