The results came out in late November 2020. Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines were 90-95% effective in preventing respiratory illness and nearly 100% effective in preventing severe illness and death. Side effects were minimal in the tens of thousands of volunteers who participated in each trial. It was a moment of deep relief, gratitude to all who made this possible, and answered prayers. I tried to talk to my dedicated team about the importance of what had just happened, but I couldn't find the words to fully express the emotions of that moment. I couldn't hold back the tears.
Future historians will rank the development of a safe and effective mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in 11 months as one of the greatest medical achievements in human history. We felt we were finally on the path to defeating the disease and halting the horrific death toll. And to a large extent, that has happened. According to current estimates from the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation that supports medical research, COVID-19 vaccines have saved more than 3 million lives in the United States between December 2020 and November 2022. If you've been vaccinated, you may be one of them. You may be one of them.
But ultimately, more than 50 million American adults declined to be vaccinated — even after the vaccine was free and widely available. Medicine and public health don’t sit well with politics, but political party was a strong precursor to resistance. So did religion, with white evangelical Christians (my group) being the most resistant. Public distrust, sparked by social media, cable news, and even some politicians, reflected a host of concerns about whether COVID-19 was real, whether it was really that serious, whether the vaccine was rushed, whether common and serious side effects were hidden, whether mRNA would change the recipient’s DNA, whether companies had circumvented safety regulations, and more. Social media also circumvented more outlandish conspiracy theories, such as that the vaccine contained microchips or cells from recently aborted fetuses. People of faith were hit especially hard by misinformation.
The consequences of vaccine misinformation have been truly tragic.
The efficacy of the vaccine gradually weakened over time, and the emergence of new variants of COVID-19 (alpha, beta, delta, omicron, JN.1, KP.2…) called into question the durability of immune protection, necessitating the redesign of boosters to cover new strains. Although vaccinated people like me could still get COVID-19, the latest CDC research shows that vaccination reduces the risk of infection by more than 50% and provides even greater protection against severe illness.
But they only work if people actually take them, and for many people, they didn't work.
The statistic that pains me the most is this one: According to a study by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, between June 2021 and March 2022, more than 230,000 Americans died needlessly, primarily due to misinformation distracting people from what might have been a salvation in the midst of a dangerous pandemic. This death rate is equivalent to four fully loaded 737s crashing every day.
