7 REASONS TO GET VACCINATED TODAY

In 1974, Edward Jenner pioneered the creation of the world’s first vaccines. Centuries later, vaccines have retained their importance in the medical field and throughout human society. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that vaccines prevent up to 2 to 3 million deaths annually. Gone are the days where smallpox could decimate hundreds of millions of lives from contagious spreading. Thanks to the development and implementation of safe and effective vaccines, we now have the ability to fully eradicate these contagious and fatal diseases.

Now that a new virus has emerged, medical professionals and scientists around the world have come together to create new vaccines to protect us against this previously unknown threat. For a lot of people, getting COVID-19 can prove to be life-threatening. If you’re at high risk from this disease, the vaccine could save your life.

It may be hard to imagine now, but the USA wasn’t always polio-free. In 1952, the number of cases peaked to 58,000, with 3,145 deaths and leaving 21,269 with mild to disabling paralysis. Thankfully, the creation of a polio vaccine enabled us to fight the virus and save millions of lives. Now the USA has been polio-free for more than 30 years.

Vaccines can protect you from many debilitating illnesses, and the COVID-19 vaccine is no different. The virus can have long-lasting health effects that only the vaccine can protect you from.

COVID-19 is deadly. This is especially true for elderly people and those with compromised or weakened immune systems. If you get vaccinated, you’re automatically doing your part to protect those who are more vulnerable to the virus. Furthermore, you are protecting people who cannot or have not received the vaccination yet–whether due to pre-existing conditions preventing vaccination or lack of vaccine availability.

The virus can be effectively stopped by reaching herd immunity. This is when the virus can no longer spread because there are too few people to infect because enough people have received their vaccinations.

To those of us who have loved ones and friends working in the medical field, we have no doubt heard of all the pressure and overwhelming situations they find themselves in on a daily basis. COVID-19 has brought health services to its knees with large numbers of infected people in need of medical attention. Getting vaccinated not only protects you, but also protects our health service workers by relieving some pressure and enabling them to prioritize helping other patients and allocating resources for more crucial things. If you’re protected from the virus, you free up resources by lowering the number of cases and avoiding hospitalization.

You might be thinking that the COVID-19 vaccines are less safe because safety testing has been less thorough, or because the vaccine was “rushed”. This couldn’t be more false. Safety testing has remained extremely thorough and precise. It involves clinical trials of tens of thousands of people who are constantly being monitored even after they have been approved. Thanks to cutting red tape, vaccines are able to be created at a much faster pace than they would’ve a decade ago. Always remember, 10 years to develop a vaccine isn’t a good thing.

The virus can be effectively stopped by reaching herd immunity. This is when the virus can no longer spread because there are too few people to infect because enough people have received their vaccinations.

Would you rather get your vaccination for free and spend a few minutes getting it or get infected and spend thousands of dollars in medical expenses? The vaccine will significantly lessen your chances of getting sick and hospitalized.

Many anti-vaccine groups rely on fear and uncertainty to convince individuals that getting vaccinated is bad. You need only see the official statistics to know that vaccines do, in fact, work–just like vaccines of the past. The vaccine is hundreds of times safer than getting infected with the virus. Millions of people are now vaccinated and protected from the virus, with many more on the way. Getting vaccinated will set an example for others.