Over the last week, the UK government began a campaign urging young people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The majority of young people are yet to be offered the vaccine, however. Does this campaign therefore just lead to more confusion and frustration?
Everyone has sacrificed a lot over the last year and young people are no exception. They are the least likely to suffer extreme reactions to Covid-19 but have stayed at home to protect the vulnerable. As well as this, they will be the last group to be prioritised for vaccination. This is understandable – naturally, it makes sense to protect the most vulnerable – and I have seen little complaint about this. However, it feels that the sacrifices young people have made have not been recognised by the government. Instead we seem to receive only criticism.
“It also runs the risk of alienating young people even further”
This week, young people were urged to “do their bit” and take the vaccine but currently, only those aged 40 and above, or with certain health conditions, are eligible for the vaccine. Asking people to take a vaccine they aren’t currently allowed will lead to confusion and potentially conflict at vaccination centres; centres who are already having to handle upset over the different types of vaccine. It also runs the risk of alienating young people even further.
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1386425443377717258?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It’s disheartening to be almost accused of turning down the vaccine when many young people are desperate to get vaccinated: they are just patiently waiting their turn rather than refusing. I find it rather insensitive of the government and it certainly does them no favours for their already declining popularity.
“The constant guilt-tripping and blaming just seems unnecessary”
The vaccine rollout program in the UK has been going quite smoothly so far, so you can understand the government’s intentions to get the next group on board in time for when they become eligible. Naturally, there will be some people who refuse the vaccine, but it seems the general consensus among the population is that they’ll take the vaccine to try and return to normality. You would hope that this sudden burst of encouragement surrounding young people and vaccines would suggest the program will be expanding shortly.
We’ve seen the rapid expansion almost daily to now include anyone over 40. But the next stage of the vaccination program could be much harder as the majority of the remaining adults are under 30 and therefore shouldn’t receive the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“These people haven’t had the vaccine because they aren’t allowed to, not because they don’t want to”
Young people have been made to feel guilty for going out, even though it is within government guidelines. Its already an incredibly stressful time and the constant guilt-tripping and blaming just seems unnecessary. I imagine the government didn’t intend to irritate young people but regardless, their campaigning comes across somewhat ungrateful. These people haven’t had the vaccine because they aren’t allowed to, not because they don’t want to. It’s unfair to criticise them for helping to protect the more vulnerable, and certainly leads to questions over whether they will once again suffer if vaccine passports become important. They stayed home and waited their turn to protect the community and could be rewarded with being the only ones unable to travel freely.
The idea of vaccine passports are such a GREAT idea but they make absolutely ✨no sense✨ if everybody has not been offered the vaccine
— Max Balegde MBE (@Balegde_) April 29, 2021
Now, we play the waiting game to see how the next steps in the vaccine rollout unfold and hope that the government are not just dangling a tempting, vaccine-shaped carrot in front of young people.
Some areas have on-call reserve lists to ensure leftover vaccine doses are not wasted. Not many people are aware of these so its definitely worth looking whether your local area has one if you’re still not eligible, especially in Wales.
You can check if you are eligible for a vaccine here.
Ella Gilbert.
Featured image courtesy of CDC via Unsplash. Image license can be found here. No changes were made to this image.
Ella Gilbert
Ella is History and Spanish student at the University of Sheffield. She is the social media manager for Empoword and a keen writer for various publications. When not writing or studying (which is far more often than she'd like to admit), you can find her exploring the outdoors, going out for drinks with friends, or in bed with Netflix and TikTok.