"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.” --George Bernard Shaw
I got vaccinated so I could win $1 million from the state of Massachusetts and its VaxMillions giveaway.
GET A SHOT! GET A CHECK! O.K. Not really.
But it is telling to note the lengths to which, even in a state like our own, with the second highest rate of COVID vaccinations in the country at 63 percent of the population; even here we still have to beg, entice, cajole, and tempt our fellow neighbors to just get a shot. Makes me wonder…maybe if they offered a $1 billion prize in, say, Alabama (33.85 percent vaxxed) or Georgia (38.02) then perhaps more of our friends down south might get in line too.
I did not get a vaccination to win $1 million, though if chosen I’ll take it! I received the Moderna vaccination back in January, and my second injection in March, for one key reason.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to end up in the hospital hooked up to a ventilator for weeks or even months. I don’t want to get so sick from COVID that the effects last for months, maybe years. I don’t want to lose my senses of taste and smell, give up the joy of a pepperoni pizza or the scent of fresh cut grass in the summer or the tang of cold summertime lemonade. I don’t want to have to stay home from my community choir that is starting up again in the fall after almost two years of being voiceless. I don’t want to lose my ability to preach because COVID steals my voice or breath, maybe permanently.
All good reasons. All good and legitimate concerns but they are about self-interest.
So, here are some of the communal reasons I got vaxxed.
I want to love my neighbor, as God asks me, by protecting myself from COVID and thereby also protecting others from the virus too. Vaccinated, chances are I won’t spread it to someone unvaccinated, so they won’t die or fall ill. There are now a small handful of breakthrough COVID cases among the protected, yet overwhelmingly these folks rarely get seriously sick or are hospitalized. Getting vaccinated isn’t just about “me”; it is also about “thee”. It is a choice you make (or do not make) for your community. For your family. For people who go to church or mosque with you. For the guy behind you in line at Dunkin’ Donuts. For your elderly Dad and your immune-compromised sister.
I understand some of the reasons folks give for not yet getting vaccinated. People of color who are wary of a medical system that has so often mistreated them. People who just can’t because of a medical condition. People who worry about long term health implications, though nothing yet has been proved.
But here are some of the reasons I do not get. Some are all about skepticism and even paranoia, as in I don’t trust the scientists and I don’t trust the government. There is rolling the dice, as in I’m basically a healthy person so I’ll be fine. There is wackiness, as in I heard Bill Gates or Anthony Fauci is behind COVID and there is a microchip in the injection, to track us. But the one that drives me the craziest as a person of faith?
God will protect me from COVID.
Newsflash: I believe the God I know and love is protecting us not in some miraculous or supernatural way from COVID, no. Instead, I believe God protects us because God gave special knowledge to scientists and courage to researchers and selflessness to test subjects and organization to federal and state governments, all so a COVID vaccine could be discovered and then distributed, the fastest vaccine breakthrough ever, in history. Vaccines that provide up to 95 percent protection.
But for the unvaccinated? The Centers for Disease Control’s COVID numbers bear out one chilling statistic. Last month, 99.2 percent of folks who died from COVID were unvaccinated. And all the growing panic now about the delta variant and its spreading like wildfire? That’s overwhelmingly happening in the places with the lowest vaccination rates. This is such a tragedy. Thousands hospitalized, hundreds die, needlessly. There is a price to be paid for saying “No” to the vaccine.
The reason for vax rejection that I find the saddest is that of fearing that the government has some “Big Brother” plan through COVID and vaccinations, that Uncle Sam is trying to “take my rights away”. That to be vaxxed is to make some political choice. Goes along with how many anti-maskers and anti-lockdown folk feel too. The strange thing is that these protesters often cloak themselves in the language of patriotism and the flag, claiming liberty, but in fact are acting selfish. Telling their fellow citizens: sorry. Not gonna get vaxxed, even if it helps not just me, but you as well.
I think the most patriotic and moral thing each of us can do to fight COVID is in fact to get vaccinated. Take responsibility for how our lives as citizens effect the lives of other citizens, for the bad, or God willing, for the common good. I think it is patriotic to put others’ health and safety before our own. I think true patriotism is about more than partisanship or a flag lapel pin or flying the stars and stripes. True patriotism always makes sacrifices for the greater good.
But if you need a $1 million reason to get vaccinated? Be my guest. But please, please, PLEASE: if you’ve yet to receive the COVID vaccine, think of yourself and your own life and think of your fellow Americans too.
Be a patriot. Do the right thing. Get vaxxed.
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