The year 2020 made many people feel a sense of hopelessness and a lack of control over their life. People don’t like being told what to do and after a year of mandatory masks and regulated public events, the last thing certain people wanted to hear was that they need to get this vaccine. 

The vaccine is a recent discovery that has been the exact opposite of scary to some people, mainly anyone who is worried that COVID-19 may negatively affect them. These people, and anyone else over the age of 12 who wishes to be vaccinated can set up an appointment but what about the other side of the conversation? Does the argument that the vaccine is not researched well enough and could be harmful hold any weight?

We have all heard people from both sides of this debate voice their opinion, as this issue is very new and a common point of interest between everyone. Social media is flooded with pro vaccination posts and random statistics that seem like they need a bit more research. 

To get a more personal look at why people are against the vaccine let’s hear from a skeptic. Grace Burger is a junior at San Pasqual High School and has no plans to get this vaccine as it stands. I asked for her reasoning in the matter.

“I’m deciding not to get the vaccine because there’s little to no research for it. Vaccines take years to be approved and tested on different people and it seems that for the COVID vaccine we are the people they are testing it on” says Burger. 

This point of vaccines taking a very long time to be made is common when someone is stating their case for not getting it, but does it hold any truth? Studies show that hundreds of COVID vaccines have been in the making for the past year and the predicted timeline for an effective cure was in December 2020. This means a successful vaccine could 100 percent be made, however what Burger said about the lack of testing is true, seeing how the vaccine has only been used on about 22% of the world’s population.

Many factors may affect the decision of whether or not a person wants to get the vaccine. The uncertainty of how it will react in your body can be scary, with some people suffering blackouts and being sick for extended periods of time, and others having absolutely no side effects at all. However the vaccine is an alternative to those who are already at great risk from the virus. I asked Burger if there was a more researched vaccine would she change her mind? She stated, “for my age without the vaccine I have a 95%  survival rate to the virus”. So from what I’ve gathered the vaccine can be scary and there are many statistics that make people shy away from scheduling that appointment. This is their choice and in the situation of a high school kid with not much potential of fatality for COVID, waiting for a more researched and experimented vaccine seems to be a perfectly justifiable choice. On the other hand, in the situation of someone deeply impacted by COVID, the slight risk that comes with the vaccine seems miniscule compared to the deadly virus.