Don’t be afraid of the vaccine
Information you should know
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Morning Briefing
Years ago, when the pediatrician told me that my son needed to get his shots, I held the little boy down because I knew that was what was needed to protect him.
We depend on medical professionals to tell us what is good for us and what is not. With vaccinations for the coronavirus ramping up - a new mass vaccination site will be opening in Queensbury soon - all of us will have the opportunity to get vaccinated and return to a somewhat normal life very soon.
What I suspect will be the next controversy will be a certain percentage of people who will refused to be vaccinated.
A Monmouth University poll in February showed that 1 in 4 said they would not take the vaccine, including a majority of those in the military.
Some of their reasoning is understandable. Here are some of the the concerns and some facts:
The Narrative: Many believe the speedy development of the vaccine means that critical safety measures were skipped.
The Reality: Decades of research went into these gene-based vaccines, so they have comparatively low levels of risk.
The Narrative: The variety of vaccines continue to cause confusion with many balking at getting one vaccine over another because of statistical differences in their effectiveness.
The Reality: Experts agree that all three vaccines in the market are effective at protecting the public against infections and serious illness. The New York Times explained it this way: “When scientists say that a vaccine has an efficacy of, say, 72 percent, that’s what’s known as a point estimate. It’s not a precise prediction for the general public, because trials can only look at a limited number of people — in the case of Johnson & Johnson’s trial, about 45,000 volunteers.” Ultimately, all the vaccines are significantly effective.
The Narrative: There are extreme adverse reactions to the vaccine.
The Reality: More often than not, the reaction is often a simple ache in your arm where you got the shot, fatigue or perhaps a headache that is temporary.
The Narrative: Those who fear the vaccine might be confused with anti-Vaxxers.
The Reality: Being hesitant to get the new vaccine is a reasonable emotion, where anti-vaxxers have bought into a harmful ideology about any type of vaccine. They are two different things.
The Narrative: CDC guidelines still limit what we can do after we get the vaccine so why should you get it?
The Reality: While it is true that the CDC is being cautious, its advice is changing all the time, and ultimately the vaccine is the one game-changer to keep us all safe.
I detailed the experience my wife and I had getting the vaccine in Tuesday’s Post-Star so more people could understand the process and be less fearful. We are both in our 60s and both had underlying health conditions - cancer for her, compromised immune system for me.
My wife said she had no symptoms afterward. The next day I had an ache in my arm where I received the shot, but by Monday I was shooting baskets at the YMCA.
As a community, we all should urge each other to get the vaccine. We are all in this together.
Insurance
I keep hearing about all the pork in the coronavirus bill. I’ve already written about how Republican complaints forced out maintenance money for the bridge in Massena even though the financial problems were directly related to the pandemic.
There are also provisions in the bill to help bring down the cost of Obamacare. The Congressional Budget estimated the relief in the bill could drop the insurance premiums in the federal exchanges. A 64-year-old earning $58,000 annually could see their premium drops from $1,075 to $412. That’s the difference between affording insurance and not affording insurance.
Pandemic relief
Jon Stewart’s latest movie - so that’s what he has been doing - shows us what happens when the big-city political machine comes to a rural town in Wisconsin to take sides in a small-town mayoral race.
Starring Steve Carell, the ensuing farce is certainly contrived, but it does go a long way toward teaching us a thing or two about how political campaigns are financed. The message is simple. All those millions of dollars could do a lot more good if they were spent directly on the towns than on anyone’s campaign.
It is streaming on Amazon Prime now. It’s a fun ride and I learned something along the way.
Pandemic relief
Part 2
Amy Poehler’s latest movie - “Moxie” - didn’t turn out to be what I expected, specifically because she is not in the movie that much. She was the director.
As the mom of a quiet teenager, Poehler is oblivious to her daughter standing up to the school’s male stud and bully who gets away with everything. The daughter begins writing a newsletter under a pseudonym and urges the other girls to stand up to unfair dress code and sexual harassment.
Considering what’s in the headlines these days, I couldn’t help but wonder if this show of empowerment should be shown in every high school in the country.
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