Mike Williams share his childhood vaccination story to help others understand their importance.
Mike Williams share his childhood vaccination story to help others understand their importance.
OPINION:
Covid-19 vaccination levels are coming tantalisingly close to the 90 per cent double-jabbed level that would bring in the Government's "traffic light" management.
Overall, the country, on Thursday, was at 88 per cent with a first injection and 76 per cent with both.
For the just over 7000 eligible Kiwis in the Hawke's Bay DHB region yet to get their first shot, my own vaccination story might just help you to decide to get the Covid-19 jab to bring the province to the 90 per cent target.
Between 1916 and 1956 New Zealand had to cope with regular epidemics of poliomyelitis. In 1955 a vaccination named "Salk", after its creator, was developed and was an excellent safeguard against a virus which could paralyse or kill.
This vaccine was administered to all New Zealand kids at their schools, but regrettably the day the Salk vaccine came to Parkvale School, I was absent and missed out.
There was no follow-up in those days and at 7 years old I contracted polio.
This was not an experience I would wish on anyone.
I remember having the worst headache imaginable and all of my body aching in sympathy. My parents called our doctor who came around and immediately ordered me into hospital. I was received at the Hastings Memorial Hospital by people dressed, I thought, like aliens, though now we'd recognise what they were wearing as PPE or personal protective equipment.
A miracle was quickly performed and what I now know was a lumbar puncture had the effect of relieving the pressure that was causing the awful headache. It was like the pain was wiped away and I was given a pill that put me to sleep at once.
I woke up to a sunny Hawke's Bay morning the next day in isolation, though I was in a room that included a small fenced outside space.
I was not told I had polio as was the practice in those days and as far as I knew, I had "acidosis".
Back then it was thought that polio could be transferred from one person to another so isolation was the rule and any and all of the nurses and doctors who attended me wore full PPE and kept their distance, with one brave exception.
The exception was an elderly staff sister who would come and read to me beside my bed most evenings without any protection whatsoever.
I don't think I even knew her name and it was not until many years later that it dawned on me that as far as she knew, she was risking her life to make a small sick boy's life a little better.
I think I spent about a month in isolation. My mother, who was pregnant with my younger brother, was not allowed to visit me and my father could only see me from a distance.
I made a full recovery.
The Salk vaccine was followed by the even more effective Sabin formulation, which could be taken orally.
Thanks to the development of effective vaccines, polio is no longer a threat and has been globally eradicated, like another mass killer, smallpox, through the miracle of vaccination.
It seems, however that the tiny minority that opposes vaccination is getting more frenzied in their disapproval, with a group attempting to block a vaccination centre that PM Jacinda Ardern tried to visit in Whanganui.
I found myself a target of this madness one morning last week.
It was a frightening experience.
While driving to my office about 8.45am, a black SUV began following my vehicle extremely closely, perhaps about a metre behind me.
After about a minute of this tailgating behaviour, the driver following began blasting his horn.
Thinking that my vehicle was showing some sort of fault that wasn't obvious to me, and I was being offered assistance, I pulled over and wound down my window.
At that point the driver, a middle-aged male, now beside me with his passenger side window down, started screaming at me in a totally deranged fashion.
He's obviously recognised me as a former Labour Party president as part of his rave, which was largely incomprehensible, was that he would never vote for the Labour Party while we were "forcing people to inject poisons".
I drove off immediately and he resumed his tailgating and horn blasting, until I turned into the driveway of the complex that included the New Zealand Howard League office. He followed me up the first part of the driveway but must have changed his mind as I turned into the final stretch.
I quickly locked myself into my office and rued the fact I hadn't had the chance to take down this idiot's licence plate number.
• Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is chief executive of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
