The Covid-19 vaccine is currently being implemented in our community more and more every day. Some people have reservations against the vaccine, while others wait in line for hours in order to get their dose, which creates a paradox for the average person who doesn’t know if the vaccine will help or hurt (Weise, Braun). To put it simply, this is not an easy decision to make for anyone, however, I will try my best to help you understand the facts and why I believe anyone with the opportunity should take the vaccine.

In my experience, there is a lot of worry spread around the idea of this new vaccine. The news website Reuters demonstrates some of the claims made by those against the vaccine in an article that goes over just some of the common misconceptions. Concerns include the vaccine being rushed by scientists and not having enough testing before the release of the vaccine. Likewise, some say the vaccine was made by a corrupt company that killed placebo patients in order to scam the testing. Lastly, some believe that the vaccine will lead to severe illness or even death.

None of these claims hold apparent value or grounds for a stand against the Covid-19 vaccine. Vaccines are thoroughly tested over long periods of time until they are approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration, and this one is no exception. Scientists have been working on a Sars vaccine for nearly twenty years, so the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine had precedent for its development. Anne Trafton of MIT News compounds this concept by saying that RNA vaccine development has been occurring for years, and that mere days after the virus was revealed in January, companies were working on vaccines. Testing on humans began in July, and the study’s results show that any illnesses or deaths were proportional to what was normal for the population used in the study, showing no signs of vaccine causation for individuals without severe allergy histories.

Let’s talk a little more about the possible long term effects of the Covid-19 vaccine. Many are worried, but do they have to be? To answer this, I will ask another question. What are some of the long-term effects displayed by Covid-19 survivors? This answer is surprising to many and a bit frightening, as is shown in an article written by Editor in Chief of the Harvard Health Publishing, Anthony Komaroff. Komaroff notes that published studies and surveys of patient groups show that 50-80% of Covid-19 patients continue to have lingering symptoms three months after the contraction and onset of the virus. Most commonly, these patients will suffer from fatigue in many ways including body aches, shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating, an inability to exercise, headaches, and difficulty sleeping. Many people are affected by these repercussions, and the long-term effects of Covid-19 are still being discovered. This may not convince you that the vaccine will not have long-term effects (although the only reported side effects have gone away after about two days), but at the very least it can be understood that the side effects of Covid-19 seem to be much worse than it’s vaccine counterpart.

So, yeah, this information could become out of date as we learn more and more about the Covid-19 vaccine as well as the virus itself, however, given the current information, I would rather take the vaccine than get the virus. The World Health Organization adds that to reach herd immunity through exposure, as opposed to vaccination, would lead to unnecessary death and suffering. At that, lasting immunity following exposure to the virus is still unproven. I don’t know about you, but I am kinda done with all this, and, given the information at hand, I will be taking the vaccine when given the chance, I hope that you choose to do the same.