Fear drives anger on both sides of the vaccine divide

Big shout-out to Joseph at the local Covid vaccination centre on Thursday. I’m impressed. Young, measured, considered, considerate, calm, and, unlike me, didn’t yell at the man who was rudely talking to one of the young helpers taking names. Back to the meat of that story shortly.

After meticulously planning my trip ever so carefully to get my Covid booster appointment, I got lost. Not the first time, won’t be my last. I’d faithfully followed the Google Maps woman, who I believe needs a swift lesson in te reo. Amusing at best and downright offensive at worst. Would the Minister for Ma¯ ori Development please send a few firm letters to Google Maps stat (good luck. There are no humans there. The AI have eaten all the humans).

Back to the booster. I admit it, I’ve been a typically snooty Wellingtonian, ever so proud of our rather impressive vaccination rates and therefore feeling protected and pompous. It’s true. Don’t you deny it, you other proud Wellingtonians. We’ve all been a little savoir faire. On more than one occasion we’ve fancied ourselves as the ‘‘chosen’’ people where Covid doesn’t stick.

However, I’m going to Auckland for a brief time, and so as a Wellington rhymes-withbanker, I got on the phone and booked my booster tout de suite. The very pleasant woman, while booking me in, had asked if I knew where I was going. I assured her I did. I even said the holy embarrassing thing that only people over 40 say. I said, ‘‘I’m quite tech-savvy’’. Gah! I regretted it instantly. I believe, too, I was being just a touch cocky. This became painfully true when I found myself wandering around Kilbirnie Park, lost and terribly confused.

After consulting Google

Maps again (no help) and then reading a few signs saying ‘‘We are not the Covid Vaccine Station’’ on a few buildings

(aha! I was not the first hapless field wanderer) – I found myself at the ‘hub’.

After going through the check-in, I sat in the waiting area near the back. After a minute or so, a man who had presented as a ‘‘walk-in’’ – not old and infirm, or elderly and confused – started a ruckus.

He was probably 50-something, and therefore in no way deserving of a free pass. But this man marched to the front of the line, then started obnoxiously yelling at the desk staffer, demanding his vaccine. They assured him that since it had not been four months since his last one, he would have to wait a few weeks. He wasn’t having any of it. ‘‘My friends have been vaccinated. I’m here now. Vaccinate me!’’

A youngish medical practitioner, Joseph, came out to try to reason with the man. I know his name was Joseph because the protester demanded his name and everyone else’s. Joseph was the ultimate in considerate – measured, firm, but kind. He assured the man he understood his frustration, but that they were simply following the law.

As the yelling man boned on and started taking names, that’s when I felt old Polly rising inside. The Polly who surfaces only occasionally now started to stir, and although I tried to push her down, I could feel the words welling up and then ‘BOOM!’ Not a yell. Not in anger. Just in a loud stage whisper: ‘‘You’re being a dick!’’

I wasn’t sure what would happen next, but people waiting in front of me all turned to heartily nod their heads. The grumpy man left, not looking anyone in the eye, having taken names and vowing he would return triumphant.

My number was called soon after. Joseph was my vaccinator, and I told him I thought he’d handed the ‘‘protester’’ excellently. With the measure, control and courteousness required. He thanked me. I asked him if he got a lot of ‘them lot’. He replied ‘‘Yes. Quite a few.’’

I pondered this as I sat for my 15 minutes after the booster shot, and it was there I came to the conclusion that both antivaxxers, and those dogmatically demanding early boosters, were in fact the two sides of the same coin. ‘Fear’.

There is the fear of those not wanting to be vaccinated for whatever reasons they have, and they seem to vary from fear of mind control, infertility, microchips, to freedom of rights. Then there’s the fear of catching Covid by people terrified if they don’t get their booster they are going to get very sick and die.

Fear is a driver. Fear has driven me most of my life and so it’s understandable. It still doesn’t give any of us the right to act like pricks, but it’s real and it’s human. However, ‘Joseph’ you were super cool. You clearly handled the man incredibly well and with marked maturity.

Unlike me who couldn’t help myself from balking at the injustice, and saying in my booming stage voice ‘‘You’re a dick!’’