‘I didn’t trust vaccines’: How Sacramento autism advocate became a COVID vaccine proponent
Before COVID shut the world down, I didn’t trust vaccines. I certainly didn’t expect to become a COVID vaccine proponent.
An advocate and leader in California’s autism community, I argued passionately for parental choice on the vaccines required to attend public school. At first, I was also hesitant about COVID vaccines.
But as the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths skyrocketed across the country and the delta variant relentlessly hunted down the unvaccinated, I realized I could not outrun the virus.
After my husband, a physician, received the vaccine through work and experienced only mild, flu-like symptoms the next day, I signed up as soon as I could.
My 30-year-old son, Chris, who lives with autism and was not caught up with his childhood vaccines, asked for the COVID vaccine when we got there. He was disappointed that he wasn’t in the right age group at that time and couldn’t get it.
Later, he had the opportunity to get the vaccine through the nonprofit We Embrace. In getting the vaccine, he felt like he became part of something bigger than himself, and that mattered to him.
After questioning other vaccines for years, I had a friend who participated in an early Moderna COVID vaccine trial, and I witnessed a concern for safety that upended my previous assumptions. Now I’m part of a vaccine side effects study that’s still following me six months after my second dose. It’s clear to me that those behind the vaccine care deeply about any effects that could show up months later.
Science is unemotional and data-driven, and it should be apolitical. After the COVID vaccines arrived and were widely administered, we had millions of data points showing that side effects were minimal.
We now face a moment that requires the unvaccinated to look at the cost-benefit ratio. The delta variant is more than two times as contagious as previous variants. Unvaccinated people make up the vast majority of current hospitalizations and deaths.
We’re also seeing an increase in breakthrough infections among the vaccinated as the delta variant spreads through the unvaccinated population.
Hospitals are straining to find intensive-care beds for those with non-COVID-related illnesses, and some patients have to be sent home to wait for someone to die or otherwise free up a bed. My husband, a physician, faces that reality daily.
COVID challenged me to consider the responsibilities that come with one’s personal freedom. Personal rights come with the condition that the rights of others in the community are not compromised. When unvaccinated people increase the transmission of the virus, infecting other vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, that’s the moment when your freedom treads on someone else’s rights.
The pandemic led me to believe that we should tip in favor of the community over the individual. The COVID vaccines, combined with social distancing and masks, are an opportunity for everyone to work together to get our lives back to a sense of normal.
Getting the vaccine is doing your part to end the pandemic — a win-win for yourself and your community. Let’s all play for the same team and end this pandemic together.