Aren't thousands of Derbyshire deaths enough reason to get the Covid-19 jab?

It threw me for a minute, as the bloke I’d be in conversation with at the socially-distanced barbecue seemed an intelligent, articulate and likable person.

I suppose it’s daft to assume that people you think you’ll like, also think like you do - but it’s a trap many of us fall into.

I could perhaps understand a MAGA-cap wearing Trump supporter decrying the jab from his underground bunker, insisting that the vaccination plan was a global conspiracy concocted by the illuminati.

But the person I’d met definitely didn’t seem to be a ‘flat earther’ or believe on-line misinformation that the covid-19 jab was really a secret CIA plot to inject nanobot trackers into our bodies – or that the whole coronavirus pandemic has been faked as way to drive profits for multinational pharma-corps.

He described himself not as an ‘anti-vaxxer’ but as ‘pro-choice’. An interesting distinction. His objection to getting the jab centred around the fact he disliked being ‘coerced’ into rolling up his sleeve; that the government jabs roll out was an attack on his personal freedom to choose.

He brushed off my question when I asked if he wore a seat belt on his drive to the event – something else the tyrannical freedom-robbing parliament ‘forces’ up-standing citizens to do – saying it was a false analogy.

And thinking about it, he was probably right.

We’re made to wear a seat belt mainly to keep ourselves from harm – whereas a large part of the vaccination programme is about protecting others.

Many of us may suffer very few effects if we become infected with Covid-19, perhaps as many as a third will show no symptoms at all.

That seems to be the sticking point for some who refuse the jab – that they’re relatively young, healthy and don’t think they’ll get ill – so why bother?

The simple answer is the tragic number of people – thousands in Derbyshire alone - who have been killed by Covid-19 so far.

Personally, I’d rather lose a sliver of ‘freedom’ than see another single life lost.