We realize that we may lose some support over this COVID Vaccine PSA, but the stakes are too high to remain silent.
Please share this video if you agree or post a comment if you don’t.
Video Transcript:
“A lot of people are talking about COVID vaccines in terms that are near to the present, right? How do we save lives today? What is the summer going to look like? How do we have jobs rebound in 2021?
But there is something further in the distance that is at stake right now. An uncomfortable thought that few people seem to be talking about. You see, an unvaccinated person is somewhat literally a training ground for COVID-19. Every new person that it infects, it’s another chance for the virus to develop with slight variations. Every infection is an opportunity for it to become stronger.
Now, most people know this because so many are talking about variants like the UK variant… the South African variant…
But what people aren’t talking about? Imagine a future where those variants never end. Imagine there are enough unvaccinated people for the virus to just keep evolving, strong enough to live for 100 years, creating higher healthcare costs, irreversible life-altering health conditions and even ending the lives of millions of people for an entire century.
That seems a little overly dramatic, right? Far-fetched? Maybe not. Because that’s what happened with the Spanish flu 100 years ago.
Descendants, variants from the Spanish flu of 1918 are still infecting and killing people 100 years later. It had enough unvaccinated hosts to endure. In 2019 all flus killed over 600,000 people around the world. But what if there was a vaccine back in 1919? How many lives could have been saved over the last century? They didn’t have a vaccine though… but we do.
You see the moment we are living in isn’t just about this summer or this year. We are at a turning point in human history. If enough people take the COVID vaccine, we can shut the door on variants that have yet to come, ones that seek to exist forever.
But isn’t there a risk in a vaccine developed so quickly? Early studies repeatedly show that they are reasonably safe, but the development of a vaccine in record-breaking time does come with some risk. Almost by definition that has to be true. So then the question is: Is that risk, no matter how small, is that risk worth taking? Do we owe anything to future generations to keep them out of harm’s way? To save loved ones for people we will never meet? To make sure there’s not an empty seat at the Thanksgiving table decades from now?
Do we owe the future anything?
That is a question for each of us to answer individually. But I can at least say this:
People before us, they believed the future was worth fighting for. They paved the way for our civil rights, fought wars for us, they vaccinated before us… all of these things to create a future we could survive in. They believed that life was more valuable than just their moment.
As the ancient Greek proverb goes…
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit”
I can only speak for myself but I choose to take the vaccine to pave a path for hope. If creating a better future comes with some small risk, I am ready to take it. If these studies, one after the other, over time prove to be wrong, I will pay the cost.
Because someone long ago paid that cost for me.”
TEXT ON SCREEN:
People worry about being an experiment, but it’s important to remember that not taking the vaccine is an experiment too.
COVID-19 long haulers still have chronic conditions a year later. The risks of the vaccine are remarkably low and the future is at stake.
Will you sign up to get the vaccine and help protect the future?
