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Key points
- Vaccines don't end pandemics. Vaccination does.
- Vaccine hesitancy exists across the political spectrum.
- Since the approval of the first COVID vaccine in December 2020, over 200,000 Americans have died of the virus.
Yesterday, my husband and I joined roughly 3 million of our fellow Americans by getting a dose of a COVID vaccine (I happened to be offered the Pfizer one, he was offered Moderna). We join my parents, my in-laws, and several of my relatives in starting the vaccination process. We can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
Today our shoulders are sore, but we are breathing easier—literally—knowing that we are now on the moving sidewalk that will, in three to four weeks when we get our second shots, lead us to excellent (>90%) immunity against experiencing severe (or even moderate) disease if we are infected by the virus. To a future where we can feel comfortable traveling on a plane, eating at a restaurant indoors, and visiting our friends and family (whether they are vaccinated or not). To a future where we feel even more comfortable sending our son to school in person (where he is now attending five days/week) because even if he brings home the virus to us, we will be protected.
When the notion that we would vaccinate ourselves out of this pandemic was touted by national leaders, I was extremely skeptical. Mostly because this has never happened in human history: All epidemics end, but none have ever ended because we vaccinated our way out. Instead, for all of human history, epidemics (of plague, influenza, ebola, SARS, smallpox, etc.) have ended because (1) public health measures (quarantine, masking, social distancing) have been able to contain outbreaks over a relatively brief period of time (e.g., SARS, ebola) or (2) the agent runs out of people to infect, either because they develop immunity or they die (e.g., plague, 1918 influenza, smallpox). Never before has humanity used technology to shorten a pandemic (with the potential exception of PReP for HIV).
And so, given that the best predictor of the future is the past, I had little faith that vaccination would contribute to the end of this pandemic in any meaningful way. Instead, I figured vaccines would walk onto the field after the game had been decided, score a run and round the bases with a flourish, garner undeserved praise, and distract from the drudgery that got us to the point where they could make it look easy. But instead, thanks to modern biomedicine, we have three extraordinarily effective vaccines that are freely available to anyone who also wants the world to hit the accelerator as we head out of this tunnel.
A note for the vaccine-hesitant
It is important to recognize that vaccines don’t stop infections; vaccination does. And while an increasing number of Americans are willing to take the jab (unlike the French, who have the highest hesitancy of any Western nation), there are many who are anxious to take that step. And I get it: a year ago we didn’t even have the term “COVID”—how did scientists develop a safe and effective vaccine for it so quickly? Isn’t “Big Pharma” the villain in medicine—how can we trust them? And how can we trust the government, when they have been responsible for atrocities against our fellow citizens in the name of science?
Others have discussed how we were able to get these vaccines so quickly, but here’s the takeaway: Genetic-based technology (whether DNA or RNA) is precise and widely available, coronaviruses (as a class) have been studied for decades, and all vaccine development groups were told that “money is no object.” (As a person who writes grants for a living to fund my research, I can tell you that the importance of that last bit cannot be overstated.) A global effort fielded some of the largest clinical trials ever conducted, and because the virus is so widespread it didn’t take much time for the statisticians on those trials to determine which arm of the trial was superior.
Distrust of powerful agents, whether corporate (generally more distrusted by liberal-leaning individuals) or government (generally more distrusted by conservative-leaning individuals) is a more challenging barrier to address, but not insurmountable. This is a situation where the messenger matters: there is almost nothing a powerful agent can say to you that will make you trust them. Instead, what matters is observing a large number of people agree on the issue, particularly people who you already trust in other domains, whether that is your priest, your doctor, your neighbor, your coworker, or your children.
We tend to be friends with people who are “like us” across many dimensions, including political leanings and therefore which agents we are more likely to distrust. This means that if you have taken the plunge like me, sharing this information with people in your social network and discussing why you decided to take the jab will help them address their own fears. You will be able to share your decision-making process in a manner that is more accessible to them, given that you already have a relationship. And most importantly, they may feel comfortable voicing their concerns (which may be dismissed without comment from those powerful agents) and having them taken seriously.
And it is critical that we all have these conversations. Since I last wrote about the FDA emergency approval of the first vaccine in December 2020, over 200,000 Americans have died from COVID. Even if you are not at high risk of complications from this virus, it is critical that you get vaccinated because (thankfully) these vaccines also reduce the infectiousness of individuals if they are exposed. This means that even if you will not experience the benefit of vaccination for your own health (because you are one of the fortunate ones who gets infected but has no symptoms), by being vaccinated you will be less likely to transmit the virus to someone who may not be so lucky.
Finally, when this pandemic ends, it will not be because of vaccination alone. While not yet approaching “herd immunity,” a substantial proportion of the world has been exposed to this virus and survived. That, combined with vaccination, will get us out of this. If Israel is any indication, we need to get to 60% of the adult population with at least one shot to be out of the woods. At the pace we are going now, we could be there by May.
So please, continue to mask up and do whatever you can to get signed up for a shot. And don’t be distracted by the differing efficacy of the vaccines. I would have taken any one of them offered to me yesterday, regardless, because they all mean the same thing: the beginning of the end of the hold this pandemic has had on our lives.
P.S. If you are feeling vaccine-hesitant, I’d ask you to consider the following questions: Is the world better off with COVID vaccines or without them? Does the benefit of vaccination outweigh the risk—for you, personally? How about for your family—your parents, your children? Nothing is without risk, but worldwide thousands of people a day die from COVID, and if you are still here to read this, please remember the millions who are not.
P.P.S. For those of you who hate needles: I also hate needles, to the point that I avoided any sort of bloodwork for years. For years I invariably passed out when I saw blood in person; I sometimes still pass out when I get an IV, and I once passed out during that scene in Pulp Fiction (you know the one). And I still got my shot. You can do it too.
