Why am I begging you to save your own life and the lives of your family and friends as well as those in your community…???🤔

First off, I made A’s in all of my science classes🤓. I never thought I would be trying to explain in 15 minutes, 11 years worth of undergraduate, graduate and specialty education, explaining in a nutshell the organic chemistry, including the genetics and biophysics of DNA analysis, microbiology, biochemistry, immunology, pathology, infectious disease, pharmacology, research and statistical analysis… not to mention 29 years of practicing medicine, to someone hesitant because they are listening to misinformation in social media posted by folks who failed science in highschool😩, I digress.

But In order to dispel misinformation, I explain away the top five (5) reasons I hear for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19. I use my sensitivity of the culture and knowledge in behavioral sciences and history taking psychology to first hear, acknowledge “I understand that there is a lot of information out there and it is hard to know what is correct/accurate and what is incorrect/misinformation” then systematically dispel all of the above…

There’s nothing I can do however for the conspiracy theorists, you have to at least come to the table sane and open to reason…

1.) “They made it too fast!”

The science of mRNA vaccines started in 1986, after DNA, RNA sequencing and cleaving began in the 1970s after DNA structure was discovered and coded in 1953.

I guess “they” didn’t do a good enough job explaining the history behind the vaccine development. We thought the people trusted the science and were going to eagerly get vaccinated. Wrong!🤨

And “they” had already coded and sequenced the entire Coronavirus genome decades ago, as they have with hundreds of thousands of other viruses, bacteria, fungi, protists, plants and animals. They just had to sequence the mutation on the spike protein that made it “novel” and put a copy of the piece of mRNA that codes for that protein in the vaccine…

The Pharmaceutical companies got enough funding all at once by the project “Operation Warp Speed” in May 2020 initiated by the Trump administration (the only positive thing he did to impact COVID-19 even though it was for self serving reasons) to finish the clinical trials that otherwise might have stretched out a few more years, the trials were surprisingly uneventful and much more successful than anticipated being Pfizer 95% (Mederna 94%, Johnson & Johnson 85%) efficacious (flu vaccines have only 70% efficacy, so were expecting about the same), so it was completed in only 11 months. They didn’t know how long it would take, but they were incentivized, focusing all resources towards this our hopefully only once in a lifetime deadliest global event caused by a novel infectious agent, since the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, forsaking all other interests, they wanted to hold this humanitarian distinction in good repute.

Funding scientific research is typically nickel and dimed, and with Pharmacuetical companies, there is a collaboration between public (government) and private sector partnerships, with extensive rules and regulations such as with all drug research before marketing for profit to keep them honest because their interests are commercial and financial first, so once a drug is developed, it is tested using clinical trials then approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), then indications for use and guidelines are developed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) whose interests are safety and efficacy first, so it may take several years to develop a new pharmaceutical brand, until something devastating, like the COVID-19 Pandemic comes along, though the anticipation of a future pandemic use was the impetus for the development of mRNA vaccine technology > 30 years ago, because it could be coded for in real time, not trailing years behind the infectious agent like traditional vaccines, and could be quickly mass produced, creating millions of doses in a short period of time. Just what was needed to end this pandemic…

2.) “I don’t know what’s in it!” and “it gives you COVID!”

But do you know what is in your food, drink, hair and skin products? Do you know what is in your other vaccines and drugs that you take?

On a biomolecular level, nucleic acids, DNA and RNA replication occurs by RNA transcription, inside the nucleus of all living cells which contain DNA and RNA, which include animals (humans), plants, bacteria, protist and fungi. Viruses either have DNA or RNA but not both so rely on it’s host for reproduction of it’s nucleic acid, therefore is not considered a “living organism” just an infectious agent that can’t reproduce itself.

