Editorial: Do what's best and take the covid-19 vaccine

On Monday, the first health care workers rolled up their sleeves and accepted a shot in the arm of the Pfizer/BioNTech cocktail that offers hope against the coronavirus pandemic. In Pittsburgh, five front-line UPMC employees, including a critical care nurse and a patient transporter, had their injections livestreamed.

This is the culmination of nine months of work to push back against covid-19. This is the day that we have anticipated. Now, when your turn comes up, just do it.

Do it because it is smart. Because it is brave. Because it is the right thing to do.

Take the shot for yourself.

The Pfizer vaccine is 52% effective after the first dose and 95% after the second. That is a dramatic number — as much as twice as effective as the flu vaccine. It doesn’t just promise to reduce the number of cases of covid-19, but to help the cases that are acquired be less deadly.

Take the shot for the people you love.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in November followed 101 coronavirus patients. It showed that 191 household members also tested positive for the disease within five days of the first diagnosis. Those subsequent patients were as likely to be adults as children.

Take the shot for your neighbors. For your friends and your co-workers and the people who study or worship or exercise beside you. Because not all of them will be able to take it.

As with any vaccine, there are those whose immune systems will not tolerate it, and many of those could be among the most at risk from covid. There will be those with certain allergies who would take the vaccine if it were possible, but it isn’t. For those people, the best defense is tamping down the disease’s spread overall.

Take the shot for the economy.

The idea of a booster shot for the economy is a common analogy. This time it is not a metaphor.

While the coronavirus attacks the circulation system of the human body, the lockdowns aimed at limiting it have crippled the way money flows through businesses and bank accounts. Unemployment has been unprecedented. Small businesses — particularly restaurants and bars — have been forced to find new ways to do business or close their doors. This can be rectified only by restraining the disease instead of the economy.

Take the shot for Pennsylvania.

The pandemic is not just attacking bodies. It is threatening our communities by pitting people against one another over issues like masks and distance and who complies with state or local regulations and who doesn’t. Now is the time to stop fighting and do something that can make a real difference.

We need this. The number of people dead from the pandemic in the U.S. is 300,000 and climbing. Our only way to the other side is to pull together and to think about what is best for everyone.

Do what is necessary. Take the vaccine.