The COVID-19 vaccine is safe. It is effective. It has been tested on a diverse cohort of people. And no one manufacturer’s vaccine is better than another’s.
Unfortunately, due to a constant drumbeat of misinformation, nearly a third of all Americans still say they don’t want to get vaccinated, or that they only want to get vaccinated by a specific maker’s vaccine.
As someone who helped successfully care for the first known COVID-19 patient in California, let me be as clear as I possibly can be: You want the vaccine, because you don’t want this disease.
Philip Robinson is medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at Hoag.