Why do people not trust the science behind COVID vaccines? A virologist explains.

Why do people who trust the science behind so many things in modern life not trust the science behind COVID vaccines? That was among the questions we asked Virologist, Dr. James Alwine, a visiting professor of Immunobiology at the U of A.

The issues the U.S. is facing right now is, “we have large portions of this country, which are unvaccinated. And the virus is really spreading rapidly among that group, this delta variant is more transmissible than previous variants, that means that more people are going to get sick, there’s going to be more hospitalizations,” Alwine said.

Alwine explained that when contracting a virus it can further damage your body. And COVID is one virus that is showing long-term effects of, “debilitating fatigue, it’s neurological disorders, which some people think look a lot like dementia, even have heart disorders, and we’ve only known this virus for 18 months. We don’t have any idea what the long term effects might be two years, five years from now, which is when a lot of virus long term effects, start showing up.”

He believes vaccination is a key component in protecting yourself against this virus, “I think this is a reason to protect yourself in any way you can vaccination is the best way to protect yourself [and] masking.”

Why are people not getting vaccinated?

“You know a lot of people think the vaccine is not safe. A lot of people believe that it hasn’t been… fully okayed by the FDA. And, but if you look at it around the world, almost a half a billion people have been vaccinated around the world. There have been few verified deaths from the vaccination, and there are side effects that are not very terrible side effects,” Alwine said.

He mentioned that the FDA has a slow and deliberate process for a reason and that the COVID vaccines should be fully approved of in the near future.