While I enjoyed traveling and working overseas in my twenties, one of the things I dreaded before getting on the plane was getting shots. In addition to boosters for tetanus for all the rusty nails I would surely encounter, I would get poked for whatever the region I was going to was currently suffering, like typhoid and cholera, waterborne illnesses that kill people by way of extreme diarrhea. To save money, sometimes I would get my shots downtown at the county health offices. Once, I waited in line behind a kindergartener who was receiving all of her required shots in one go because she hadn’t had any as a baby. The that little gal took five shots like a champ with no whining, crying or complaining. I wasn’t so brave.

I reason put up with the pain, cost and inconvenience is that I understand how vaccines work and why they are important. Here are some of my reasons for those who may be reticent.

First, I understand the shots don’t protect me from the disease, my body’s immune response does. When small pox was sweeping the land hundreds of years ago, some doctors observed that people who had a lesser version of the illness were later unfazed by the more severe version. They experimented with using sores of the dead and dying to introduce the disease to the healthy. It sort of worked, but since the virus wasn’t totally dead sometimes the the healthy people got the disease anyway. Vaccines that use that concept today utilize totally dead versions or even genetic pieces, but the body still has to respond for it to work.

Second, I expect shots to cause fatigue and other side effects. Some responses even feel like lesser versions of the illness they are trying to prevent. The tetanus shot, for example, feels like a punch in the arm. It’s pretty unpleasant, but that is nothing compared with what having actual tetanus is like. A boy in Oregon got the infection that caused him to suffer muscle spasms, lockjaw and sensitivity to light so extreme that he was kept in a darkened room and tube fed during his treatment. The costs for saving his life ran over $800k.

Now in our second calendar year of dealing with the COVID-19 virus, the forced quarantine and the disruption to our lives, we have some hope from vaccines. I very aware of the reasons to be cautious. The vaccines are only being distributed under emergency approval by the FDA. A couple of people have had extreme allergic responses, but compared to the 400k Americans that have died of the disease it’s statistically insignificant. As someone with allergies, it is a reasonable point of caution. Additionally, while we’re still watching for long-term effects of the first experimental groups, the placebo group wants to get the vaccine too. Without the control group to compare against, how will we know what is a possible long-term affect of the shot, versus what occurs naturally in a population?

The pharmaceutical companies have also lost a lot of public trust because of a history of profit over public health and safety. Even vaccines produced by governments suffer the tainted affects of nationalism and secrecy. No one has demonstrated a completely pure motivation, so we have to proceed cautiously.

However, if we do nothing, this virus will continue to sicken, debilitate and kill people as well as disrupt our lives by way of social distancing and cancellations. While I acknowledge the vaccines aren’t coming under ideal circumstances, I don’t see any better way out of our current dilemma. When the time comes, I will definitely roll up my sleeve.