In June 2021, I received my 2nd shot of the Pfizer COVID vaccine in preparation for the new school year to start in person.

In person school. During a Pandemic. More than a thousand teenagers. All in one place. For eight straight hours.  

While school seemed safer by August, new COVID variants, like the Delta and Omicron, threaten to make the worst case scenario a reality again. 

Omicron’s first case in California was discovered on December 1st. Since then, COVID cases have once again skyrocketed during this winter, with cases up to the hundred of thousands. These unnerving numbers are starting a new chapter in the COVID pandemic as concerns arise from people all over the world.         

Every week, I notice different students missing in my classes, gone for a week or two as they recover from COVID. The change in cases are obvious. 

CJUSD even recently gave out free at-home COVID tests to every student across the district in response to the rising numbers.

And through all of this, California has made getting vaccinated an option, provided employees submit to weekly COVID tests. Students have not be required to provide evidence of negative tests in lieu of vaccination.

Still people are getting sick. COVID very much kills and puts a lot of strain on our hospitals and health care workers.

How can we protect ourselves then?

Well, you can protect yourself by following my example and getting the vaccine. The vaccine is the yellow brick road out of this pandemic.

Getting vaccinated grants us some immunity, and prevents those who still get the virus from experiencing life threatening side effects. 

Side effects are actually all signs that the vaccine is working and helping to build your immunity. 

Along with increased immunity in general, if enough people get vaccinated then the general population can be granted herd immunity. 

There are two methods to herd immunity. 

One is waiting for most people to catch COVID themselves to build their own immunity naturally. Second is that vaccinations speed up the process of building immunity, without the countless deaths that come with catching the disease naturally. 

The vaccines help ease these numbers and help cut our healthcare workers some slack.

Although I obviously encourage everyone to get vaccinated whenever they can, I do not condone forcing people to do so. 

If people are given the proper, accurate information about this topic, it wouldn’t be such a debate to get vaccinated.

But there is a lot of misinformation out there, and some people claim that COVID does not exist, or significantly downplay its severity. It’s this type of ignorance that results in good people losing their friends, family, and coworkers. 

Not being vaccinated is obviously okay; it’s just when people act clueless and irresponsible that it isn’t acceptable. 

The bliss being given from ignorance is rather selfish and puts everyone around in danger.