Vaccinations will save countless lives

To the Times:

Most U.S. adults say they know someone who has been hospitalized or died due to COVID-19. I suspect that’s an undercount, particularly when an estimated 500,000+ Americans will die from COVID-19 by next month. In L.A., someone is dying now every six minutes.

We can’t afford the luxury of studying a drug for months or years when people are literally dying by minutes. Admittedly, drug development and regulatory review moved at unprecedented speed but anyone who understands the process knows that the FDA doesn’t cut corners nor issue free passes. As it is, the FDA is requiring a minimum of two months of safety data on COVID-19 vaccines and drug makers must continue to gather such data.

I will get vaccinated as soon as it’s my turn. I have full faith, confidence and trust in scientists driving public health decisions. Some people are refusing a vaccine for fear that it contains a tracking chip. How do you disabuse someone of such a notion when everyday mobile devices pose a far bigger threat to personal privacy than the life-saving

medicine going into an arm ever could? Imposing mandates or offering financial incentives to get vaccinated would not be uniformly effective, if not totally inappropriate.

We need community dialogue more than top-down prescriptions. Ultimately, the solution involves collectively exercising hearts and brains in civil discourse and avoiding the folly of simply throwing facts at feelings and beliefs to see what sticks.