I got my vaccine early through a stroke of luck. I was signed up in numerous places in case of extra or unclaimed doses, so I was able to get in through a technicality. I was only vaccinated a few weeks earlier than I “should” have been, so I don’t feel guilty or feel like I “stole” that vaccine from someone else. I got my first dose in March and my second dose on April 5. My wife was vaccinated at the same time (such a romantic date) and my family has been vaccinated as well. It has been nice to be (mostly) surrounded by vaccinated people. We’ve relaxed our mask usage, enlarged our bubble of people, and felt the stress reduce while we know we are (mostly) protected by the vaccine.
Our son, who is 11, is not eligible to be vaccinated. Currently, the FDA has only approved vaccinations for those 12 and up. I called his pediatrician hoping for some sort of permission slip to allow me to vaccinate him just six months before his 12th birthday, but that does not appear to be an option at this time. Most, if not all, cities, counties, and states have dropped mask mandates or social distancing requirements. A few businesses still require these protocols, but they are few and far between. We have already received paperwork from the school stating they have eliminated all social distancing protocols and masks will not be mandated in the fall.
In the meantime, there is a new pandemic surging among unvaccinated people. Since January, 98% of hospitalized COVID patients have been unvaccinated. According to NPR, the seven-day national average of new cases is approaching 30,000 per day. Hospitalizations and deaths are also up. Some counties, especially in southern states, are reporting higher daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths than they were several months ago. Many rural areas of the United States are reporting less than 20% of their adult population as fully vaccinated, even as the national average approaches 56%. Nationwide, the United States reported 18,000 COVID deaths in May 2021. Only 150 of those people were fully vaccinated.
So what does all this mean? It means get your COVID vaccine. Get the Johnson and Johnson if you only want one shot, or get both doses of Moderna or Pfizer. Yes, the vaccine protects yourself, but it also protects people who cannot be vaccinated yet, like my son. You can get a COVID vaccine almost anywhere – pharmacies, grocery stores, pop-up sites, health departments, school or fairground clinics, employer clinics, etc. Some places even offer a dispatch service where someone will literally drive to your home to give you a vaccine. Vaccines are free and widely available. At this point, there are no excuses for not getting vaccinated.
Which brings us to the side effects. I only know a few people who are unvaccinated and most of them cite side effects as the motivating factor. They are not very concerned with the immediate side effects – the sore arm, the aches, the fever – because all of those subside in about 24 hours. But they are concerned about long-term side effects or the more serious side-effects, such as blood clots. The argument is very sensible: how can we trust a vaccine that has only been around for a year? I’m not criticizing their concerns, but I am criticizing the research they’ve done and the interpretation of that research. Buckle up.
In early April, Johnson and Johnson paused the administration of their one-shot vaccine due to blood clot concerns. At the time, they stated six women had developed these rare blood clots and one died. At the time of this pause, which only lasted a few days, almost 7 million people had received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. That means approximately 0.00008% of people who received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine developed blood clots. Conversely, approximately 20% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 developed blood clots, which is twice as high as the estimated 3%-10% of general ICU patients. Additionally, the FDA estimates approximately 1% of women who take birth control pills will develop blood clots. (Circling back to edit that as of mid-May, approximately 28 people had developed blood clots out of the 8.7 million who received the vaccine, or approximately 0.0003%)
I’m not dismissing the real concern of developing a blood clot from a vaccine, a medication, or a disease. But I am dismissing how those numbers are interpreted. We cannot compare these percentages identically, but we do need to keep perspective. The CDC estimated that 14.1% of US women aged 15-49 are using a birth control pill. The most recent statistics I found estimate approximately 74.6 million women in this age range. That means approximately 11 million women are using a birth control pill. If 1% of those women develop blood clots, you’re looking at 110,000 women who develop blood clots from birth control every year. I don’t have the sex breakdown for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, so I’m going to do some guess-timating. If 7 million people receive the vaccine, let’s assume half are women, which means 3.5 million. Using the recalculated number from May of 0.0003%, that gives you approximately 11 people. To me, 110,000 people for birth control versus 11 people for a vaccine is worth the risk.
I absolutely believe in transparency related to these vaccines and I think the public should know about these adverse effects, no matter how few and far between they are. However, the increased transparency makes this subject ripe for misinformation, which is spreading at an alarming rate. Even as companies and medical professionals continue to debunk rumors and myths, such as dispelling concerns about the vaccine implementing a chip or causing infertility, no one can keep up with the misinformation. People who are making the choice to not get vaccinated are not taking the necessary steps to educate themselves. Don’t take your information from Facebook. Talk to your doctor, talk to health professionals, read up on things from legitimate, trusted sources such as the FDA or the CDC. Don’t rely on what Susan who barely graduated high school is sharing from some no name internet publication. Don’t rely on your tinfoil hat wearing cousin to share accurate information about the vaccine. Reach out to verified, reliable, trustworthy sources.
What was the point of this long, rambling, math-filled blog post? To ask you to please get your vaccine. Please protect yourself and the people who cannot be vaccinated yet, like my son. Please stay home when you’re sick, please wear your mask in crowded areas, please wash your hands. Stay off the FaceGram and the Ticky-Tocky and the InstaTwitter for your medical advice. Please believe in the research. Please believe in science and medicine. We can stop this pandemic, we can stop the unnecessary deaths, we can get back to normal. But we have to work together. We have to get this vaccine.
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