Champion tennis player Novak Djokovic has been in the news during the
Australian Open tennis championship in January 2022. Not for winning the
championship, but for not being allowed to play. He reached Melbourne for the
tournament on invitation and was later forced out of the tournament and was
deported without playing a game as he was unvaccinated. Djokovic has now
publicly announced his decision not to take the Covid-19 vaccination. He is
deeply convinced about the decision and is willing to bear the costly
consequences of even missing the upcoming French Open and Wimbledon
Championships where he is the defending champion.
This is a very interesting development as the decision comes from an
illustrated world champion with 20 Grand Slam trophies in his showcase or
wherever he has kept them. He has been world No.1 for a record 360 weeks and
still has more tennis in him to reach or break new world records. It is
interesting that Djokovic is not making an emotional spot reaction but a
thoughtful decision. It is also interesting to note that he is not an anti-vax
campaigner nor is he in the pro-vax camp. He is just using his freedom of
choice whether to have a medicine or not.
Covid-19 pandemic has brought in several new rules and new ways of
public behaviour. Since it was a global health emergency people, experts and
nations were learning new things by trial and error. While the World Health
Organisation was giving some studied guidance, people and nations around the
world tried their own immediate and local coping mechanisms in the absence of
an effective cure against the Coronavirus. What you can’t cure has to be
prevented. Logical. So, pharma and vaccine companies worked overtime to come up
with vaccines that may prevent the spread of the virus. And to their credit
several vaccines came up in a relatively short time and the authorities
approved the use of such vaccines with limited clinical trials.
The vaccine morality has divided the world broadly into two
categories- the pro-vax and anti-vax camps. Pro-vax folks advocate that
vaccination is essential for everyone and those who do not get vaccinated harm
themselves and others. While the anti-vax people advocate that these vaccines
are not yet proven regarding their efficacy and long-term negative side effects
and hence oppose any vaccine mandates. Novak’s declaration has brought in a
third possibility of vax-neutrals who retain their freedom of choice while
neither joining the pro or anti-vax groups. This third category of people are
not making their choice based on data analysis nor do they oppose anyone. Yet
they want to exercise their freedom of choice.
Let’s examine this a bit further.
Most, if not all the currently available vaccines against Covid-19 are
not really vaccines by the very definition of vaccines. A vaccine is a
preventive medicine that will protect the vaccinated from a disease or
infection for one’s lifetime or a defined period, say for 10 or 15 years. None
of the Covid-19 vaccines claim to prevent the occurrence or recurrence of
Covid-19 for the vaccinated person. On the contrary there have been plenty of
instances of vaccinated people contracting the Corona virus and spreading the
virus to others. So, if the vaccine is neither protecting the vaccinated person
from the disease or from becoming a virus carrier what great reason is there to
mandate vaccination on every thinking adult?
Okay, the pro-vax camp may still say that even though the vaccine may
not prevent the disease, it will still add some immunity in the vaccinated
person and reduce the chance of death due to Covid-19. But then, there are many
other means of improving immunity and general health without the vaccines. Eg.,
there are many ethnic or local plants and foods that boost immunity. Should we
mandate all of them? No. Instead, provide information on all such options and
let people choose what is best for them.
Let’s come back to the morality of it. Most of the moral codes are
aimed at protecting the freedoms and encouraging the duties of individuals to
have a safe social co-existence of a community or a larger society. That is a
fair proposition without which no society can function effectively. In the
recent past we have seen several discussions around vaccine equity, vaccine
nationalism and vaccine patenting etc., All of that have valid moral grounds
but all those grounds have been breached by companies and nations. There was no
system to ensure that the rich and poor nations had the same access to vaccines
or medicines and the same kind of inequity was seen among people within
nations. There was no system of a liberalised patent system for these
‘emergency use’ vaccines to make them available for everyone in the shortest
time. And, of course, there were huge differences in the pricing and the vaccine
schedules. However, like in many other social crises such inequities are to be
expected. Therefore, the summary of all these is that moral codes emerge in a
social context and they do evolve rather than staying unchanged.
Well, the majority of us (me included) would take the easy path of
going with the flow. Will trade off personal choices for peace, harmony, and
personal convenience. So, we all stood in the queue and took the vaccine shots,
twice and some even four times. Most of us belong to the pro-vax camp. Novak
chose a new morality around the vaccine. And he has every right to do so and
let’s respect it. Djokovic may not have all the data, but he still has the
freedom of choice to inject a medicine into his body or not. One can agree or
disagree with him. But let us grant him the right and wish him well. Let’s not
slam him, vax or no-vax, grand slam or no grand slam!
‘There
is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’- Arthur Conan Doyle
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