A Message to Loved Anti-Vaxxers

I wrote the message below to some family members who are Anti-Vaxxers. I love them and am worried that they could get COVID-19 or a later variant so I try to walk through the basis of science from many of the objections that I have heard. If this helps you feel free to use it.

I have wanted to write this for a while but I also want to make sure that I have my facts straight. You have said that you will not be getting the vaccine for COVID-19 and I think that this decision endangers both of your lives greatly for reasons that we will get into later in this message. I love you and I would like for you to be educated by real scientists that have published information about how we can all protect ourselves.

To make it simple our immune system has no way of identifying COVID-19 as something that it should fight. It is because this virus came out of another animal and it has now been translated to humans (https://www.webmd.com/lung/coronavirus-history).

If you get it and are at the hospital your best course of treatment right now would be to ask for the Eli Lilly or Regeneron cocktail and keep fighting for it until they give it to you, it contains antibodies that would give you a fighting chance. Jackee’s (My Wife’s) cousin Tony was in good shape at 58 and within 14 days of initially getting it, he was dead. This thing moves fast and by the time that you are thinking about getting help it may be too late.

It is my personal choice

• It is your personal choice. I hope that by looking at the facts from places like Mayo Clinic, Harvard, and the CDC that you will listen to the real scientists that are publishing information about what you should do. There is a lot of misinformation out there that comes from individuals who have been proven to be on the fringe where their facts do not pan out. My hope is that you choose to get the shot before you get it and we lose someone else I love during this time.

Initial Questions

1. When you go to the doctor and they prescribe a medicine that you have to take, do you take it?
2. Do you take things that are meant to prevent you from getting sick? (i.e. Vitamins or Prescribed Medicines)

Risk

• In general, I read that there is an 8% chance in the US that you can get COVID-19. With the variants, the exposure rate has gone up and if you get it the chance of it taking hold is higher, they move faster and for now, most variants are blocked by the vaccine. I would still count that roughly one person out of every 10 you encounter is infected. If you get it there is a good chance that you will die from it especially if you have any compounding factors (i.e. over 60, overweight, smoke or have lung problems).
• AS of 4–19 in Tennessee, the rates of infection are around 7% (https://www.tn.gov/health/cedep/ncov.html)

• If you want to know what the risks are for going out you can Calculate Exposure Risk: https://mycovidrisk.app/
• If you want to know the chances of death there are calculators for that as well Mortality Risk: https://covid19risktools.com:8443/
• Smoking, age, and being overweight can increase risk of death if you get the virus.

Masks

• I know that the Covid-19 virus has been politicized but the reality is that things that lower your viral load prevent your body from getting sick. Last March when Jackee was flying to Maryland I asked her to wear a mask because it would block the virus. The government at that time was not recommending masks but the reality is that wearing one prevents large amounts of the virus from being spread to you. It also prevents you from spitting on people so that you cannot contaminate anyone.
• This article by scientists at Mayo Clinic talks about types of masks and which ones help to prevent the virus. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449
• The primary takeaway is that wearing a mask may prevent you from getting the virus by blocking out big droplets. However, to really ensure safety, hand sanitizer and washing your hands may lower the viral load and prevent you from getting the virus.
• Masks are a pain in the ass to wear but I would suggest that you wear them for the foreseeable future even if the government says it is okay to go without them. Too many politicians have made mask-wearing an item they want to get rid of and their loyalties are not aligned with science.

Vaccines

• A vaccine when injected in your body causes an immune response that has your body build the medicine to fix itself (antibodies). When you get the flu shot you are injected with a part of the virus that causes an immune reaction that will then cause your body to build antibodies to fight the infection if it sees that infection again. Why you feel sore or tired after getting these shots is because your body is reacting and building these antibodies. The new vaccines mRNA vaccines do not contain the virus at all but they contain instructions about how to spot the COVID spike protein (The spikes outside of the virus that they show in the COVID picture). They still cause an immune response that may make you tired or sore but it has no way of causing the virus.

There are four primary types of vaccines:

• Whole virus — this is like the flu vaccine where they grow the virus then inject you with a portion of the virus that your body can fight.
• Protein Subunit — This uses a part of the virus-like the spike protein to instruct the body what the virus looks like. Unfortunately, in the case of COVID it might not create enough of an immune response so more boosters might be needed.
• Nucleic — These types of vaccines help to send instructions into the body so that your t-cells and b-cells know what to attack.
• Viral Vector (mRNA vaccines)- Instructions are sent into your body with clear instructions about what to attack.
• There is a nice video made by the CDC that covers all four types (https://youtu.be/lFjIVIIcCvc)

Back to the questions

• The same science that makes vaccines makes the other medicine that you take. In the case of the COVID vaccine, the method for protection delivery is really not any different than any other type of current biological drug. Although medicines made of compounds (i.e. acetaminophen) are still popular, many recent drugs are built in a similar fashion to three of the methods (protein subunit, Nucleic or mRNA). These drugs are called biologicals and make up most of the current breakthrough drugs that are out there. If you do not believe in vaccines, then it makes no sense to me then that you would take drugs for hypertension, cholesterol, or other problems because they are built from the same science.
• When you take vitamins it is to increase your ability to fight infection. Why not give your body a fighting chance by giving it the instructions for what to fight. Having a strong immune system is important but scientists have proven that our immune systems look past the COVID virus because its origin is not human.

Safety

• There were 21 cases of anaphylaxis in nearly 2M doses given of the COVID vaccine. That equates to a .0000105% chance of having a reaction (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7002e1.htm)
• The J&J shot there were 6 cases of blood clots in 6.8 M doses given which is a .0000008% chance of having a reaction (https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0413-JJ-vaccine.html)

Who is vaccinated

• Donald Trump — Vaccinated in January
• Melania Trump — Vaccinated in January
• Eric Trump — Vaccinated
• Donald Trump Jr — Vaccinated
• Ivanka Trump — Vaccinated

I looked for records to see if Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson are vaccinated and although I cannot find it even though they are publicly opposing it I have to wonder if they are also vaccinated. Hannity has said that he will get the shot but I have not found anything that has said he has done so. (I believe these dates are now available for anyone to find on Google)

Lastly, it is not just for you. More scary versions of the virus keep coming and although the first one seems to have come out of China the other variants have been from here and the UK. With people moving around new versions of this virus are going to keep coming and your best chance at being able to fight it is by preparing your immune system with a vaccine. People that have been vaccinated and the children that have not yet gotten it can still be infected by the virus but they may not show the same symptoms (https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus-outbreak-and-kids)

I love you and want only for you to consider the options from the basis of science versus what keeps getting politicized in the media.