Should you get the COVID vaccine? I understand the concerns of those who are reluctant. I was reluctant at first, not because I knew anything about the vaccine but because I didn’t.
I’ve always been vaccine hesitant. Until last year, I never even got a flu vaccine shot. I just figured that intentionally injecting any part of a virus into my arm was something I should avoid if possible (I didn’t realize mRNA vaccines do not use any part of the virus). Besides I was young enough not to worry about the flu killing me. Also, with the COVID vaccine, I wanted to wait and see about the possible side effects.
In the end, I decided the risk from COVID-19 was far greater than the risk of side effects from the vaccine. I read the conspiracy theories and the now debunked myths about the vaccine, but in the end I made the rather unremarkable decision to trust the experts.
I don’t ask politicians for medical advice, and I don’t ask doctors for advice about my politics. If I went to the doctor because I had blood in my urine, and the doctor gave me his diagnoses, I wouldn’t say, “No offense, Doc, but I would like to get a second opinion from a politician.” The CDC, Dr. Fauci, and my doctor, all agreed about the need to get vaccinated, and just like if I got opinions from three different doctors all giving me the same diagnoses I would trust them, I decided to trust the experts on the vaccine.
Can you find a general practitioner on the internet advocating anecdotal evidence about some cure for COVID-19 that obviates the need for the vaccine? Sure. The same thing happened during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that killed 675,000 Americans, and those “cures” were always based on sample sizes that were too small.
Can you find a doctor on the internet propagating fear about the vaccines? Sure. But we don’t make decisions in our daily lives based on outliers and conspiracy theories. If I did in my job as a lawyer, I wouldn’t have a job for long, and I sure wouldn’t have any clients. I suspect the same is true in whatever you do for a living. Do you give advice based on best practices and expert consensus or on gut feelings and outliers?
If you are a Christian, the stakes are even higher. You have an obligation to care about others more than you care about yourself, and here is what is absolutely undeniable: By not getting vaccinated you are perpetuating the pandemic. We know for a fact that COVID-19 kills, and we know for a fact that the vaccines, particularly the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna), are very good at preventing infection and even better at preventing death from COVID-19.
Still on the fence? Exercise your faith. This is what I heard Christians saying who didn’t want to wear masks and were willing to risk other peoples’ lives based on their own personal beliefs. Now they won’t take their own advice. And this is where faith really applies. Faith is trusting God by taking a personal risk for the benefit of others, not risking other peoples’ lives for one’s own personal benefit and beliefs.
Enough said. GS