Just Get the Darn Shot!
An average of 3,100 Americans died from COVID-19 in January — a rate of one death every 28 seconds. In spite of this horrendous fact, recent polls suggest that nearly half of our public would hesitate, or even refuse, to get vaccinated if the vaccine were offered to them!
There is much discussion in the media about the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines that only serves to confuse the pubic by vastly understating their effectiveness and safety. The medical community generally rates the effectiveness of a vaccine by the percent of patients in a trial who do not show any infection symptoms, compared to an unvaccinated cohort. A better measure for the public would be the percentage of vaccinated people who nevertheless become seriously ill or die. By this measure, any of the current COVID-19 vaccines are extraordinarily safe and effective, and no one should hesitate to receive any of them.
Of the roughly 75,000 people who received one of the five vaccines in trials, not a single person died, and only a few were even hospitalized, whereas in the 2019-20 flu season, among 75,000 Americans, between 6 and 14 died from the flu. Clearly, in the trials the COVID vaccines could be said to be much more effective and safer than flu vaccines, and this conclusion continues to be verified. The CDC examination of nearly 14 million vaccinations found only about 630 people had adverse effects that were considered serious. (No mention was made of any deaths.) And the news just keeps getting better. Analysts are finding that even just the first shot of the two-dose vaccines provides near total protection from serious illness or death.
Americans, stop being misled — just get your first darn shot ASAP, then relax and go about your business, following public health guidelines.