 | By Max Strasser |
I spend a lot of time thinking about vaccines these days. Like, a lot. I think about who has access to them and who doesn't (but should); about how they are working and how they might not be; most of all, I think about if and when they will end this miserable, interminable, godawful pandemic. You're probably spending a lot of time thinking about this, too. |
Putting aside for a moment the generally terrible facts about distributional fairness in America and the world, I think the vaccines are actually, overall, a good news story. (Contributing Opinion writer Zeynep Tufekci and columnist Ezra Klein discussed this recently on Ezra's podcast.) The vaccines work! And they were developed, trialed and approved with amazing speed. As the science journalist Stephen Buranyi put it in a December Op-Ed: "It's about as near as science gets to a miracle." |
But with speed comes confusion. And that's especially the case in our current climate of disinformation and online rumor mongering. |
In an Op-Ed this weekend, Aaron E. Carroll, a doctor and a contributing Opinion writer, addressed and disproved seven common myths that are circulating about the Covid-19 vaccines. Some of it is good news: Don't believe the rumors, Aaron writes, about cut corners during the vaccines trials. Likewise, it is most definitely not true that the vaccines are more dangerous than getting the virus. |
Other facts are less encouraging: Aaron says that no matter how much you may want this pandemic to end, it won't disappear as soon as the vaccines help us reach herd immunity. That "will signal the beginning of the end of the pandemic — not the day we are done with it." |
I'll admit that I don't love to hear that. But as we all have our eyes on those vials and syringes, it's better to be equipped with the truth. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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