9 reasons to get the Covid vaccine

Here in New Orleans I have been witness over the last 11 months to the awesome power of COVID-19 to maim and kill. I have had my faculty and my staff contract the illness and be out for weeks and weeks. I have had almost a dozen cancer patients die of COVID. And I, my staff and all my patients have been getting COVID tested every two weeks as we attempt to stay safe.

At the same time, my kiddos, like yours I’m guessing, have been limping along with some mix of in-person and at-home remote schooling. After being able to go to school over November and December, the huge spike in Coronavirus numbers in New Orleans have sent them home again at least through the end of January, perhaps longer. They are being sent home, in part, because there is a new Covid virus variant that appears to be much, much more easily contracted and spread by school age children.

And let there be no doubt: the risks of catching this thing go way beyond a risk of simply dying of a respiratory illness. I know people who have continued to have serious chronic fatigue that does not abate, several of the patients of mine who died actually died of blood clots (strokes, pulmonary clots, which have been shown to be associated with Coronavirus infections) and, finally, although kids usually have a lower risk variant, a small group of infected kids die of a bizarre COVID-mediated systemic-vascular inflammation in which they die terrible, painful and rapid deaths.

In case you need a reason to get a vaccine, here are nine:

1. I got the COVID vaccine because I work in the cancer center. I’ve had patients with no COVID-related symptoms come to find out they went out to dinner with someone who was positive before starting to head downhill. I’ve had patients with multiple negative COVID tests who start to feel terrible only to finally have a positive COVID test. It takes about five days from actually catching the virus to develop symptoms and during this time, you’re contagious and don’t know it.

2. I got the COVID vaccine because I’ve had too many patients die and too many colleagues get sick. We’ve lost all sorts of people – grandparents in their 70s, parents in their 50s, children in their 20s. We’ve had couples and siblings admitted at the same time. Some people had health problems like diabetes and obesity; some people didn’t. Of note: every single one of my team members (that is my physician colleague, a nurse my physicist, my dosimetrist and three radiotherapy therapists) that caught covid, caught it from someone in their home orbit. Despite that fact that we are in the hospital every day, every single team member who got it, got it from a family member at home. They had an exposure at a “safe” small family dinner or church or somewhere they felt they could relax their guard.
   

3. I got the COVID vaccine because I’ve seen how the virus can destroy someone’s lungs. I’ve watched people struggle on noninvasive ventilation and on their belly on invasive ventilation. Sometimes it works, and it’s amazing. Sometimes it doesn’t, and they die

4. I got the COVID vaccine because even though I haven’t gotten coronavirus in the past 11 months, every day I come home from work with the anxiety that I am going to give this virus to my husband or children.

5. I got the COVID vaccine because the vaccine’s benefits are greater than the known risks of the vaccine. 90 to 95 percent effective at preventing infection sounds pretty great to me. The injection site pain, chills, muscle aches and mild fatigue don’t happen to everyone and did not happen to me. I took the Pfizer vaccine because it was the one I had access to. But I would take 10 more vaccines and their side effects if it would guarantee I didn’t have to get COVID. Moderna, Oxford, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Novavax, etc. Bring them all!

6. I got the COVID vaccine because the vaccine’s benefits are greater than the benefits of the virus. To date, I have not heard of any benefits of getting the virus. Over 400,000 people have died in the United States with 4,000 each day. No one has died in the eight months since people started receiving the COVID vaccines in the trials.
   

7. I got the COVID vaccine so I don’t put my loved ones at risk of death. Yeah, you might not die if you get it. But if you spread it to your parents, your grandparents, your uncle, and others, you could actually kill them. Literally.

8. I got the COVID vaccine because I want you to see me getting the vaccine. We’ve been getting vaccines since literally the day we were born. Vaccines work.

9. I got the COVID vaccine because I want to do my part to protect those around me.

This thing is not chicken pox or the flu. I know because I have seen it up close. I also have looked at the science, read the clinical trial reports and attended and continue to attend the scientific updates given every week at our medical school because of the devastating effects of this virus.

Please, I beg you, for your children, your parents and yourself: GET VACCINATED.

Dr. Kendra Harris is Chair of Radiation Oncology at Tulane University School of Medicine. She earned her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and is a Bigfork High School graduate. She sent this letter to her extended family in early January.