Paul Routledge: “We will all feel the sting if sick anti-vaccine lies spread”

I’ve had my flu jab, and last year one for shingles.

And when the vaccine for Covid-19 becomes available, I’ll be down the surgery faster than you can say syringe.

Our great-granddaughter Robyn, four months, has had her jabs. Three lots, at eight, 12 and 16 weeks. Two each time, one in each chubby little leg.

She is now inoculated against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, flu, hepatitis B, meningitis, ­rotavirus and pneumococcal infections.

I’m not sure what the last two are, but I recognise the others as fearsome illnesses that killed and maimed children of my generation. And would do so again if allowed to spread  unchecked.

The so-called anti-vax brigade would deprive baby Robyn of lifelong protection achieved by advances in medical science.

We haven’t yet got a vaccine against Covid-19, but loonies like David Icke are already mobilising against it.

Despite more than 44,000 deaths in the UK, they claim, fantastically, that the pandemic is a hoax, linked to 5G phone masts.

Public reluctance to take the jab would “doom us to being a population and a species that has this thing lurking in our lungs for ever more” warns Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College.

We can’t afford a repeat of the campaign against the MMR vaccine led by followers of crooked Dr Andrew Wakefield, which led to outbreaks of measles, with sometimes fatal ­consequences. This time the stakes are even higher. Millions of lives are at risk.

The misguided, malicious claims of the anti-vaxxers have to be confronted and disproved by politicians, medics – and, yes, journalists.

Robyn’s next jabs are at one year.

“She has been so brave, a superstar for all of them,” says her mum. “She’s full of smiles and laughter.”

Let’s keep her, and all children, that way with the wisdom of the NHS.

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