Covid vaccines and key lessons from historical diseases – Yorkshire Post Letters

WE have in the UK at the moment a crisis developing in the uptake of vaccination within certain age/ethnic groups.

This is probably due to dubious misconceived information freely circulated on social media sites. Perhaps this results in a rather selfish attitude by individuals to feel they have a right to refuse vaccinations and at the same time mix with the general population putting themselves and the general public at risk.

Even those who are fully vaccinated are not always observing Government advice as to the wearing of masks in crowded areas such as public transport.

In the early years of my lifetime (I am 76), we still had contagious wards in hospitals full of patients with polio, meningitis, bacterial resistant pneumonia etc. Tuberculosis sanatoria were filled with sick and dying patients. Leper colonies existed.

Fortunately, because of the development of vaccines and antibiotics, smallpox was wiped from the Earth and diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, leprosy and many other contagious diseases have been essentially eliminated.

In those days, we had parents and other citizens who recognised their duty to obtain these preventive medications 
for themselves and their children.

Let us hope that reason prevails today, and we do not fall for the ridiculous suggestions by those who claim a right to choose.

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