Vaccinations aren’t just for your own protection. They’re also a shield for other vulnerable members of our community who are unable to take advantage of certain injections.
Pregnant women. Infants. Those with life-threatening allergies to components of the vaccine. People who’ve received an organ transplant. Or, as the mother of a young cancer patient pointed out in a viral Twitter thread last week, people who are undergoing chemotherapy.
Welsh author Nicolle Stellon O’Donnell shared what happened after her eight-year-old, cancer-stricken daughter recently contracted measles at a grocery store. From the month spent in quarantine, to the containment protocol that had to be enacted at the hospital to protect other kids.
“When we arrived at [paedeatric oncology] they had to cancel appointments and shut down the infusion room while they sorted out the details of her exposure. The treatment of all the other patients (children with cancer) that afternoon was disrupted,” she wrote.
“On the flight home she had to wear a mask. This may not seem like a big deal, but imagine being eight, bald, skeletal, without eyebrows and eyelashes *and* having to wear a face mask in public.”
