Understanding the Covid-19 vaccine

When we’re faced with new and innovative things in life, we want to know all we can to make the right decisions.

Sometimes just having a balanced education can help ease our anxiety and help us focus.

You know that we’re facing the most significant disease in modern time. It’s important to know as much as we can about the Covid-19 vaccine.

And right now, the risks of acquiring the disease, and the results of it, are much greater than anything experts are seeing with the vaccine.

It’s reasonable to feel uncertain — this vaccine was approved quickly through an emergency-use process. But no corners have been cut. Safety has not been sacrificed. Because it was important to get the vaccine out to us, the government and the manufacturers sped up the typically slow-moving pieces of the usual process, to get it to people faster. The two vaccines that are currently approved, from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, have both proven to be more than 90 percent effective against the virus.

We all want to make the best health decisions for ourselves and the people we care about. But one person alone can’t do it. This takes all of us. It takes unity. Strength in numbers.

Getting vaccinated is your best chance for protection against infection or reinfection from this terrible virus. Right now, it is difficult to find an appointment. But those appointments will free up in time, and that gives you just enough time to get ready. If you’re a New York resident, you can check your eligibility and sign up for an appointment at https://am-i-eligible.covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov/.

It is important for essential workers to get the vaccine, and they are being given priority for now.

I strongly encourage each of you to seek credible information about the vaccine.

Resources where you can gain extra information include the Mayo Clinic, the Centers for Disease Control, the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, along with the local perspective of Rochester Regional Health and University of Rochester Medical Center. You can also visit HeritageChristianServices.org/info.

You might not think that you need the vaccine, but please consider getting vaccinated for the sake of someone else.