Will you take the COVID-19 Vaccine?

It’s starting to look like the vaccine may be the only way to get things back to normal…

The question is, what is normal?

Several public opinion polls have already found that many people won’t be rolling up their sleeves to get a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. For a vaccine program to be effective against a common pathogen, a certain percentage of the population usually needs to be inoculated and able to resist infection. A high level of participation helps create so-called “herd immunity” which is often necessary to safeguard those who don’t respond well to the vaccine. As people age, their immune systems become less efficient at producing the antibodies and T-cell necessary to fight off an infection. As a result, people may still become ill even if they get a vaccine shot.

A certain part of the population with compromised immune systems, such as certain cancer patients, may also fail to benefit fully from a vaccine. To protect vulnerable populations, we need a sufficient number of people who are immune to the infection so that the virus has a hard time spreading from person to person. Essentially, herd immunity reduces the chances that a susceptible individual will come into contact with COVID-19.

Once we get a vaccine rolled out and we start to move back to some type of normal way of life, will this vaccine be like the flu shot vaccine where you would have to take it every year or every other year? I don’t believe this virus is going anywhere soon and we need to accept that it’s here to stay and we have to continue to minimize our risks and weight the odds on how to move forward efficiently and effectively.

Will the COVID-19 vaccine be available to all of us?

It’s interesting that the military angle to rolling this vaccine out has been front and centre with a regimental approach attached to it. In the United States, the project is called warp speed and it will be rolled out by the military. This week here in Ontario, Premiere Doug Ford interestingly appointed a retired general to come up with a roll out plan for Ontario. Retired Gen. Rick Hillier has been sited with the task to oversee vaccine rollout in Ontario. Ford has said Ontario is being told that the first doses of the vaccine are expected to be ready in early 2021. Doug Ford was quoted as saying that we need military precision to roll out the vaccine that will be a massive logistical challenge.

Our Minister of Health has said the province is still waiting to hear when it will start receiving vaccines, but it is expected that our most vulnerable and healthcare workers would start getting them before March of 2021. Folks will have to be vaccinated twice in 21 days for the vaccine to be effective at its maximum levels. At this time, three major pharmaceutical companies are running hard to be first out there because of the money that is potentially involved. My sources are telling me that Canada will be very late in the majority of Canadians getting the vaccine. There’s going to be a significant amount of time required to distribute the vaccine and then have enough doses to administer to the population.

As you know, you can’t speak about a new vaccine without some conspiracy surrounding the launch of this new global vaccine. These are some of the claims that are out there….one of the pharmaceutical companies named Moderna says that its vaccine will change people’s DNA, other claims that this new vaccine will target depopulation efforts or malign human engineering programs. You will always have a part of the global population that will have concerns and theories around any new vaccine, in particularly this one that concerns COVID-19.

With a global pandemic that has wreaked havoc on countries economies and people’s lives around the world, there’s a lot of demand for a vaccine from the global population of 7.8 billion people. Not everyone will be able to get it, that’s where the prioritizing comes into play and yes, the most vulnerable and front-line workers should be first, but then how does the rest of us shake down. That’s where you have a military element attached to this roll out, especially in the event that there is an onslaught of demand. Decisions start to get more complicated, but in general, countries are expected to target populations that are at very high or highest risk to severe disease and death.

Most reports that we are hearing about a new vaccine to treat the COVID-19 virus seems to be imminent and may be at a 90% effective rate. However, this new vaccine would be the fastest scientist have created a new vaccine. Development usually takes around five years at best, safety and efficacy are the two most important goals for every vaccine. Efficacy measures how well the vaccine protects you from getting sick. Although you’d ideally want a vaccine to have 100 percent efficacy, many don’t. This new vaccine that will treat the COVID-19 virus is estimated to be at over 90% efficacy. Let’s hope that they are right.

In trying to give you some perspective on what we may expect when this vaccine is launched, the main question in my mind is do you take this vaccine, or do you wait it out?

From where l am sitting…after listening to the medical experts and the ones that are in the know about this issue, l still am on the fence with this. There are moments that l would take it in a New York second and then there are moments that l think that l would decline taking the vaccine. Trying to be educated and knowing all the facts before we sub come to any vaccine, we need to know what our risks are. In conducting my mini poll with most of my friend, associates and some general folks, the verdict seems to be split down the middle and that’s probably where l sit today…split down the middle.

If taking this vaccine brings us back to a normal way of life that we once knew…then l am all in.

With what l know today, it comes down to a flip of a coin.

Heads l take it, tails l pass…

What would you do?