By Ava Eliasson
Précis
Having almost completed a full school year of virtual learning, people 12 years and older have fortunately been approved to get vaccinated against COVID-19. This brings about new opportunities to return to pre-pandemic life. However, there we are in the midst of a great reckoning and a communal questioning about the present and future. With this in mind, I collected and analyzed the opinions of Nyack High School students about the new and unfamiliar vaccine.
Collecting data
At first, I found it most logical to reach out to my school acquaintances individually, but with a busy schedule and limited scope, I resorted to polling a group of NHS students on Instagram.
I wanted to know the perspective of students my age enduring a similar situation, whether they were feeling apprehensive or comfortable about getting vaccinated. I asked four questions: Do you feel the need or want to get vaccinated? Have you or those around you been vaccinated? Do you believe that everyone should get vaccinated against COVID- 19? Do you have any additional thoughts on this subject matter?
The outcome was fair and telling. Out of 58 Nyack high school students, 48 (or approximately 83%) feel the need or want to get vaccinated. On average, about 90% of the students polled supported collective vaccination. Furthermore, 57 of 71 students (about 81% of the sample) have been vaccinated against COVID-19 as of May 18th.
Four students chose to share their additional thoughts. There were varying results: one person was “not against it, but didn’t trust it”, another thought they should be “encouraged but not mandatory”, and two students believed vaccination would benefit public health safety.
Subsequently, I consulted a close friend, Heywete Casimiro, to hear what she had to say. She responded, “I definitely feel the need to get vaccinated. I want to protect those around me and most importantly myself and my health.” She later added, “I believe everyone should get vaccinated. Specifically because I think if this occurs we will have a fighting chance at getting rid of the virus all together, leaving it no chance to mutate.”
Similarly, another friend, friend Hayden Savage, said, “[I see] the importance of respecting people's opinions regarding vaccines. If they don't feel comfortable getting it because they may think it is too new or that they feel they are in no rush to get it, they shouldn't be ashamed about it. It all goes back to respect.”
Pinpointing significance
The indecisiveness that my polls uncovered is understandable: for the first time in our lives, we are deciding for ourselves to get vaccinated. For people like me who have yet to be vaccinated, major factors of our hesitation include health risks, side effects, availability, safety, and/or religious beliefs.
Whether you are part of the 83% of students who recognize the demand for vaccination, the 90% of with a positive outlook on it, or the 19% who have not been vaccinated, it is undeniable that at least three pharmaceutical companies have developed viable, safe vaccines, which have the potential to flatten the curve of coronavirus cases. It has already been administered to essential workers, elderly people, adults, and now adolescents.
It’s important for everyone to realize that it is possible to contract COVID-19 a second time. Uncertainty exists surrounding how long natural immunity lasts, and long-lasting effects of COVID are unknown. Furthermore, it’s been recorded that the vaccine does not ever worsen symptoms, but can actually improve them.
By all means, getting vaccinated should be a personal, family and medical choice, which should be optimally made as soon as possible and based on one’s own health concerns or life activities.
Even if the vaccines seem to be working effectively in the youngest eligible age group and many are eager to reach herd immunity, there are risks. First off, even after rigorous study, all of the U.S. authorized COVID vaccines are still being closely studied while being given to the public, and unexpected concerns can still emerge. Some adolescents may faint or experience swelling, bruising at the injection site, headaches, tiredness, fevers, chills, or joint pain after their second dose. One could argue that children in the US only represent a fraction of new weekly reported cases of COVID- 19 and they are not at risk of becoming seriously ill, but there is certainly reasoning for cautious optimism in the next few months.
This summer and next school year
Many American teenagers are enthusiastic about Summer 2021. With more relaxed CDC guidelines and increased immunity, it’s intuitive to expect more of the activities we enjoy to resume safely in the near future.
While some believe that the pandemic can be “temporarily throttled by July if the vast majority of people get vaccinated and continue with precautions against viral transmission”, reliable CDC reports can only offer guidance from models, rates, and precautions. Therefore plans for the future are unconfirmed, but it is only natural for buoyancy and resilience to heighten as COVID-related deaths decrease week by week.
One teenageer from New York interviewed by Vogue commented, “I crave the normalcy that life used to offer.” Another young person, a 23-year-old New Yorker, said, “I’m looking forward to seeing how the world shifts to the ‘ending’ of the pandemic and hopefully a collective reduction of fear/anxiety.”.A third student responded, “I want to go to the Met and take it in with other people around, and then picnic in the park where that field hospital used to be. I hope it will bring closure to a time that I have to remind myself is no longer the present.”
The places we used to go, like sporting events and concerts, are opening up as outdoor or large locations permit appropriate spacing. After two weeks of receiving a second dose of vaccine, vaccinated people can gather outdoors without face masks. It’s likely that there will be a spike in travel this year as airports are already becoming busy, but there is still a risk of transmission. Unless completely necessary, it isn’t recommended to travel yet.
As we continue our education, we have been obligated to navigate our way through a strange year of learning, but we should expect news of school reopenings in the next months. Fauci said, "Hopefully, by the time we start entering 2022, we really will have a degree of normality that will approximate the kind of normality we've been used to." All because of two shots of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 or one shot of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine, the world is changing as you read this.
As most Nyack High Schoolers would agree, getting vaccinated is one of many steps used for protection against the viscous disease. In the face of preventing severe illness or death, I believe our school should take advantage of the tools available to stop the pandemic, and live up to our envision of a post covid life.
Sources used:
Half of all New York adults vaccinated against COVID | PIX11
Should Your Child Get the COVID Vaccine? - Scientific American
Explainer: Should My Teen Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? | Top News | US News
What People Are Most Excited About Post-Vaccine: Friends, Family, and Live Events | Teen Vogue
Experts Predict What Summer 2021 Will Be Like With The COVID-19 Pandemic | HuffPost Life
Experts Predict What School Will Look Like Next Fall | HuffPost Life
Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work | CDC