I was around 6 or 7 years old when the polio vaccine was introduced.  I can still remember how my family got dressed up like we were going to church to stand in line at the local elementary school to get our vaccination. The entire nation was overjoyed to finally have protection against this scourge that attacked mostly children - crippling them, or causing their premature deaths.  There was no such thing as “vaccine hesitancy or ‘anti-vaxxers,’ because there were no vaccines (except smallpox) then.  I had all the childhood illnesses including measles, mumps, and chickenpox, and many from my generation bear the scars to prove it.   

As a midwife, when someone asks for my personal opinion about vaccines, I always tell them that I believe in the safety and importance of vaccines, because I remember a time when those illnesses were widespread and caused severe illness or death on occasion. I think the majority of vaccine skepticism comes from the fact that the illnesses they prevent have mostly disappeared, and folks nowadays don’t see how devastating those illnesses were.  Vaccines have saved tens of millions of lives worldwide since I was a child, and are the most studied medicines available today. There were mistakes made with some of the earlier vaccines, and as a result, safety standards have improved over the years.  I do understand being suspicious of ‘Big Pharma,’ and I share the concerns about many drugs on the market today.  I also deplore the practice of prescribing a pill for this and a pill for that, which totally ignores the mind-body connection and the body’s ability to heal itself… or for individuals to make lifestyle changes that will allow them to be healthier. 

…Which brings me to the purpose of this blog post: the vaccine to prevent severe illness and death from COVID-19.  The vaccine was developed rapidly because practically every developed country had a team of researchers working on this from the start; In fact, it took just 6 weeks for the scientists to isolate the virus and start development of the vaccine. The technology for mRNA vaccines had been developing since 2005, and the coronavirus’ spike protein as ideal vaccine target had been discovered when SARS was ravaging other parts of the world. And this is the very first time the companies involved produced the vaccine while the trials were ongoing, a risk they normally would not take except with government funding.  The pace and effort to develop a vaccine reflects the serious nature of this particular coronavirus to wreak havoc and cause death.  It’s called a Pandemic for a reason! 

The majority of citizens plan to be vaccinated when they are eligible to be, because they understand this is the key to getting our community and state back on track and our economy thriving once again.  Many scientists estimate that it will require vaccination rates between 70-80% to achieve crowd immunity, where the virus can no longer spread unchecked among people. Along with continuing public health precautions such as masks, hand-washing, and social distancing, we will need to get as many people as possible vaccinated quickly to tamp down the number of active cases, thus limiting the opportunity for more contagious variants to take hold, and start this nightmare over. 

Some people have asked, “why bother, if I have to continue to wear a mask?”.  The answer is simple.  When enough people are vaccinated, we will reach community immunity (formerly called ‘herd immunity’), and then we will be able to stop wearing masks. When elders and the most vulnerable are protected, we won’t need to worry about overwhelming our hospitals and health care providers, because those who get vaccinated are not going to get seriously ill, if they get ill at all.  It’s been clear since the trials that this vaccine prevents deaths and severe illness, and there is more and more data showing it likely prevents mild illness and transmission, although not yet enough to be firmly conclusive. To date, no one has died from receiving the vaccine, and the US has now administered more than 72 million doses since December.  The math is simple to me.  I hope you will get the vaccination as soon as you are offered it, so I can hug you again, and you can hug me back.   

- Barbara Norton, CNM