The Importance of Vaccinations Essay Example

The topic that will always seem to be controversial, vaccines. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccines are used to stimulate the production of antibodies to allow for immunity against specific or several diseases. From measles, to COVID-19, to the never ending flu, vaccines are helping stop the spread of these infectious diseases. Without vaccines, children would be missing school, parents would have to skip work, small businesses would be forced to close, and the economy would be struggling. Americans should be required to get vaccinated, primarily to limit the spread of infectious diseases and illnesses. 

To begin, in order to get into many schools, children are required to get vaccinated. The reason behind this is because kids tend to carry and spread many infections and illnesses. By getting vaccinated, children’s and adult’s lives are being saved. For example, if a kid gets sick, they have to stay home from school, which also means their parents have to take days off from work to care for their kid. According to Roman Espejo, “Indeed, rather than exposing children to harm, following the complete childhood immunization schedule is strongly associated with reducing vaccine-preventable diseases” (Immunization). In today’s world, COVID-19 immunization schedules are followed in order to stop the spread of this deadly disease even faster. If parents choose to not follow the immunization schedule for their children, they are putting themselves and others at risk. Some bosses and places of work are very strict with their days-off policies which is not ideal when families have young children that can’t stay home by themselves. In addition to that, according to ProCon, “The measles vaccine has decreased childhood deaths from measles by 74%.” Without the measles vaccine, children would still be greatly affected by this deadly disease, resulting in lots of missing days of school and work for the parents. 

Secondly, vaccines have worked to completely end multiple diseases such as smallpox and polio. Without these particular vaccines, these highly infectious diseases would still be infecting and killing millions of people. Studies have proven that “Children are no longer vaccinated against smallpox because the disease no longer exists due to vaccination” (ProCon). Some people are fine with putting themselves and others at risk, but in the past, many diseases were deadly and people realized the importance of vaccines. Families were smart enough to know that they didn’t want their life to end because of a worldwide disease. In 2022, we now have people that look far beyond the positives in vaccines and try to focus on the negatives, such as the short term and long term effects. To add on, vaccines against smallpox and polio allowed for “each of these diseases to decrease by 99% by the year 2012” (ProCon). Not every disease will be completely gone because of its vaccine but they will for sure be limited from spreading and creating new variants. Without the COVID-19 vaccine, the world would have seen a lot more deaths and new variants forming. Although COVID might be around for the rest of our lives, just like the flu, it will never be nearly as bad as it was in 2020 because of the multiple vaccines being used. 

In addition to diseases being completely eradicated, vaccines have allowed more individuals the ability to find jobs. Towards the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses had to close and many individuals were unemployed because of how deadly this disease was. As a result of this, the vaccine was created, allowing for individuals to return to work and continue making a salary. It was hard for families to live off of their unemployment money, which is why it was a huge success to finally be able to return to work. According to Weller, “More widespread vaccinations not only keep people healthier, but they also lower health care costs, make it easier for people to return to work, and increase overall economic activity.” A business's goal is to continue to make a profit big enough to keep selling their products and stay in business. If vaccines were not present, businesses would be forced to shut down often because of illnesses going around. If individuals were unable to work because of their place of work not being open, they wouldn’t be able to make their ideal salary to pay for their basic family expenses and necessities.