Essay About Dangers Of Rushing The Covid-19 Vaccine

With the virus going around for a while now, it has infected and killed an alarming amount of people. With this being said FDA and other health organizations had begun on a vaccine that will be able to at the very least control the virus, and have hopes to neutralize the virus completely. This would be ideal if they had time, as months pass the virus keeps evolving because of the many people who don’t even believe the virus exists and keep ignoring what’s supposed to be a country-wide quarantine. This makes it harder for those who have been working on vaccines for a year now to make a vaccine with high chances of being effective to most or all of the public. With this more difficulties arises, as a penalty for people not wearing masks the virus has evolved over, and it starting to target more than just the elderly and newborns, its mortality has increased meaning that now is possible to have teens and middle-aged men and women. This being the important matter it is, it has become common knowledge that eventually a vaccine will be released to the public, this vaccine will be able to control or neutralize the virus but this can only be achieved if the Covid-19 vaccine is not rushed.

As the president promised to release the Covid-19 vaccine by year’s end, there has not been any information including the matter. The biotechnology company Moderna reported preliminary results from its first-in-human coronavirus vaccine trial, Moderna said the first eight volunteers with available results had developed neutralizing antibodies at levels similar to those in recovering patients("The FDA should not rush a covid-19 vaccine"). This seemed as if the vaccine could do some good in its current state but it seems to be lacking. Since this standard is considerably weaker than that required for FDA marketing approval("The FDA should not rush a covid-19 vaccine"). This means that the current state of the vaccine is not good enough to be given to the public because it might develop antibodies in a normal person who doesn’t have Covid-19 making his/her immune. And if the already ill patients have the vaccine given to them and happen to not be effective on them the virus will not just get worse from there will start targeting mid-aged people, while having a vaccine is good and bad at the same time because if data ultimately shows that vaccine effectiveness is limited while the risks are substantial, harms to millions of uninfected individuals could be enormous("The FDA should not rush a covid-19 vaccine"). The FDA is in a panic trying to give out results to the public as quickly as possible because they are trying to end this nightmare.

While some scientists are confident that they have created an effective vaccine against Covid-19, many Americans rather wait than getting a vaccine right away because it doesn’t seem safe to take just yet. There are many things we don’t know yet about Covid-19, even tho professionals insist on taking the vaccine as soon as possible because if not it will be harder to get it distributed since there will be more deaths and infected cases and that will be detrimental to many. It said that they have written a 53-page evaluation that confirmed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is highly effective and safe(Rodriguez). This can be said with a guarantee that it should work with most, but many other things are yet to be discovered about the virus. "We have to balance the very real odds of becoming critically ill from the virus versus the theoretical odds of long-term side effects that haven't been discovered yet,"(Rodriguez). Without knowing all of its ups and downs vaccines should probably be avoided until a major organization comes with a vaccine that can prove to be incredibly effective towards all of the Covid-19 effects.

There is such thing known as Vaccine Approval, which means that if any vaccines have been made they would have to go through an approval that will determine whether or not it should be mass-produced or it should have some time in the lab increasing its effectiveness. A while back in 2005 there was a vaccine that was mandatory for military personnel to take. It was claimed by the personnel that the vaccine was actually bad for them, closing that program. Vaccines take months or years to make and their approval also takes months and even years. In 1955 the was a polio outbreak infecting many. A vaccine was made to neutralize this plague but "Forty thousand kids got polio. Some had low levels, a couple hundred were left with paralysis, and about 10 died," said Dr. Howard Markel, a pediatrician, distinguished professor, and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan(Christensen). Shortly after this notice, the vaccine was canceled. This further shows that a proper vaccine needed to be carefully processed and made to help the ill.

Three Covid-19 vaccines in the US are now in Phase 3 trials(Doctors warn against rushing...). While these vaccines are being produced, their reports show that these vaccines have side effects. For Example, it was shown that some had developed headaches and fevers a day after the vaccine(Rushing a Covid-19 vaccine). Now, these side effects might seem very minor to young and mid-age people, but what if an 80-year-old got a headache and fever and like most elderly have heart problems, What will become of them. This is the same in other countries like Russia, Russia has created a vaccine for Covid-19 but they did not release a single report of its development, Therefore how can Russians trust a vaccine that they don’t even know if it works. But the need for a vaccine is incredibly large since the longer we wait the more people will be infected and die from this virus. Rushing this vaccine for many might seem like the ideal thing to do because they want to end their nightmare since Covid-19 has killed over half a million people. Many were just weak and defenseless to this virus and they meet their end because of it. There are many still fighting for their lives, but the number of people that recover from Covid-19 is a small percent of people. This further shows why a vaccine is needed soon, But it needs to be effective and to have a small chance of not working.

In conclusion, A vaccine that can neutralize the virus is the ideal outcome to this but a rushed vaccine that has too many side effects or not effective in general will be detrimental to the public and it might do more harm than good. Rushing a vaccine makes it untrustworthy, and many will not take this vaccine for its lack of positive reports on it. Having the vaccine without knowing all of its ins and outs can prove to harm the public since the long-term side effects that might appear in the near future after the vaccine is out can and will ruin lots of people’s lives. It’s painfully obvious that the longer Covid-19 is out there the more people are going to die or have long-lasting effects on them that will change their lives, Having it quicker would mean ending a year in a half long quarantine. Many people will be content with their regained freedom that was somewhat taken from them when this quarantine started. Could it be that we are going to get an unrefined vaccine that will do more harm than good or will they make a vaccine that will save us from a country-wide quarantine and its mutation process?

Works Cited

Christensen, Jen. "Past Vaccine Disasters show Why Rushing a Coronavirus Vaccine Now would be 'Colossally Stupid'." CNN Wire Service, Sep 01, 2020. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/wire-feeds/past-vaccine-disasters-show-why-rushing/docview/2438821281/se-2?accountid=178596.

"Doctors warn against rushing a Covid-19 vaccine as Fauci says it's critical to have a safe Labor Day." CNN Wire, 3 Sept. 2020, p. NA. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A634383830/SUIC?u=lake34507&sid=SUIC&xid=dad4d867. Accessed 11 Feb. 2021.

Rodriguez, Adrianna. "Some in no rush to get COVID-19 vaccine." USA Today, 21 Dec. 2020, p. 06D. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A646067910/SUIC?u=lake34507&sid=SUIC&xid=51d9b3d7. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.

"Rushing a Covid-19 vaccine before we get full data would be an enormous mistake." CNN Wire, 26 Aug. 2020, p. NA. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A633600093/SUIC?u=lake34507&sid=SUIC&xid=babd20e6. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021. 

"The FDA should not rush a covid-19 vaccine." Washingtonpost.com, 2 June 2020. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A625555943/SUIC?u=lake34507&sid=SUIC&xid=1955f4dd. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.