It’s not about the individual, it’s about the community
It was not until the unfortunate blood clots that six women received as a side effect of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine occurred that forced them to stop giving out the J&J vaccine.
Suddenly the emotional long-haul of a pandemic got longer, and people grew weary of the other vaccines in circulation.
Dr. Chandani Patel, co-owner of Robins Pharmacy alongside her husband Ankit Patel, was able to shed some light on the misinformation going around.
Patel stressed that the vaccine is not about an individual, but about the community and that getting vaccinated was a way to protect everyone.
She also acknowledged that people may fear the vaccine because of how quickly it was released.
“The sequence of the virus was released by the Chinese government when the Wuhan occurred,” Patel said. “So when the Chinese government released this information, there were scientists that had already worked on the coronavirus and were able to recognize the sequence of the virus and was then able to find a vaccine that was fairly quick.”
She said that it did not mean that they skipped any steps in the process. Just that they were lucky the sequence of the virus was recognizable and that scientists were able to find a way to create the vaccine through that.
Another issue she brought up was people’s fear of getting sick from the vaccine.
Patel said that she has heard a lot of people say that they got flu-like illnesses, rashes or felt fainty, but she said that all of that is normal with any vaccine such as the flue vaccine, pneumonia vaccine and now the corona vaccine.
It also circled around the Christian community that aborted fetuses have been used to create these vaccines.
“That’s not anything that is true,” Patel said. “Sometimes embryos can be used, but this is not something that is from a live embryo, it’ll be from a stem cell which we use on a daily basis within science and medicine.”
She followed that up by saying there are also not any microchips in the vaccine, because something people think they are going to get tracked.
“You can get 10 doses out of one vile,” she said. “It’ll be nearly impossible to get a microchip in every dose.”
She said that no one is tracking anyone and that we all have phones so if that were to happen it would have already been done.
“I think everyone needs to get vaccinated,” Marisella Arias, volunteer at the walk-in vaccination held at Remanso de Paz church, said. “I understand why people are scared, but it is necessary for us to get through this.”
Many of the people that are scared to get the vaccination are scared due to the vast amount of information that is out there. Patel said that the scientists have tested these vaccines and there is no reason anyone should fear getting vaccinated.
The vaccine gives society hope. Hope of ending this pandemic. The J&J vaccine may have been recalled, but the good news is that there are other vaccines in circulation.
Patel said that the only way for this pandemic to end is for everyone to work together, however that would only happen if people begin to trust the science.
As patel said, this vaccine is not about an individual, it is about community.