Alyssa Murrieta
Staff Reporter
Is the COVID-19 vaccine safe? That is the question everyone is asking all over the world.
COVID-19 has been around for almost a year now and it has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Solutions for this global pandemic have been in high demand, but when professionals came out with the vaccine within a year, many people questioned its effectiveness and there is still debate over whether it is or not. According to the Washington Post, the Food and Drug Administration was first to emergently approve the first COVID-19 vaccine on December 12th, 2020.This means FDA did not test the vaccine using the normal protocols they would due to the emergency need of this vaccine. Since then there has been a total of 48,384,275 doses distributed of vaccines in the United States. It should be noted that there are two doses required for someone to be fully vaccinated.
The CDC states that the COVID-19 Vaccines are safe and effective, though you still may experience some symptoms like pain or swelling at the injection site, a headache, chills, or fever. On this topic, they also state that these are signs to show that the vaccine is working. Some people have reported extreme adverse effects to the COVID-19 vaccine, however, and research is still being done on these cases.
According to ABC news the vaccines have a 95% effectiveness with the other 5% of people still getting COVID-19 and having symptoms. The people that are offered to get the vaccine are healthcare workers, the elderly, teachers, and the people who have underlying conditions, now this is not to say other people do not need it, but these people are more at risk for getting COVID and suffering more than the general public. For certain positions, like healthcare workers it is very strongly encouraged that they get the vaccine. As seen on their website, as soon as the vaccines are available to the general public, CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart all plan to distribute the COVID-19 Vaccine as well.
As stated by Cameron Polo M. at ABCNews15, 411,025 vaccines have been distributed through Arizona as of January 4th. Since then, the Washington Post sates that 520,357 people in Arizona have received a dose of the vaccine, this adds up to 1% of the states population being completely vaccinated. The counted number of vaccines administered for Maricopa County according to the CDC 237,262 as of February 1st. There are multiple distribution pods for the vaccine, including the State Farm Stadium.
Getting the vaccine does not exclude you from getting COVID it also does not give you a free pass to not wear a mask at this time, so make sure to mask up and stay 6 feet away from people.
Image Credit: Hakan Nural on Unsplash
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