Letters: The Covid-19 vaccine increase your chances

The Covid-19 vaccine is now being distributed in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley.

In reply to Marianne Schumacher (Letters, April 20) my letter of April 7 was not propaganda. It was based on personal experience.

I understand that life is a game of chance. All that any vaccine can do is increase your chances of staying alive and well.

If you choose not to have the Covid-19 jab, you are similar to someone who doesn't wear a seatbelt.

It's called "death by Darwin", whereby you make the sort of decision that might enhance your risk of dying, thus taking you out of the gene pool, perhaps leaving the species as a whole better off.

Take a deep breath. These are frightening times. I sympathise with you. Talk to your health provider, weigh up your risks, and make a decision.

If there had been a polio vaccine in 1950, I wouldn't be a cripple today.

MARY STELLA TAYLOR
Whanganui

PM's message

With the utmost respect to Colin McKinney and his response to the letter by Robyn Szabo questioning the suitability of our Prime Minister's entry into the Book of Remembrance for HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (Letters, April 19), it is my duty to inform him that he has totally missed the point of the original letter.

Whilst he may be correct in his opinion that the message penned by our Prime Minister is appropriate in this day and time, he is [not] in his decision to overlook the manner in which said message is written impacting not only the grieving family but the entire world.

The hand-written message (complete with errors and ill-formed characters) [is] not what is expected of the leader of the "Team of Five Million".

Surely it is more appropriate to have a message on the first page of the book nicely penned in copperplate script and fully signed in a respectful manner rather than a couple of scrawled initials that one normally attaches to any mundane document of no importance passing over one's desk.

There are certain protocols that should be observed in situations such as the passing of dignitaries with a historical connection to New Zealand and Ms Ardern failed.

D PARTNER
Eastown

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