An anti-vaxxer and pregnant mother of two has warned she’ll stop having sex with the father of her children if he goes against her wishes and gets the COVID-19 jab.
As the delivery of coronavirus vaccines to more than 20 million people across Australia continues, Brisbane anti-vaxxer Tania Sassi has drawn a line in the sand for her partner Michael McDermaid.
The couple have been together for six years and have a two-year-old child and another on the way.
Despite the COVID-19 vaccine being declared safe by the Therapeutic Goods Adminstration which overseas regulation of medicines in Australia, Ms Sassi says her fears over the safety of the jab is threatening to tear her family apart.
Tania Sassi fears she will not be able to look after her partner if he gets sick from the COVID-19 vaccine
Health workers across Australia have been the first to get the COVID_19 jab. Nurse Jen Ives (left) was among them
‘I can’t seem to accept my partner’s inability to wake up to vaccines,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I don’t feel safe to be vulnerable and open up to him when he has different values to me and won’t see my point of view and the research I have been reading.
‘If he ends up getting the vaccine, I said it could destroy our relationship and family.’
The Commonwealth Government hopes to have 4 million people vaccinated by March and the entire country inoculated by October.
Epidemiologist and Associate Professor at La Trobe University, Hassan Vally, told Daily Mail Australia there was no reason to fear the vaccine.
‘It is safe, effective has the best science behind it and poses no threat. We are 100 per cent sure it is safe. The science shows it is effective and it is responsible to do it for your own health and to protect the community,’ he said.
But in Brisbane, where the 39-year-old Queenslander resides with her family, Ms Sassi claimed the vaccine had not been thoroughly tested and the Australian public was being used as guinea pigs.
Despite her husband being hit with a virus in December and suffering terrible arthritis, Ms Sassi worries if he gets sick after having the COVID-19 jab, she will not be able to look after him.
‘I am pleading with him not to go ahead with the vaccination … I don’t know enough about the vaccine and how it will affect him,’ she said.
The expectant mum, who has come to her decision based off research conducted over social media and YouTube videos, further believes her decision will see her family segregated and prevented from living normally as a family if she doesn’t get vaccinated.
Tania Sassi has drawn a line in the sand for her partner Michael McDermaid. She fears her family will be shunned if she doesn’t get the jab
Millions of Australians are expected to eventually get the jab by October
An Ambulance leaves Holy Spirit Nursing Home in Brisbane on Wednesday. An 88-year-old man and a 94-year-old woman received four times the correct dosage of the coronavirus vaccine while staying there
‘I said I was concerned we would go on different paths and how it would affect our relationship on a day-to-day basis,’ Ms Sassi said.
‘He is not well enough to do all the shopping, we won’t be able to travel together. How will it be if half our family is discriminated against?’
A shocking incident which saw an 88-year-old man and a 94-year-old woman given the incorrect doses of the vaccine this week poured fuel on the fire for conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers across the globe.
Professor Vally dismissed all notion that there were sinister government plans behind the nationwide vaccine effort.
‘We should question everything, but if you question something and then don’t listen to the expert advice it is pointless.’
‘It is not a conspiracy, and no one is trying to harm anyone or infringe on people’s rights. We are just trying to keep people safe,’ he said.
Tania Sassi hit social media and YouTube to find information that helped make her decision to not get vaccinated against COVID-19
An elderly women is seen walking into the entry of the Holy Spirit Nursing Home on Wednesday. A mishap there fell right into the hands of anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists
Ms Sassi fears her husband’s employer will force him to have the vaccination and has asked him to make a commitment to her not to have it.
So concerned is Ms Sassi about the vaccine, and her belief that her apprehension is widespread and legitimate, she has begun attending rallies with other like-minded Australians.
‘It was great. It was a peaceful perspective with lots of different opinions from different avenues. Families, religious groups and Aboriginals. I definitely can see there are a lot of like-minded people,’ she said.
Professor Vally said vaccination was not compulsory and in Australia adults were not forced to have them.
‘There are “vaccine hesitant people” and then there are the anti-vaccine people, which is a much smaller group, and possibly there is nothing you can do about that group,’ he said.
‘But they undermine confidence in the vaccine in more sensible people who get frightened and create confusion which makes some people vaccine hesitant … It is easy to argue the vaccine is a conspiracy when people are not dying around you.’