Since the novel coronavirus took over the entire planet, life as we know it has changed. Many of us have lost friends and loved ones, and many of us live in a constant state of stress and anxiety about our health, bills, finances, etc.
Luckily, it seems that we already see the light at the end of the tunnel after a year thanks to the creation of different vaccines against COVID-19. But like almost everything in the world of medicine, the vaccine is not "perfect." It comes with side effects and isn't 100 percent effective, so there's still a small chance you'll catch the coronavirus if you're exposed after getting the vaccine. Also, most of us don't know the science of how it works, and it's hard to trust something we don't fully understand.
Still, here are six good reasons why you should get it once it's available, even if you don't think you're at high risk of getting seriously ill from COVID.
How does the vaccine work?
The new coronavirus has crown-shaped spikes on its surface, called spike proteins. When those spikes attach to cells in your body, you become infected with COVID-19.
The goal of the vaccine is to familiarize your body with these spike proteins, so that if they invade, your body knows exactly how to defend itself against them. That is, your body will know how to prevent the spikes from hooking onto the cells.
Two vaccines, those of Moderna and Pfizer, they do not contain any part of the actual coronavirus. Instead, they're made with messenger RNA (mRNA), genetic material that tells your body how to make copies of the spike protein. Your body then recognizes the protein and mounts an immune response directed against it. Think of it like an email to your body alerting it to danger and explaining exactly how to avoid it.
This technology is not new. In fact, it has been around and used safely against other diseases for over 30 years.
The third vaccine, produced by Johnson & Johnson, uses a Adenovirus (a virus that normally causes common colds, but has been disabled so it can't make you sick) to deliver the blueprint for the COVID-19 spike protein. Since this adenovirus has already been used in the company's Ebola vaccine, it also has decades of safety and monitoring behind it.
What about the side effects?
It is true that you can have a severe allergic reaction (called "anaphylaxis«) after vaccination, but this is extremely rare, with less than five cases per million doses of Pfizer vaccine administered and less than three cases per million doses of Moderna.
This type of reaction usually occurs within the first 15 to 30 minutes after receiving the injection, while you are still being observed, and medical staff can immediately administer medication to treat it. Nobody wants to go through that, of course. But the risk pales in comparison to the risk of death or disability from the virus itself.
Don't forget the fact that the real virus is much more dangerous than this vaccine. Healthy people are now living on lifelong lung transplants, dialysis, and blood thinners as a result of their COVID-19 infection. These side effects of the virus are all permanent and irreversible. By getting the vaccine, you are actually making your entire environment safer.
Why should you get vaccinated against COVID-19?
All three available vaccines have been shown to prevent death 100 percent, so if you get one of them, you're pretty much guaranteed to will not dies because of the virus.
But more importantly, you can help save the lives of those around you.
The coronavirus is an incredibly contagious disease. If the vaccine prevents you from getting it, you can't pass it on to other people. And although without the vaccine you could get only a mild case, you could infect another person who ends up dying from the virus.
prevents hospitalization
If you are offered any of the three vaccines, you should take the opportunity.
Although the vaccine Johnson & Johnson has been criticized for being less effective than the other two, that's actually not true: The J&J vaccine was 100 percent effective in trials when it came to preventing hospitalization and 85 percent effective in preventing serious illness.
Even though the vaccine Pfizer is more effective than J&J at preventing symptomatic illness (94 percent after the second injection, compared with 72 percent, respectively), it was equally effective in trials at preventing both hospitalization and serious illness.
The vaccine Modern it was about 94 percent effective after two doses in preventing symptomatic illness and 89 percent effective against hospitalization.
Appears to slow the spread of COVID-19
We're not 100 percent sure it will stop the spread of COVID, but that seems very likely based on the data we have.
Johnson & Johnson has published data suggesting that its vaccine can prevent asymptomatic spread in 72 percent of cases. Logically, it makes sense because if you're less likely to get infected with COVID-19 from the vaccine, you're less likely to spread it.
This is one of the reasons why experts recently released new guidelines saying that if you've been vaccinated, you don't need to quarantine if you're exposed to someone who has the virus.
Reduces the chances of new variants emerging
The more injections we can get, the less chance we have of the virus spreading and ultimately developing into more dangerous strains.
We want to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating everyone, not making people sick and possibly even dying from the disease. Also, the more outbreaks we have, the more difficult it is to trace contact and slow the spread.
The good news is that all three vaccines appear to work reasonably well against variants currently circulating, including B.1.1.7 (originally detected in the UK) and B.1.351 (originally detected in South Africa).
But the virus is perfectly capable of transforming itself into a more dangerous strain. The more people the virus infects, the more chance it has to mutate into a strain that the vaccine is ineffective against. That could mean more disease, more death, and more time living in fear.
That's why the faster we vaccinate people, the less chance there is of the vaccine becoming ineffective.
We will be able to stop wearing masks and social distancing
We need to vaccinate at least 70 to 80 percent of the population so that infection rates are so low that transmission is also extremely low. When this happens, we can begin to move back to normal, and that includes, eventually, not wearing a mask or continuing to social distance.
It would also mean a peaceful return to school and the possibility of restaurants and other venues operating at full capacity again.
But in the meantime, it's important that you continue to wear a mask and keep your distance, even if you've been vaccinated, to stop the spread of the virus as much as possible.