A big goal for the year of 2021 is for everyone to get the COVID vaccine. President Biden has said that he will be pushing for everyone to get the vaccine and has already begun to increase the vaccines being distributed to clinics nationwide. Although talk of the vaccine was seen towards the end of 2020, now more than ever, it seems like people are becoming reluctant to get the vaccine. Many people out there seem to have a lack of confidence or trust in the vaccine and its effectiveness. One of the biggest concerns I have heard regarding the vaccine, is that people do not know what is in the vaccine and are therefore skeptical to put it in their bodies. Now I am not a doctor and I don’t know what exactly is in the vaccine either, but I do trust and believe in science and the doctors who have been working on the vaccine. The argument of “I don’t know what is in the vaccine, so I don’t want to take it” does not seem to be really valid to me because, let’s be honest, when do we really know what is in anything we put in our bodies? There are other vaccines that are always being given to newborns and young children, and nobody seems to ever question or research what exactly is in those vaccines. I would like to believe that the scientists and doctors that formulated these vaccines have carefully done their research to ensure it is not dangerous or fatal to anyone.
The CDC website mentions that “…based on evidence from clinical trials, the Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness in people who received two doses who had no evidence of being previously infected.” This shows that the vaccine is very effective at preventing the COVID illness. Although, it is currently only 94.1% effective, I personally would much rather take the vaccine than to not take it, and have a higher chance of becoming infected. The CDC website also lists out the possible side effects from the vaccine and has a lot of other useful information. I highly recommend that people do their research and then maybe this way, they will be less skeptical about the vaccine.
This pandemic will never end if there are still stubborn people who refuse to get vaccinated. . The responsible thing to do in this situation is to get vaccinated and take the precautions necessary in order to slow the spread of the virus. From personal experience, I feel that it is a lot of older people being manipulated into thinking the vaccine will harm them. I say this because I actually have an older family member who was being told by another family member that the vaccine contained cells from aborted babies. Now this just seems to be such a stretch to me, but I can see how older people might be a bit more gullible and easily manipulated into believing this. It makes me very sad and frustrated that these rumors and lies are being spread and are causing fear within the public.
Another thing I believe is important to mention, is that I do not believe that the vaccine would first be given to doctors and nurses if it actually had a big risk to it. Doctors and nurses are some of the people we need most in the world. I have also heard people say that the vaccine is actually a way for the government to put a chip in us. Now besides the fact that I find this theory to be completely ridiculous, I would just like to mention that the government is already watching us. Almost everyone in the country has something called a smart-phone, right? There’s no need for the government to put a chip into us when they already have all of our information through our cell phones.
Putting aside all of the conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine, I just want to stress how important it is for everyone to get vaccinated as soon as they are able to. Trust the science and follow the CDC guidelines. I personally am in the phase 1b group and I look forward to hopefully getting vaccinated soon. The sooner we all get vaccinated, the sooner we will all be able to hug our loved ones once again.