In his letter “Don’t worry about the unvaxxed” (Dec. 2, TribLIVE), Michael J. Arnone asked why vaccinated people, if they believe the vaccine works, care if others are not vaccinated? Here are four reasons why it matters:

• Children under the age of 5 are not yet able to be vaccinated. Do you want to be responsible for a toddler becoming sick (or worse)?

• There are those for whom the vaccine will not help because they cannot produce the necessary antibodies. Are you OK with infecting someone who is immunocompromised?

• No medical scientist, even the most pro vaccination, ever said the vaccines were 100% effective. They offer amazing protection against covid-19, but vaccinated persons can still get infected by you.

• Lastly, and maybe the most important, mutations/variants develop only in infected people. The unvaccinated are many times more likely to become infected. The more unvaccinated there are, the more disease there will be, and the likelihood of more variants being produced becomes greater. The more variants there are, the greater the chance that one of them will mutate to a disease where the vaccines become less effective or don’t work at all.

By not getting the vaccine, you are not only endangering those around you, you are increasing the possibility that this pandemic will last much longer than it needs to.

Robert Charlton

Springdale

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