Our lives are drastically changing with the emergence of COVID-19. Heated debates have arisen on whether or not to get the vaccine. How will your decision to get a vaccine affect our community and possibly the world? Everyone knows about COVID as well as the vaccine but how many people are now vaccinated and how does being vaccinated protect you? This article covers how vaccine statistics affect COVID expansion throughout the world, how COVID impacts this community and how being unvaccinated will change your everyday life. I want to find if getting vaccinated can positively change communities and decrease the spread of COVID. COVID vaccines have been widely dispersed, but not everyone has received one; is not getting the vaccine creating new variants?

The individual getting vaccinated impacts how COVID spreads throughout the world. The NBC nightly news reports statistics of how many people get covid when they are fully vaccinated with boosters versus people who have no vaccine, ¨ Unvaccinated: 451/100,000 people, Vaccinated: 48/100,000 people.¨ That is 403 more people to get COVID unvaccinated than with the booster. The vaccine is the most powerful tool against COVID; it lowers your chances of infection as well as decreasing how sick you will be if you are COVID positive. The vaccine results are overwhelmingly positive but many Americans still refuse to get the vaccination. An article written by the census provides us with a statistics on how many Americans are vaccinated by stating, “ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that as of December 14, roughly 85% of adults ages 18 and over in the United States had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine but 15% remained unvaccinated.¨ That seems like a small number of people but there are 392.5 million people in America so 15% ends up being a large part of Americans who refuse the second dose or booster even with new Omicron surges. The vaccine affects everyone's lives in how drawn out the COVID surge is which continuously puts stress on our community.

COVID has had a large effect on the world which also strains our local population in Humboldt. Hospitals are directly dealing with COVID which puts a lot of strain on them due the constant influx of new patients needing treatment. I conducted 2 interviews both including active employees of the hospital. The first is Rebecca Pardoe, PT, who oversees the joint and spine program at St. Joseph Hospital. The next is Mark Pardoe, MD, a plastic surgeon who works for the Providence Medical Group. I interviewed Mark Pardoe because he is a major surgeon locally. I asked how COVID patients affect the hospital, and whether or not work in the hospital is affected by unvaccinated employees and patients. He responded with,“ For people like myself who are surgeons, my cases get delayed because there's not enough beds in the hospital to allow those cases to go forward. They are filled with patients who are sick with COVID and require a lot of resources or conversely there is not enough staff because they are out sick with COVID as well. That's why the vaccine is so important for the staff because the hope is they won't be nearly as sick and be off work as long because we need them back; they are all so important¨(Pardoe 1/17/22). COVID has a huge effect on the hospital which is something not everyone thinks about. With an already tightly run business a large addition of patients causes many pre-existing cases to be canceled. My other interview was of the orthopedic and spine navigator, Rebecca Pardoe, who oversees a large part of elective surgeries. I asked her a similar question about the effects of COVID in the hospital and how people's choice to be vaccinated affects the hospital. She responded by saying,¨My patient population has been severely affected by unvaccinated patients taking up hospital beds for long periods of time. COVID patients are in the hospital for a week or more so the hospital is full and cannot take patients who have been waiting for months if not years for surgery.¨(Pardoe 1/17/22) This shows the dramatic effects of COVID patients in the hospital. With COVID, the likelihood of getting sick enough for hospitalization greatly decreases with the vaccine which is important for freeing up hospital beds for elective surgeries. Being unvaccinated affects people around you but how will the unvaccinated people's lives change?

How will unvaccinated people's lives change with ever going variants and increasing mandates? Jobs at the hospital, for the government or a plethora of others are adding COVID to their vaccine requirements. Vaccines have been required for everyday life for decades and it is no shock that in order to live your life the COVID vaccine is now a requirement. Even private owned businesses like restaurants can require vaccine cards for entry. One new large mandate was made in California stating that¨ In October, California became the first state to announce that the COVID-19 vaccine will be added to the list of required shots for all students attending public or private schools in-person. The mandate will likely take effect on July 1, 2022¨(Opalach, 12/3/21). By summer next year no unvaccinated student will be able to attend a public school. This proves that California will only increase mandates. Through this article, research has shown the overwhelmingly negative effects of not being vaccinated and why being vaccinated is important for the well being of the community as well as for individuals.

The unvaccinated population increases their personal chance of getting COVID as well as increasing the probability of new variants. The COVID vaccine impacts the well being of the world, our community, and people's daily lives. To change the course of the COVID disease everyone needs to be vaccinated which will increase pressure on the unvaccinated through mandates. COVID will still affect vaccinated people's lives through ever-changing variants. COVID and the vaccine have changed every aspect of human life through community, healthcare, schooling and the ever-increasing changes it makes to the world. 

By,

Kata Pardoe

The Eureka St. Joseph hospital. The main hospital in Humboldt that takes in the Humboldt COVID patents.