Back in 2020 COVID-19 surged and my employer sent everybody home, like many other people around the world. For the 2020-2021 school year my kids were home-schooled (I never thought we would do that). To protect my household from COVID infection we were able to mostly isolate and therefore keep our risks low. This was unpleasant but worked mostly well for us.
At the beginning of 2021 vaccines started becoming available to most of the US. I was not interested in being first in line for this. I’m already cautious that in some cases we may be over-vaccinating people and this new vaccine technology, called mRNA, seemed rather sudden to me. I was not convinced. I was comfortable where I was at – keeping my risks low by staying home and away from people.
In Spring of 2021 we were ordered to return to the office by my employer. I requested an extension of work from home but it was eventually denied. I had to return to an office environment, near other people, breathing the same air, and having to sit at my desk for 10+ hours per day. I was well aware that this would be rather risky for me to do. Not just to myself, but I was worried I would bring COVID home to my family. One way to mitigate this risk was with a vaccine. A new vaccine. A new technology. I was skeptical and hesitant.
Around winter 2021 my employer had made an mRNA vaccine available to everybody who wanted one, while supplies lasted. I opted not to sign up for that event. I was content just staying home. However, with a return to work looming I was now forced to really make a decision and decide how I felt about COVID vaccines. I spent nearly a day diving in and really trying to teach myself all that I could.
First, I learned about the different types of vaccines. I originally thought all vaccines (before mRNA) were of the inactivated virus type and that’s just how they worked, but then I read over this:
https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-race-for-a-covid-19-vaccine-explained
I learned there are also sub-unit types, and live-attenuated, and viral vector, and DNA, and mRNA…
Of the viral vector types, it sounds like before COVID the only one around was an Ebola vaccine and it was never authorized for use in the United States. Initially, I liked the idea of the viral vector tech because it was not as new as mRNA and it didn’t need to be kept at really low temps and it was one-and-done instead of two shots. But since the Ebola one was the only one I know of and it was never used in the US maybe it wasn’t as old and well-tested as I had thought.
Then I read that in Europe the Oxford–AstraZeneca viral vector vaccine use was suspended due to a potential blood clot link.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/11/denmark-suspends-use-of-astrazeneca-vaccine-over-reports-of-blood-clots.html
I then also read some things about the Johnson and Johnson viral vector one:
During vaccine trials, “A few rare, unexpected side effects also occurred: 15 vaccinated study participants and 10 volunteers who got a placebo developed conditions related to blood clots; six vaccinated volunteers (but none in the placebo group) developed a ringing in the ears called tinnitus; and there were eight cases of hives among vaccine recipients, compared to three among those who received placebo.”
– https://www.health.harvard.edu/coronavirus-and-covid-19/covid-19-vaccines
(but how/why the placebo group also got blood clots is weird)
All the viral vector stuff was still sounding pretty low risk, but at the time I wasn’t hearing anything similar about the mRNA ones.
However, I was still concerned about how new the mRNA tech was… but I’d heard that it actually wasn’t that new and the tech had been developed years in the past and was coincidentally almost ready when COVID hit. (Initially I thought maybe a little too coincidental, if I let my conspiracy theories imagination run wild?)
Then I watched this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPeeCyJReZw
This video helped me understand that it’s actually been decades of work that has led to mRNA vaccines and it sounds promising that we’ll see more of them in the near future. The creator company of the video could be called in to question and I didn’t fact check them, but on the surface they seem legit and I took them at their word. (I only have so much time and can only drill down so deep.)
There are “older” inactivated-virus types of vaccines in development or use elsewhere in the world (BBIBP-CorV, Covaxin, CoronaVac, CoviVac) but none of them were here in the US, and I think some are in China and Russia so I have little trust in the quality of their vaccines.
Ideally, I would have liked more time to see a bigger data set and over a longer period of time but they were sending us all back in to the office to work, my request to extend work from home was denied, and we were worried my son would be high risk of COVID complications so my hand was forced – I had to decide if the risk of mRNA was greater or if the risk of getting/spreading COVID (and potentially the long-COVID symptoms that linger) while waiting for more data or other vaccine options was the bigger risk. In the hours I took trying to understand what was available at the time and trying to pick the least-risky option (of which there is no zero-risk option) I chose to go ahead and get the Moderna mRNA vaccine.
About six months later, COVID cases are going crazy again. Hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, nearly all unvaccinated. It’s clear that vaccinated people are 5x less likely to get infected, 10x less likely to be hospitalized, and 11x less likely to die (ref 1, below). Again, vaccination is not zero risk and I’m sure there are some cases where people have legitimate reasons to hesitate being vaccinated because their unique circumstances are something that hasn’t been studied yet. They may be at a higher risk for complications from the vaccinate due to some other disease or circumstances. They may also be at higher risk of complications from COVID too, though. In my case, I have no regrets getting vaccinated and I think almost everybody should do so as well, with extremely few exceptions.
Cheers,
Doug
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