Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Thomas Jefferson

2020 will be remembered in the minds of those who lived it, in the clouded memories of children suddenly seeing masked faces, in the hearts of those who suffered solitude, in the unremitting crisis of those who lost their job.

Of course it will be remembered by history books and who knows how it will be described and how it will be taught.

Almost as suddenly as the virus came it’s magic antidote has been released. A major effort has been made and the vaccine is finally out.

Switzerland was the first country in the World to approve it with the ordinary procedure of Swissmedic. Other countries approved with an emergency procedure given the situation. Nobody mentioned it elsewhere in Europe. Maybe it would have been reassuring!

Europe decided to start the vaccination on the same day in every country of the EU. So we saw parades on the screen and the vaccine seemed like a propaganda to some.

Now, whilst people are starting to get vaccinated I assist to a miserable debate in Italy concerning sanctions for doctors that dare to speak aloud their doubts, hypothesis of making the vaccine compulsory, ideas on how to fire an employee that refuses the vaccine.

And, while I watch, I think i’m living a nightmare that is worst than the whole year 2020.

Instead of informing people about the vaccine the media inculcate terror, after having bombed for one entire year the population with negative news and a terroristic communication.

I want to stay hopeful: I think that most people will agree to be vaccinated. Some others will be immune because they had COVID recently. Others will change their mind and agree a bit later. Some will never agree.

Among the latter ones I see those that are adhering to conspiracy theories and those that say “No” because it is sadly the only way to show that the don’t agree with the way things have been done. For those I feel sad and I share with them the anger of not being heard. Maybe if their suffering would be heard, there would be no need to say no to the vaccine.

I am worried. What worries me is the information that doesn’t clarify doubts, the precipitation of imposing something, the media terror. From all of this we will not be cured. The psychological consequences of what we are living frighten me.

If after vaccinating a good portion of the population we will not go back to “normality” we will have been wrong. But not about the vaccine, we will have been wrong in our approach to COVID-19: it will mean we have looked for a solution to go back when we needed one to go forward!