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10.7% DID YOU CONTRACT COVID-19 AT ANY POINT IN THE PAST YEAR?
89.3%
Yes No
H ESITANT, CONTINUED FROM 7 Then there are the conspiracy theories — the vaccine contains antifreeze, it’s a government plot to thin the herd, doses contain microchip trackers courtesy of Bill Gates — and Conner has heard them all. She made it clear that she doesn’t believe any of that stuff. “It’s just crazy,” she said. Conner herself gets the flu vaccine every year, and she said that in six months to a year she might consider going in for a
DID YOU OR ANYBODY CLOSE TO YOU GET SERIOUSLY SICK WITH
62.5%
COVID-19?
April 7-13, 2021
37.5%
COVID shot too. Just not yet. She also believes that the vaccine works, at least in the short term. Her mother, also a Waynesville resident, got the vaccine and never caught COVID despite the fact that her neighbor, with whom she had spent quite a bit of unmasked time, got the virus. Meanwhile, Conner’s 14-year-old cousin, who is not vaccinated, became so sick with COVID-19 that she had to go to the hospital for breathing treatment. “I feel like it’s effective,” she said. “I just don’t know of the long-term effect.”
Yes No
gy has been used to treat many other serious diseases for many years now; the reporting on this technology made most people suspicious of ‘something messing with my genes,’ and they are having none of it. Many people I know of are ‘waiting to see’ if it’s safe, so it is imperative that the media stop reporting just the bad stuff and start reporting on all the people with no problems. Until people believe that, I think they won’t get the vaccine, and COVID will not go away.” According to the Cleveland Clinic, a vaccinated person acts as a barrier to slow and prevent the virus from continuing to spread. The ultimate end goal is to get as many people
vaccinated as possible so that more people are protected. The entire population benefits from a high vaccination coverage. The estimated vaccination rate needed for the herd immunity threshold for COVID-19 is roughly 50-80 percent of the population. In contrast, the flu needs only 33-44 percent of the population vaccinated. Stewart’s husband was a research biologist for 25 years, so it is easy for her to understand that getting the vaccine itself is safer than contracting COVID-19. “I think people who aren’t getting vaccinated are scared. They’re afraid of the unknown. I personally am afraid of the known .... COVID-19 kills people. I’ll take my chances with a vaccine that is not FDAapproved over dying,” said Stewart.
Smoky Mountain News
VACCINE, CONTINUED FROM 7
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