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Live action shot of me getting the first dose of the COVID vaccine yesterday 
keep reading my thread below to see my explanation for why I decided to get vaccinated and why you should too! 
keep reading my thread below to see my explanation for why I decided to get vaccinated and why you should too!
1/ I was lucky enough to have the COVID vaccine provided through my work. Like many people, at first I had reservations about getting the vaccine. But after learning more about it, I gladly signed up to get it as soon as possible.
2/ I wanted to share why I decided to get vaccinated as I know many people have concerns about it. So keep reading if you’re interested in my reasoning.
1. one of my biggest concerns, which I know many people share, was how quickly this vaccine was developed.
1. one of my biggest concerns, which I know many people share, was how quickly this vaccine was developed.
3/ Until now, the fastest vaccine ever developed was the measles vaccine, which took 4 years. The COVID vaccine, in contrast, took just 1 year. Why? Surely the process was rushed? In actuality, the process was not rushed at all.
4/ As a scientist, I know that science is typically one of the slowest industries in the world. Even fairly short-term clinical studies take, on average, about 5 years to complete.
5/ You gotta write the grant, get all the supplies, get ethics approval, recruit the participants, do all the follow up visits, analyze the data, write the results, and wait for publication. It’s a slowwww process. Now let’s compare that to the COVID vaccine.
6/ In this case, there was very little waiting around. The entire world had one mission: to stop COVID. There was no longer waiting months for grant funding, ethics review boards to meet, or publication hold-ups. All of the bureaucracy and red tape was removed.
7/ But the actual science itself was not rushed at all. Every stage of a usual clinical trial was performed, and not a single safety step was skipped. In other words, this vaccine was not rushed, it was expedited.
8/ 2. Ok, but that brings us to another common concern - what about any long-term effects of the vaccine? How can we possibly know if there are long term effects if we haven’t been able to test them? I get it, I at first had this question too.
9/ Here’s the answer: vaccines have been around for literally hundreds of years. We know how they work, and we know how rare long-term side effects are. Less than 1 in a million (you’re much more likely to be struck by lightning, for example).
10/ The reason they are so rare is because the contents of the vaccine degrade very quickly, within the first few days. The only thing that remains is your immune system’s memory of how to fight the virus. That’s it. No part of the vaccine hangs around in your body to do damage.
11/ But you might be thinking, a 1 in 1 million chance is still A CHANCE. And I don’t wanna risk it. Well my response to that is that you have to weigh the chances of long-term effects of the vaccine against any long-term effects of getting COVID.
12/ Long-term consequences from COVID are quite common. About 8% of people in LA county have had COVID. And at least 1 in 10 of those (some estimates up to 3 in 10) will have long-term health consequences from contracting the disease.
13/ These include chronic fatigue syndrome, loss of taste and smell, memory loss, and heart damage.
14/ So I ask you this: would you rather risk the long-term effects of a virus “designed” by nature to kill you, or the long-term effects of a vaccine designed by scientists to keep you alive? 1 in 10 or 1 in 1 million? I’d much rather the latter.
So there’s my reasoning.
So there’s my reasoning.
15/ I understand it’s a very personal decision, but this vaccine is likely the only way out of this pandemic without many millions more dying (including maybe yourself or people you love). So I encourage you to really think about it. Feel free to ask any questions too.
16/ I am not an immunologist, but I have a PhD in biomedical science, and work as a research scientist so I believe I can give somewhat informed answers.
17/ So grateful to the scientists and frontline healthcare workers who have worked tirelessly to make this a reality and keep people safe. Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the first NY Times article on COVID. This vaccine is a historic achievement.
