Encouraging vaccination

In response to the Aug. 16 editorial regarding vaccines (“Vaccines save lives. If your doctor recommends them, don’t hesitate.”), as a member of Rotary, the first organization to envision a polio-free world through the mass immunization of children, I second the Tribune Editorial Board’s sentiment that COVID19 vaccines, and immunizations at large, are an amazing public health achievement. Immunization prevents 3.5 million to 5 million deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization.

Thanks to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, over the past 35 years, we’ve reduced polio cases by 99.9% as a result of high-quality immunization campaigns. More than 20 million people who would have otherwise been paralyzed are walking.

Yet, while the wild polio virus continues to circulate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, polio was detected last year in several countries that haven’t seen the virus for many years. Polio outbreaks in the U.S., United Kingdom and Israel serve as a stark reminder that as long as polio exists anywhere, it remains a threat to people everywhere.

While that is certainly true, a broader takeaway is that infections that can be prevented or mitigated by vaccines — from polio and COVID-19 to measles and the flu and beyond — remain a threat when vaccine uptake declines.

Vaccine hesitancy persists due to misinformation and political positioning. Or perhaps, many people simply don’t know anyone who has suffered the ravaging effects of a vaccine-preventable disease such as polio. Nevertheless, the case for immunizations is clear, particularly as we prepare for a new school year.

According to Tribune reporting in November, unsurprisingly, the rate of routine childhood immunizations required for schoolage children in Illinois slipped during the pandemic. But even as Illinois, the U.S. and countries around the world rebound, we must not become complacent or pretend that our families are immune to succumbing to the dangers of these diseases.

I wholeheartedly agree that no one likes shots, but a shot is unequivocally preferable to unnecessary hospitalizations or worse.

In that spirit, I not only second the editorial board’s call to “do the right thing to protect yourself, your loved ones and public health” by getting immunized. But I also wish to take it a step further by asking readers to do their part to protect public health by encouraging vaccine acceptance and uptake in their own families and communities.