By Olivia Gebhardt

An enormous 90 percent of people in intensive care are not vaccinated for Covid-19. One would think that this statistic is enough to convince people to get vaccinated, but sadly people are still resisting lifesaving science. This preventative measure is why everyone who can get the vaccine should get the vaccine.

Getting vaccinated has many benefits, but one of the reasons is that it lowers the risk of getting seriously ill from Covid-19. Getting the vaccine and getting boosted may not stop a person from totally getting Covid, but the chance is less than two percent. Also, the chances of dying from Covid, when someone is fully vaccinated and boosted, is less than 0.1 percent. With such low chances, one would think more people would be vaccinated, but only around 64 percent of people in the US are fully vaccinated.

Not only does getting vaccinated support a healthy life, but it also contributes to a healthy community overall. The more people vaccinated the less likely it is for more variants to appear. There are different Covid-19 variants, one of them being Delta which the CDC says that it “May cause more severe cases than the other variants”. There is also the Omicron variant that the CDC says that it is  “Plausible scenarios include steep epidemic trajectories that would require expedient public health action to prevent severe impacts on the health of individuals and the healthcare system.” Both of these variants are dangerous in many ways, and the only way to stop the creation of a new variant is to have herd immunity.

In addition, hospitals are being overcrowded and overwhelmed with non-vaccinated patients with Covid-19. Because of the high Omicron cases, hospitals are packed with the most hospitalizations ever. According to new Our World Data, the highest point of daily hospitalization in the US in 2021 was in January with around 130,000, but as of January 2022, there are up to 150,00 people in hospitals, breaking the previous record. Fully vaccinated and boosted people are not the ones filling up the hospitals. Also, the Department of Health and Environmental Control says that less than 0.1 percent of hospitalizations are vaccinated, people.

Moreover, there are many myths about the Covid-19 vaccine, including that the Covid-19 vaccine is not safe because it was rapidly developed and tested, which is simply not true. The reason that vaccines were created so fast was to make sure fewer people would die from Covid, but that doesn’t mean that any shortcuts were taken in the testing of protocols. The CDC says that “mRNA vaccines benefit people who get vaccinated by giving them protection against diseases like COVID-19 without risking the potentially serious consequences of getting sick.” Another myth is that there are severe side effects of the Covid-19 vaccines. Yes, there are some negative effects from the vaccine including some people dying but the CDC says that “it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause.”

Also, the percentage of deaths from Covid-19 is only 0.002 percent of people, said to the Department of Health and Environmental Control. There are also more far-out claims such as the Covid vaccine is putting a tracker into the vaccinated, also someone can get Covid-19 from the vaccine, and certain blood types have less severe Covid-19 infections, so getting a vaccine isn’t necessary, all of which is based on false claims and unreliable sources.

Getting the vaccine is not dangerous in any way, so there is no need to be frightened by false claims. The vaccine is made by trusted professionals that just want to stop millions of people from dying. So, if someone can get this life-saving vaccine, there is no need for hesitation.