Only the piece of mRNA that codes for the spike protein is used in the mRNA vaccine, which when injected into the muscle in your arm is inserted into the nucleic RNA of muscle cells locally and copied using your cells biomechanics producing ONLY the COVID-19 SPIKE PROTEIN (not the entire virus as would happen if you are actually infected), these appear only on the muscle of cells injected and because foreign, it triggers humoral immune response making antibodies against the spike protein which will be recognized again as soon as the actual live COVID-19 virus enters the body intact, before it has a chance to take hold, while still in the upper respiratory tract, preventing the devastating progression to the lower respiratory tract and complications of the deadly SARS-coV-2 pneumonia.

3.) “People have died after getting the vaccine” or “I’m going to wait and see what happens to everyone else first” and “I don’t know the long term effects!”

Over 180M people have been vaccinated, 60%+/- of the USA population. People die every day and it’s always after doing or taking something within a specifically limited or dynamically changing timeframe. There’s still the same numbers dying every day from the usual traditional things that they would have likely succumbed to even if not immunized, including things like motor vehicle accidents, slip and fall accidents, heart attacks, strokes, etc.

Every death is being documented that occurs within hours to weeks of vaccination and the data used in comparison studies measuring correlation and probability, there has been no significant differences in deaths or potentially serious life threatening disorders between those vaccinated and those unvaccinated except for a few cases of rare clotting disorders in women < 60 years old, seen with Johnson & Johnson (warning label) ~1 in every 1M and a slight increase in myocarditis in teens, although less than seen in acquired COVID infection, found to be less severe and typically self limiting, with Pfizer (the only COVID-19 vaccine studied and FDA approved for ages 5 to 15 year olds), myocarditis was also seen more in the general population during that same time, including those unvaccinated, attributed to a correlation with a more aberrant viral season and not significant enough to outweigh Pfizer’s vaccine benefit, so cleared for use.

The odds of you choking to death are way higher than dying from complications of the vaccine, but you still eat…??? ~1 in 100K

The odds of an allergic reaction and death is rare, less than getting struck by lightning, but you still go out in the rain…??? ~1 in 2.5M

The chances of you dying from COVID-19, acquiring the actual infection bears the highest risk ~1 in every 100 cases if unvaccinated, ~ 1 in every 1000 cases if vaccinated, so 10 times more likely to die if unvaccinated, if all 320M USA population got COVID-19 and there were no vaccines, ~3.2M would die vs ~320K if all vaccinated, so NOT getting infected is the ideal situation but not realistic, it’s likely we will all get infected at some point, we can’t depend on masks, social distancing and hand washing forever, but these precautions are our only defense until most of us are vaccinated, so that we have immunity when exposed and won’t present fully with all of the deadly symptoms. It’ll be like the flu. We need > 80% of the population vaccinated to safely reach herd immunity and end the pandemic so that another 300K to 600K people won’t die.

And if you die from COVID-19 now, you won’t have to worry about future potential complications from the vaccination…

4.) “You can still get ‘the COVID’ anyway even if vaccinated!”

I have to explain the epidemiology that goes into how the virus is spread, it’s potentially devastating effect on the body, creating mutations using unvaccinated hosts. And yes, you can still get infected if vaccinated but you don’t get severe disease 95% of the time and there’s 10 times more deaths in those unvaccinated who get infected with COVID-19, so the safest way to acquire immunity is through vaccination. Also if you survive infection to acquire natural immunity, you are 3 times more likely to get COVID again than if immunity acquired by way of vaccination which has been found to be superior, and the fact that 99.9% of the ~1000+/- dying/day in the USA presently are unvaccinated and 95% those hospitalized are unvaccinated proves this fact.

5.) “I don’t go anywhere and use precautions!”

I explain how COVID-19 is a novel virus, how it caused a pandemic, how the spread is exponential, how it is a mutation from its less virulent Coronavirus cousin, how wearing masks, social distancing, etc., is temporary, serving it’s purpose in flattening the curve, limiting spread during pre-vaccine times, but not sustainable as we open up with pandemic fatigue lessening compliance, and that vaccines are the more permanent solution to ending the Pandemic. And although you may be doing everything right, someone is going to bring COVID-19 to you!