We should all take the COVID-19 vaccine when it is our turn. 

The vaccine is safe and remarkably effective.

It is also the only clear path to getting our lives back to normal. 

Not everyone has access just yet, but health care workers, first responders and our elderly and fragile populations do have access and should be vaccinated unless there is a specific medical reason that their doctor identifies as a rare reason not to. 

When the vaccine was first rolled out, State Sen. Ben Watson, a primary doctor and chair of the Health and Human Services committee who took part in the clinical trials both to set an example for his patients and protect them when they are seeking medical care, said, “We as health care workers have a responsibility to our patients. They do not expect to get sick from us. So it’s not all about me. Because in health care, when you’re working in a hospital or you’re seeing people in the clinic, they don’t want to catch COVID from you.”

None of us want to catch COVID from anyone else.

Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, has said, “Until we can vaccinate as many Georgians as possible, we will not have the level of immunity within the state as a whole, to prevent the continued spread.”

Dr. Ben Loman, one of the state’s infectious disease epidemiologist, has said, “These vaccines have gone through the same safety and efficacy testing that any vaccine would go through. They first start in these small trials to show that they’re first safe and get larger and larger trials to show people have an immune response and finally these very large scale ones that we’ve been hearing over the last month showing how really remarkably effective these vaccines are. Although the timeline has been short, it’s not because any steps have been skipped. I think it’s really important for people to know that.”

The vaccines were developed with a speed that had nothing to do with cutting corners, or rushing the process. It had everything to do with new technologies and amazing advances in medicine and science.

Please take the vaccine as soon as it is your turn to do so.