Last week I lined up for over three hours to do the third so called additional or booster of Covid-19 vaccine. There were a lot of people. No wonder, after all, the official data of the vaccines against Covid 19 of the Ministry of Health reports that a few days after the clearance of the dose booster, about 46 % of the population potentially object of booster has already done it. And more generally, about 88 % of the population over 12 received at least one injection of the vaccine. If, out of the remaining 12 %, we remove those that would be in favour of the vaccine, but they cannot do it for health reasons (immunodepressed, treated with incompatible drugs, allergies or specific risks, etc…) or other contingent reasons, in fact, the percentage of those who are still reluctant is very low.
The two categories that oppose the vaccine are the so called no-vaxxes and the no-green-pass: the no-green-pass apparently do not deny the existence of the virus or its danger, but the effectiveness of the measure of the green-pass, considering it a “political tool” which limits freedom of movement and choice. A “partial” vision, which does not take into account the complexity of choices that must find a delicate balance between health protection and socio-economic needs, but still a point of view. However, I still do not understand why in the name of a principle they expose themselves and expose others to the risk of contagion. Collapse but do not give up? Or deep down they also deny the existence of the virus or its actual dangerousness? The no-vaxxes, on the contrary, express more openly disparate fears, with arguments without scientific foundation; many of them lead to real deliriums, completely abstract, deny the reality of the facts, do not trust science, others are more “moderate” and simply do not have confidence in the political choices they consider “interested” (how to blame them… actually..) and determined by interests other than the protection of public health, do not trust the disclosure of the media, which they also believe them “driven” by political choices (here as well, how to blame them…), and they just feel manipulated. Others follow alternative approaches to traditional medicine and feel that they must be subjected to impositions that go against their own convictions. In short, people who can and should be left “free” in their beliefs, but who certainly do not represent the thought of most citizens, who instead chose to vaccinate themselves.
And yet, despite this, since months there has been nothing on the media and on social media but the controversy of no-vaxxes or no-green passes. That is, it’s been giving a huge media prominence to a minority of the population that in the end could also be negligible… I do not say that minorities should be neglected or ignored, but certainly not even make it the centre of social and political debate of the moment… so much so to hold political decisions hostage. And instead, on the subject there are debates everywhere, the opinion of scientists, politicians, intellectuals is opposed to that of ordinary people, the argument of dissent is left to the “docker” (with all due respect for this professional category, absolutely respectable and useful, but perhaps not properly cantered if they must express a thought to be opposed to science) or so-called “housewife of Voghera” (term of ancient memory, used in the commercial communication of some time ago to represent the middle group of the female population…then they say that women have not conquered a social space… in fact today the average female population is not represented by the housewife of Voghera… but the comparison to represent the average culture of the arguments of a no vax seems to me totally appropriate). In short, scientific evidence against bar chatter, socio-political considerations more or less calm and that follow a thread of thought, shareable or not, but supported by concrete data, against reactions dictated by fears sometimes even justified but more often without logic and disenchanted by reality, anguished. The political leader, the scientist and the influencing tattoo artist. Visions of complexity against partial visions of the problem, sometimes also discussed civilly, but often, too often, anxious and alarmed, out of measure, and even here, too often, shouted with an anger and an aggressiveness that hides something else, much more. All on the same level of debate. For months. Why?
Are we sure the issue is that they are limiting the “freedom” of some people to follow their own beliefs? I sometimes think that maybe it is these people (and those who give them too much space) who try to “crystallize”, to limit the freedom of movement of those who, even with legitimate doubts and fears, choose to react and to look for the way to oppose the virus and find a “normality” of life and of social relations lost for too long already. Isn’t it that giving so much space to “beliefs” that deny danger, or to beliefs so deep-rooted that lead to exposure and exposure to danger, might be wrong? Isn’t it that perhaps we are giving an identity of “opposition”, an identity of “thought” to a phenomenon that must be studied, that must be understood, but must also be relegated to what it is: a minority of people who disagree, too often in such a anxious, abstract, violent or incongruous way that make you wonder what is behind the “dissent”. Here, let’s start asking ourselves this. What’s behind that kind of dissent? And let’s go get vaccinated.
Luigia Lazzaro
Thanks to Chiara Fanasca for the translation of this article
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