I am a physician in central Maine, and I’m writing this with the understanding that I will get angry and possibly threatening responses. I take that risk because telling the truth and caring for the sick is what I signed on for when I became a physician. The short message is that it’s time for everyone to get vaccinated.
Earl Boyd, R.N., of MaineGeneral Medical Center administers the first of two doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Jay Galusha at the Clinton Fire and Rescue building July 22. Galusha, who takes immunosuppressant drugs as the result of a kidney transplant, said he had delayed getting the shot out of concerns over its impact on his health. On July 23, he said he felt fine except for a sore arm. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
My 29-year-old daughter, who has more medical issues than most her age, is ill right now with COVID-19. She arrived last Friday from New York to visit for a few days, the first time in a year. As we were about to go out for dinner she mentioned she thought she had a slight cold, with a slight headache, because – she thought – she’d been working long hours. We tested her in my office a few minutes before we were to go to a crowded restaurant, and she was instantly positive with a COVID antigen test. We are fully vaccinated.
She is feeling OK, tired, achy and sore, and her “cold symptoms” are slowly improving. Thus far none of her New York friends is positive, including her boyfriend, her closest friend, a group of Maine friends who visited her a week ago and others. They have all been vaccinated. This is almost certainly the delta variant, which is fueling 90 percent of infections currently in New York, with similar numbers in the world and here in Maine.
The delta variant – the main reason vaccinated people are getting sick now – is not surprising or unusual. Variation happens when a virus has lots of opportunity to mutate and thrive. When a lot of people in the world, and a lot of people here in the United States, are unvaccinated, we have lots of virus circulating. This allows the virus the opportunity to mutate and adapt and develop strains that are more contagious and aggressive and deadly to us, their host.
I spend a lot of time talking with patients about coronavirus, and reading about it. I spend no time on social media. I do not use Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. I do not watch the news on TV as I find it biased, and I prefer to read the news from a few simple sources. I obtain my medical information from basically the same scientific sources, modernized, that I’ve been using since 1986.
Let me present some medical facts:
• My daughter now has a 1 in 1 million chance of dying from COVID-19. If she were unvaccinated, she would have a 1 in 30 risk of death.
• There is a huge amount of misinformation on the internet about coronavirus and the vaccines. This misinformation could be referred to as “mistruths”; I will call it “lies.” Most of this information can be traced to a small group of people, a few of them doctors, who are profiting from this, financially and with power and fame.
• COVID-19 is not harmless to children. Just under 400 children in the U.S. have died from COVID, and a too-large percent of those who have mild illness are left with long-term issues.
• Our current vaccines are stunningly safe and effective – not perfect, but amazingly effective. I am fortunate that my daughter has been vaccinated.
• The vaccines have side effects. All vaccines and all medical treatments can. These side effects are minimal: usually brief, mild versions of what you get if you have COVID-19. They pale in comparison to the strikingly similar symptoms that happen, dramatically worse and more often, from coronavirus itself.
• Deciding to never get COVID-19 is not an option, unless you decide to be a hermit, or unless a huge percentage of us are vaccinated.
• Vaccinations have absolutely nothing to do with politics. Nothing.
• Vaccinations save lives. I am counting on them saving my daughter’s life. They can save your life, your family members’ lives, my patients’ lives and the lives of others in our community, in your community. COVID-19 is preventable. Vaccinations are how we will end this pandemic.
Please get vaccinated.
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