A duty to help ourselves and others
90-year-old Margaret Keenan, the first patient in the U.K. to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, receives an injection by nurse May Parsons at University Hospital in Coventry, England on Dec. 8, 2020. Credit: AP/Jacob King
We are at a very promising yet precarious time in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Long Island is seeing increased hospitalizations and ICU admissions compared to the summer, although not near the horrific April and May numbers. Hospitals in the region are updating surge plans, reestablishing COVID-19 isolation units, limiting family visitation of COVID-19 units, and preparing for worsening numbers post-Thanksgiving and December holidays.
We are all pandemic weary. The most common question I am asked: When will this finally end?
The exciting development of two COVID-19 vaccine candidates from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — the former authorized Friday — portends we are nearing the end of this dark tunnel. There is so much debate and angst about taking the vaccines, but it is critical that Americans understand why they should get vaccinated against COVID-19. There are three reasons: medical, ethical and, for those interested, religious.
Experts in infectious diseases and vaccinology overwhelmingly agree these vaccines are safe and highly efficacious. Of course, medicine can't guarantee that there won't be unexpected or rare complications. However, think of the more than 300,000 lives already lost to COVID-19 in the United States. How many of them, do you think, would not jump at the chance to get vaccinated if they were alive today?
Heaven forbid, some experts say as many as 300,000 more people could die in the upcoming months, with many more sick and debilitated. Yet, in two large vaccine studies, tens of thousands of patients received an actual vaccine and not one person died due to it. From a medical perspective, even with many unanswered questions, this vaccine has the potential to save millions of lives worldwide. But only if we take it.
From an ethical point of view, scientists estimate that this vaccine will only optimally work if at least 70% of the population takes it because then the nation will reach herd immunity. The Greatest Generation, Americans who fought in World War II against the horrors of Nazism, did so because it was the right thing to do. Good versus evil. From an ethical perspective, the battle against COVID-19 pits good (humanity) against an evil (viral scourge) decimating and harming the weak (the elderly, sick and underprivileged members of society). It is our responsibility to do the right thing, by taking a safe and effective vaccine to help protect humankind.
Finally, all of the world's major religions place the preservation of life as an essential dictum. In the Jewish tradition, one who saves a single life is considered as if he or she saved the entire world. I truly believe that an overwhelming number of people would rush to cross a street if they saw someone stumble and fall. Much less risk is involved in saving hundreds of thousands of American lives — if we all get inoculated once the vaccine is available.
We are all in this together.
Dr. Aaron E. Glatt is chairman of the Department of Medicine and chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau. He is also associate rabbi at Young Israel of Woodmere.
