Vaccine leads to more questions

Posted 12/17/20

History was made this week when a COVID-19 vaccine was administered to Dr. Christian Arbelaez, an emergency room physician at Rhode Island Hospital - the first Rhode Islander to receive the shot. The speed at which a vaccination to prevent contraction of

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Vaccine leads to more questions

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History was made this week when a COVID-19 vaccine was administered to Dr. Christian Arbelaez, an emergency room physician at Rhode Island Hospital – the first Rhode Islander to receive the shot.

The speed at which a vaccination to prevent contraction of COVID-19 has been studied, developed and now distributed is nothing short of amazing. It is yet another testament to the painstaking work of scientists and biotechnical experts across the globe – a watershed moment of humanity summoning its best qualities to fight back a faceless, relentless enemy.

Skeptics and those not at high risk from the virus will likely continue to drone short-sighted concerns about the vaccine’s safety or efficacy, but we would argue that the potential unknowns of possible side effects from the vaccine are dwarfed in comparison to the known dangers already posed by COVID-19 if left unchecked. People are dying from this virus, every day. And more will continue to perish until enough of the population is inoculated from it. Contrarianism will not save lives. That is the harsh reality.

The problem that arises now is one of logistics. Who should get the first batches of the vaccine? How much vaccine will be available in the first round of immunization? Who is next in line after that? How long before we have enough people vaccinated that life can begin to return to normal? What happens then?

Rightly, frontline health care workers are the first to receive the vaccine. They are the ones who have put their lives on the line helping people who have fallen ill to the virus and continue to do so every day. They have sacrificed more time away from loved ones, have seen patients perish and have not had a moment to even catch their breath during long shifts seen from behind protective face masks and shields.

Beyond them, however, things become more complex. How do you rank who deserves a possibly lifesaving shot more? Who deserves a higher priority – the grandmother with asthma living isolated in an assisted living facility or the middle-aged manager at a supermarket who encounters thousands of potentially-infected customers each day?

There is no doubt that essential workers – those at pharmacies, grocery stores, retail stores and every manner of small business worker in between who has been unable to avoid unnecessary contact with the public – will have a rightful grievance if they are not prioritized among the second tier of vaccinations.

So, too, do the residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, where the virus has had the deadliest toll of any Rhode Island population. Delays in getting vaccines to these facilities could result in many more possibly preventable deaths.

Unfortunately, the vaccination problem will not be one with an easy answer – not that easy answers have been common anyways. The only controllable aspect we can manage is to try to continue to adhere to public health guidance and prevent further catastrophic spread of the virus so that all of those in need and deserving of this vaccine can get it in due time – no matter how long it takes.

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