Please, please, please, please ...

I am not one who typically begs, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Thirty-eight people died in Bermuda during the month of September. Our morgue is overwhelmed, such that our dead are being kept in makeshift freezers. Millions have died from Covid-19 around the world.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. As a doctor, a fellow Bermudian, your former premier, your former doctor, neighbour, friend, acquaintance, stranger, I implore all in Bermuda to get vaccinated. I ask you to do no more than I and my wife have done.

I was on a radio programme in Bermuda on January 7, 2021, when vaccinations had only recently become available. I announced that we were scheduled to get our first doses the very next day. I said facetiously that I had never had problems with patients trusting another Pfizer medicine we doctors prescribe all the time, which has been known to produce side effects — the little blue pill called Viagra.

As of this past Tuesday, September 28, my wife and I just received our third jabs. We believe in the science. We believe in the scientists and the physicians who know more than we do, who have studied far more than we have — those same scientists and physicians who tell us it is OK to take aspirin, penicillin, blood pressure medicines, birth control pills and painkillers.

They are the same folks who save our lives when we are unconscious because of accidents or medical emergencies that threaten our very existence. These people are the reason we no longer have smallpox and polio wreaking havoc on our lives.

Why are we questioning them now? Why not take the vaccine?

Personally, I took the vaccine because I do not want to die from Covid. I do not want to become gravely ill and drain resources from healthcare systems because of this virus. I do not want long-term Covid, and to experience brain fog, or to have my mobility and sense of wellness, smell or taste compromised indefinitely. But, more than any of that, I do not want to catch this virus and give it to someone else — or to give it to someone I love. I cannot bear the thought of unwittingly giving Covid to my wife, my children or my grandchildren. God forbid!

I took the vaccine because this is a war. I am a warrior. I did the only bit part that medical science and my conscience told me I could do to rid the globe of this deadly contagion. I took three for the team — for me and my family, for the world, for Bermuda.

• Ewart F. Brown, the former Premier of Bermuda, is a physician and executive chairman of Bermuda Healthcare Services and Brown-Darrell Clinic