Hat-trick of reasons to get vaccinated against COVID-19

We have been playing a match against the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus for a year. The game is getting long. That initial whistle in December 2019, in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is far away.

-Piiiiii, the game begins. Silence in the Blue Planet Stadium. The game kick-off only arouses the interest of a few Chinese families.

On December 31, 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported that there was pneumonia of viral origin carrying the weight of the match due to our team’s passivity, let’s name it Humanity Athletic, who left the field asleep¹. In January 2020, Chinese players from Humanity Athletic scored two early goals against SARS-Cov-2, two jugs of cold water for the viral team. Specifically, on January 9, the virus causing the disease was identified, and on January 13, a protocol was published to detect the virus by RT-PCR. Two claws that could have been definitive for another infectious team, but not for SARS-Cov-2. The viral squad, made up of billions of viruses, continued to play its game, replicating and expanding, until March 11, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the rival had caused a pandemic. It was then that Humanity Athletic began to take the game seriously and began to play as a team. So, while most of the Humanity Athletic squad was locked-down at the defensive line, health workers, scientists and essential activities workers, were making efforts to win the ball back by pressuring the SARS-Cov-2 on its own field. We already know the rest of the game. Too much confidence in our team, especially in defense, which stimulated the opponent’s attack in the form of waves of infections and deaths. And so, a year went by. If you swung wrongly to one side, they entered you from the other. If you did not play the offside trap correctly, they scored. To face this match against SARS-Cov-2, a defensive concentration is required that we have not maintained. A year of a rough game, of nasty tackles, of long balls to the box. A year losing and regaining possession. One year! One year playing in a muddy field. A year looking askance at the band, where vaccines were warming up.

Before getting into the pitch, vaccines need three warm-up phases. Phase III is the most complicated because each candidate vaccine needs to be injected into thousands of people before the referee allows it to play. The good news, and the reason I am writing these lines, is that we already have vaccines on the pitch. Specifically, as of today (2/1/2021), eight vaccines have been approved in some places and will soon be approved in others. These eight vaccines have been developed in China (3), in Russia (2), in the United Kingdom (1, that of AstraZeneca / Oxford), and the United States (2, that of Pfizer and that of Moderna) ². In addition, there are four other vaccines heating in Phase III (one Chinese, one Indian, and two from international pharmaceutical companies (Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax). Twenty vaccines are in Phase II, and another twelve are in Phase I.

Those vaccines will help us win this game, but some Humanity Athletic players are have doubts. You have to provide minutes on the pitch to the new vaccines. Help them, support them, and applaud them at every positive action. Here I give three reasons to get vaccinated and to encourage people around you to do it too. In this way, we will give the vaccines confidence to freely play their game until they crush the rival. Come on! We will win this match!

BELOW, LINKS TO THREE REASONS, EXPLAINED WITH SCIENCE + FOOTBALL/SOCCER, TO GET VACCINATED