Covid Vaccinations, Will They Stop The Virus?

As many people may know, Covid Vaccines, particularly within the United States, are beginning to be available to the public. In the US a system is in place, putting certain people ahead of others in the line for the vaccine, typically health care, or essential workers, as well as individuals over the age of 70, depending on the state. But will these vaccinations, and this plan to decide who goes first, really help?

As of February 10th, 2021, over 33 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccinations have been administered in the United States, reaching just over 8% of the US’s population. The ordering of these doses, and who they reached has been critical, beginning with Health care workers who are most at risk to the Coronavirus, and people living in long term care, such as in nursing or retirement homes. The White House, and President Biden hope to have the majority of the population vaccinated by late April, though it is very possible that it may take longer.

Now, the biggest concern with a vast number of Americans would be Is this vaccination safe?

This is an understandable concern, because so far no one from the companies making these vaccinations has been able to do long term research on how these vaccinations could affect the body. Right now, all we know is this, the vaccine could cause slight sickness, with some symptoms of the covid-19 virus, and maybe on the off chance, an allergic reaction to something within the vaccine. Now that isn’t any different from what happens with a normal vaccine, and even then it’s rare for someone to end up with anything more than a sore arm and slight swelling.

But you may be asking, if vaccines have only been in the works for a short time, how do we know they aren’t dangerous? And how do we know that the big corporations aren’t just telling us that they aren’t?

Well, dear reader, have you ever received an HIV vaccine? No? Well that's for one very specific reason. With the very first case of death, or serious harm coming from a vaccination, the project is shut down, and vaccines are recalled. Even big corporations have enough of a moral sense to do that. The HIV vaccination was shut down just a week after they began testing on people, and that's why you’ve never heard of it since. If the same were true for the Coronavirus vaccines they wouldn’t be being shipped out to pharmacies and hospitals around the world.

As far as we can see, there are no true harming effects within this vaccine. And that might be hard for some people to believe, especially those who argue against vaccines, even in a normal world, without a pandemic. These people typically do not agree because they believe that the vaccines could cause autism, or other cognitive dysfunctions.

Many, many researches have shown that there is no correlation between the number of vaccines, the ingredients in the vaccines, or types of vaccines and the development of autism. There is no reason to spread this misbelief to the Covid-19 vaccinations, as most varieties of this vaccination are not even available to those under the age of 15.

So, the big picture question; will these vaccines end Covid?

Well, short answer hopefully.

Longer answer, only if everyone can get them, and with help from other elements, such as travel bans or mask mandates.

Now, it seems like such a ridiculous thing to say, that these vaccines will only hopefully stop the virus from continuing to spread, but it really is the truth.

There are so many people in the world, and in the United States alone even, who might not have access to the vaccines, or the money to be vaccinated. In addition to this there are enough people who don’t want to get the vaccine, whether out of fear of the possible effects, or out of a myth made from a scrap of misinformation that they trust with their lives.

So, the long answer is really this, in an ideal world, where fights over vaccinations weren’t already happening before the pandemic, and where people were willing to follow the mask mandates and travel bands set up by their states. Where everyone would get the vaccination as soon as they could, or as soon as it was made able to them, yes. Vaccinations could end the coronavirus.

However, we don’t live in a perfect world, and there is no way to guarantee that people will follow covid guidelines and get the vaccine, and so we can only hope that enough people do follow the rules, and do get the vaccine, so that we can get rid of this virus once and for all.