Originally Posted by
Rdmonster69
I'm a Respiratory Therapist that works for the Pulmonary Department at a major hospital. I can not state enough how serious Covid is from not only a public health standpoint but also a personal health standpoint.
It is many times more deadly than the flu. The single greatest thing you can do to protect yourself is get the vaccine. It has been administered BILLIONS of times.
The incidence of side effects is tiny.
The vaccine:
1. Dramatically reduces the chance of contracting Covid. The latest studies show ~70% effectiveness 120 days+ post vaccination in reducing the chance of infection.
2. Even for vaccinated people who contract Covid, the chance of serious illness or hospitalization is also greatly reduced with the latest studies showing 75%-95% effectiveness. This is even more true if you're healthy and have no pre-existing conditions.
3. Early days, but the vaccines seem to be also very effective in preventing long-term symptoms.
The data is incontrovertible. For example, here's my county's Covid dashboard:
https://www.dupagehealth.org/610/DuP...D-19-Dashboard
Note the breakout of data by vaccination status. For the 51K+ cases they've been tracking since Dec 20, 93.5% of people who contracted Covid were not vaccinated. Only ~20 people who were vaccinated and didn't have underlying medical conditions were hospitalized. None of those people died. I'll take those odds.