COVID-19 Vaccine

I am in the first wave of healthcare workers to receive the COVID vaccine as soon as it is available in my area. It is not mandatory. I get asked if I'm hesitant to receive it because it is new and came out so fast. 

My answer is no. I am not hesitant at all to receive it, and the speed of its development does not bother me. Here's why. (I'm pro vaccines in general. I'm so grateful that I'll never get polio.)

1. It makes sense to me that an unprecedented problem has an unprecedented solution. 

2. It makes sense to me that when millions of people prayed for relief from this pandemic, God would listen and provide. 

3. It makes sense to me that this is the solution. The resolution to this pandemic was always going to be a vaccine. We have seen nothing but increasing numbers the longer this virus is at large. The only other measures attempted are not sustainable in the long term (shutdowns, etc). A vaccine has to be it. 

4. It makes sense to me that scientists could do amazing things with limitless funding and reduced red tape. It is not surprising that when the government removed the usual barriers, scientific development could flourish. Think of the strides in space innovation since privately funded companies like SpaceX started to take over the industry. 

5. I don't believe the vaccine companies "cut corners" to get their vaccines through the approval process. I think they were able to accomplish all the necessary clinical trials at an unprecedented speed because the government had incentive to cooperate and move forward in the process rather than being a bottleneck of progress. Government agencies are notoriously slow. Did you see Zootopia? Think of those sloths. I had the experience of buying a house that had been a HUD foreclosure. It ended up taking 6 months longer than we expected. Every time we had to interact with the HUD office for an update or a negotiation, their procedure was that they were allowed a three-week time frame to respond. And they never moved forward sooner than required by policy. ---Sign a paper, send it in. Wait three weeks. They say they got it and inform us that more paperwork is coming. Wait three weeks. Receive the paper. Sign it, send it back. Wait three weeks. No response? Call and leave a message. Wait a week.--- You get the idea. It is no wonder to me that the vaccine industry could move forward through their approval process several times faster than usual when the government prioritized them and then got out of the way of progress.

6. I think many endeavors could be accomplished in record time with vast amounts of money, and this is what happened with the vaccine. I can imagine the amazing results if an eccentric benefactor presented my husband - a child at heart - with an unlimited budget and said, "Here is a football field. As fast as you can, build the most amazing, fun playground that is also as safe as other playgrounds." I can imagine him quickly gathering the best engineers and builders and designers and creative minds and coming up with something amazing. I think he would hire the YouTuber engineer Mark Rober and the band OK Go. They would geek out, and the results would be fantastic. 

7. I understand that the technology used to develop the COVID-19 vaccine was not suddenly thought up in response to the current pandemic. The idea of using mRNA is not a brand new 2020 concept. The vaccine was not a spur-of-the-moment idea, a cheat, or a makeshift band-aid imposed upon us. It is built on a foundation of legitimate research. Coronaviruses in general aren't new to science. Remember SARS in 2002? That was also a coronavirus. There was a framework of years of scientific study, which provided a running start to the COVID-19 vaccine development. 

8. I don't want to contract COVID-19. I don't fit into a high-risk group. I would probably survive. However, as time goes on, there has been more information about cases of lingering illness from COVID that affects quality of life. This can include symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, loss of taste or smell, shortness of breath, etc. When people try to deny the severity of COVID by rattling off the recovery/survival rate of COVID, I feel embarrassed for their ignorance. I work in home health. We care for patients who survived their hospital stay and were discharged as soon as possible to clear up a hospital room. They'll be considered "recovered" on record because they didn't die from COVID. Yet they wear oxygen constantly, they feel fatigued most of the time, and sometimes they have feeding tubes. These people are not going back to work any time soon. Their quality of life is significantly lower than their pre-COVID days. I'd rather not chance it.

9. I am willing to risk being part of a large data pool for a new vaccine in order to give life back to our senior citizens and healthcare workers. 

Senior citizens: I have friends, family, and patients who fit the high-risk age group. Many of them are subjecting themselves to strict isolation in order to avoid infection and possible hospitalization. Too many younger individuals have discounted this older group as if they have no life left, they would die soon anyway, and their lives don't matter. Some young people feel that this virus doesn't usually affect the young personally, so why should they bother taking measures to prevent its spread? Dehumanizing individuals because of their age is discrimination. We must be advocates for our senior citizens. If most of the population - even the young who probably won't die from COVID - will get vaccinated, these valuable, older individuals can start to participate in society again, and their quality of life will improve. 

Healthcare workers, particularly in hospitals, and especially ICU workers:  Healthcare workers in certain environments have been pushed past their limits. ICUs are full. ICU nurses are working in stressful, scary conditions. This has been going on for months. These people need reprieve. They need us to quell the pandemic so they can take some needed time off to recover. They need to debrief. They will suffer from burnout and leave their profession if they feel the community at large does not care enough to help them.  

10. I think it's silly that COVID vaccines have been met with such fear and skepticism - for some, even greater fear than the disease itself - simply because it is new. Certainly people should discuss their individual circumstances with their primary care provider. But people should stop using the vaccine's speedy development to drive the fear and stop them from considering vaccination all together. 

11. We've been given a solution, and I don't think we should reject it because it's better (faster and more effective) than we expected. There's some good data from the clinical trials, and I don't think this vaccine falls into the category of a too-good-to-be-true hoax. If we were soldiers trapped at the Battle of Dunkirk, and some civilian fishing vessels came to our rescue, would we opt to stay on the beach? "Naw, I didn't expect help to get here so fast. Frankly, I'm surprised you're here at all. Civilians to the rescue? Something's off about this scenario. This has never happened before. I'm just going to stay here and take my chances with the enemy. Thanks, but no thanks." 

I think this story also applies. I found this version of "The Drowning Man" at truthbook.com

A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help.

Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, "Jump in, I can save you."

The stranded fellow shouted back, "No, it's OK, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me."

So the rowboat went on.

Then a motorboat came by. "The fellow in the motorboat shouted, "Jump in, I can save you."

To this the stranded man said, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith."

So the motorboat went on.

Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, "Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety."

To this the stranded man again replied, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith."

So the helicopter reluctantly flew away.

Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, "I had faith in you but you didn't save me, you let me drown. I don't understand why!"

To this God replied, "I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?"

We've been praying, pleading, begging, panicking, complaining, protesting, meme-ing, whining, contesting, hoping, enraging, arguing for this pandemic to end. When will things go back to normal? We're all so tired of it. We're all so glad for 2020 to be over, as if the ball dropping on January 1, 2021, will miraculously restore normalcy. Next year will only be different if we all unite and take a stand against the disease. 

I'm not hesitant for the vaccine. I'm ready to end the pandemic, and I feel this is how I am doing my part.