It's easy to explain why I decided to get the vaccine. It was available to me. I wanted to be able to have that protection, and to do my part to get us back to "normal", whatever that may be. The more people vaccinated the better. I believe it is safe and effective.
The harder part is explaining why I didn't refuse the vaccine. That's what I'm going to try to tackle today. I can outline my reasons for not not taking the vaccine in four areas:
I did my research. "Be informed," one earnest Facebook poster implored, "Don't just believe what they tell you." I find the assumption here is that the people getting the vaccine are just going along with whatever the man on the Tee-vee said to do. Independent thinkers do their own research and draw their own conclusions rather than following the masses. But the truth is a simple Google search will find a host of information both for and against the vaccine (and vaccines in general). It's not a matter of "being informed." It's a matter of which information you trust. It's probably more straightforward of vaccine skeptics to say "Be informed, but discount any 'mainstream' or institutional sources because they've been corrupted and can't be trusted. Listen to those few voices countering the conventional wisdom. They are telling the truth." It's romantic, I know, to assume that the minority is always telling the truth. But not everything is the scrappy little guy taking on the Empire.
I trust the science. When I say that, I don't mean I trust a particular scientist or anyone with white coat and a some letters after their name. I don't mean that I trust Fauci. What I mean is I trust a systematized approach to determining what is scientifically supported and what is not. This is a system that relies on hypotheses repeatedly supported by multiple trials by multiple researchers, and as such is a system that is very difficult to "game" at least in free countries. I trust in a system that is constantly changing and revising itself as new information comes to light (the very thing that makes many people distrust the scientific process--"Well first they said this, now they are saying the opposite. They don't know what they're doing!" Many people don't understand that is exactly how science should work.) I trust this methodology because it has proven to be successful more often than not over the past several hundred years. The diseases eradicated, the medical advancements we've achieved, and even the increase in our very lifespan bear out the rigor of this approach. Medical and scientific is not without spot or wrinkle. There are have been some dark chapters for sure, but percentage wise this approach is safer than the alternative: trusting in anecdotal evidence ("well, it worked for me!"), one-off studies hawked by those with an agenda or predetermined set of beliefs they are bound to validate. The less oversight, the less cooperation with peers in the field, the easier it is for bad science to slip by. And the less I'm inclined to take you seriously.
The benefits appear to outweigh the risks. Some might say: "This is awfully fast. Wouldn't you like to wait and see if there some unanticipated side effects of the vaccine? After all, these vaccines aren't technically even approved by the FDA. They've got 'emergency use authorization.' How safe can that be? " My answer is, pretty darn safe. The process of regular FDA approval is extremely stringent, and that's a good thing. It means that when something is released it has been double, triple and quadruple checked. This process can take years, and the argument is--we don't have years. The possible way down the line side affects are unknown that's true, but COVID is a known problem. If we have means to address it now, and the possibility of serious side effects is unlikely (though not impossible), then the certain benefit out weighs the possible risk. The EUA exists so that the FDA isn't sitting on a medicine that they feel reasonably certain is safe and effective, waiting for years for the laborious approval process to be completed while millions lose their lives. Well, what about the more immediate side affects? What about that doctor who died after taking the vaccine? Look, you give millions of people a banana to eat and somebody is going to drop dead. Again, it's simple cost-benefit. There's no way that there won't be someone who has some kind of adverse reaction to a substance so widely distributed. But what we looking for rather than the headline-grabbing story of an isolated case here and there is evidence that the vaccine has significant negative effect on a significant chunk of the people who take it. The 342 people who self-reported to some website that they had a bad reaction is not quite that significant chunk.
I haven't been presented with a compelling argument not to take the vaccine. And I've always been open to one. I find that most people who express fears about the vaccine are not well-versed in their fears. They don't articulate exactly why the speed with which the vaccine was released is a problem--just that it's "too fast." They routinely cite misinformation like "It hasn't even been tested" when in fact the vaccines out now have been tested on tens of thousands of people. They worry about possible side effects but they can't say what those side effects might be. They can't explain what kinds of problems are likely to develop with the medical technology used in these vaccines. There's just a vague sense that you know, there might be something. These are not compelling arguments. I find it a little strange that that it's often the "lets not live in fear" crowd who are fearless and unbowed before a known danger, but terrified of what maybe, might, could possibly happen from a vaccine.
So I've had my first dose and my second one is coming up on February 26. Am I little nervous? Sure. I've cleared my weekend in case I have some of the side affects many have reported, the fever and aches that sometimes come with the second dose (the first dose all I had was a sore arm for about a day after). But I'm not scared. Fear is one thing I've felt very little of throughout this pandemic. That's because I've stayed informed, I've tried to make safe choices based on the best information we've had at the time. I've always weighed costs and benefits, and after that I leave the rest to God. It's worked so far.
As of today there have been 27,704,082 total cases of COVID-19 in the United States. Another 4,266,654 new cases were added since January 15. It's heartening to see a significant decline in the number of new cases added this month. This is an 18% increase in the number of new cases from January to February, and about 5.6 million fewer than I predicted. I am hopeful to see these new cases drop even more in the next month as we approach the one year anniversary of the pandemic in the United States. There have 485,482 deaths altogether from COVID-19, with 95,538 of those occurring in the past month. This is a 25% increase. Though this 5,645 more deaths than from COVID than we had the previous month, and it is also 21,445 fewer deaths than I predicted and much lower month to month increase than we saw in January. I expect to see the number of deaths begin to drop as well as the cases continue to decline.
