It’s Just the Beginning

In response to the outbreak of COVID-19, vaccines have been developed and are now being provided. The vaccine has caused a lot of controversies; many people have had both negative and positive thoughts about it, including some of my own family members.

My cousin, Rachel Hott, had covid about two months ago. She had covid for 18 days, was stuck at home for 30 days, and ended up losing about 17 pounds because of it all. She had a fever around 101-102 for 9 days, shortness of breath, diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and lost her taste and smell. They only kept her in the hospital for one day and sent her home with a steroid, which they had later found out is not a good treatment for covid. 

“I work in a nursing home as a speech therapist. I got the vaccine about a week ago. My arm was sore for the next 3-4 days. It is very important for me to get the vaccine because I work with the elderly and have seen many of my patients die. My dad is a diabetic and I believe it is very important to me that people take this vaccine so that we don’t have to wear masks for the rest of our lives,” said Rachel.

My aunt, Chris, has been extremely careful now that she has seen the harm that covid can do to a person’s life. For Christmas, we had her, my uncle, aunt, and cousin over, and she wore a mask the entire time. She has been smart about trying to stay away from people: if at any point she decides to go out and eat, she will only eat outside. She also lives alone, with the exception of her dog, which has caused quite a bit of social isolation for her this past year. 

“Sign me up! I can’t wait to get the COVID-19 vaccine. I believe it is scary but a necessity. I understand people not wanting to get it because it was made so fast. I believe we have to trust that they are doing what is best for us. If we were to have had this vaccine a long time ago all the thousand of people would not have possibly died,” said Chris.

Along with my cousin Rachel, my sister’s mother, Kim, has already received the vaccine as well. Unlike Rachel and Chris, she said that she didn’t want to get the shot because she did not yet trust it with it being so new, but, because she works in the health department, she was required to take it if she wanted to return to work. 

“I work in medicine, and I do believe that there should be [a vaccine], but I do believe that there should be more testing before it is mandated to get, especially for health care jobs. I believe that the virus is going to be like the flu and change every year, so the vaccine should be…good enough to be able to mutate kind of like the flu shot. If it does work, I am totally here for it, but it makes me nervous because it is so new that they are not 100% positive about what the side effects could be,” said Kim. 

After taking the first shot, she said her face itched a lot like what an opiate medication would do; she also had headaches and some nausea. She will receive the second shot on the 22nd of this month and was told that the side effects are going to be even worse than the first time around. 

With all the different opinions on the vaccine, I understand why people are skeptical, but it is also very important that we have it. Although they do not know exactly what the effects of the vaccine are, they would not give it out to the public if they did not think it would work.