During the congressional debate, Sarah Palin made several assertions that disturbed me. She said repeatedly that COVID-19 vaccines are experimental. They are not experimental. The FDA and CDC have approved their use. Animal and clinical trials have demonstrated that the vaccines are effective in lessening the severity and lethality of COVID, and are safe. Millions of people around the world have been vaccinated without issues. It is ill-informed at best and misleading at worst to maintain otherwise.
Nearly a million Americans have died from COVID. The toll would have been much worse without the vaccines, which were developed at lightning speed. Sadly, many deaths could have been prevented if so many people had not refused to get vaccinated. If vaccination had been widely embraced, new virulent COVID strains would not have been able to mutate so readily and we might have been able to nip the scourge in the bud.
During the debates, Ms. Palin and Kelly Tshibaka also railed again the U.S. military’s vaccination requirement and advocated that service members separated from the military because of vaccine refusal be reinstated with benefits. What kind of military readiness do they think we would have with a highly contagious illness infecting, weakening, and even killing our troops?
There are times when individual liberties must be weighed against societal needs. Keeping the vast majority of the public safe from a highly infectious, potentially lethal disease is worth making some personal liberty concessions. There will be other pandemics. I hope we remember the painful lessons learned from this one.
— Chris Tower Zafren
Anchorage
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