I think if there was a vote on the most asked question of this past year, it would be this.

Here are a few reasons.

1. To protect yourself from a potentially bad outcome. We do not know how different people are affected by an infection with Covid. The good majority of patients do okay and get through the infection, but there are some that do pass away from covid. This has been seen in young completely healthy individuals and at this point in time we do not have a way to predict that.

2. To protect those around you. You may be one of those people that has mild enough symptoms, however what if you have a parent, grandparent or child that would not fare well.

3. To do your part in helping slow the development of new variants. Whenever the virus infects a person, it creates copies of itself. Every time it does this it has the potential for mutations to occur. Not all mutations result in new variants. What we worry about is when a mutation is advantageous to the virus and creates a stronger, smarter version of the virus. In vaccinated people they have already developed antibodies that are present in the body to help fight it and minimize the chance of this happening. In someone who is unvaccinated it can take 2-4 weeks to create the antibodies needed to fight the virus. So, while the body is busy doing that the virus has free reign to reproduce and increase its chances for a new variant.

It does not prevent you from getting Covid. Much like the flu shot, it is designed to minimize the severity symptoms.

The days following a Covid vaccine shot vary from person to person. Most people will complain of a sore arm. Occasionally patients will complain of a headache, fever, chills, body aches, or upset stomach. These symptoms are transient and usually last 1-2 days. This does not mean you have Covid. Everyone's immune system reacts differently, and the symptoms generally indicate the immune system is working and doing what it is supposed to do. Don't be alarmed if you do not have these symptoms though, again everyone is different

Some vaccines utilize live or weakened forms of viruses to cause an immune response in the body. The Covid vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer do not utilize this approach, and will not cause you to develop Covid or to have false positive PCR tests

The vaccines utilize mRNA which stays outside of nucleus of the cell where the DNA is located. The mRNA basically gives our cells a recipe to create a portion of the virus so our immune system can recognize it and create antibodies to fight it when we do get infected

It does not cause infertility. There is a rumor that the antibodies against the spike protein that the vaccine cause us to develop will also attack the placenta because the spike protein shared the same genetic material as a protein found in the placenta called syncytin-1.

The vaccine does share a sequence of four amino acids with syncytin-1. However, syncytin-1 is made up of 538 amino acids. That minute of a similarity is not enough to cause autoimmune issues with the placenta.

The other thing to keep in mind is the number of pregnant women who have had Covid and carried their pregnancies to full term. If the rumor was true, then as soon as these women developed their own antibodies to the infection, they would have had issues with the pregnancies

It does not contain any metals and will not make your arm magnetic.

The vaccine will not cause you to test positive for Covid with a PCR test. The tests used to diagnose Covid are looking for the genetic material of the virus. The spike proteins produced by the vaccine don't have the complete genetic information of the virus so they wouldn't register on the typical PCR testing methods.

mRNA as it is, is very fragile to begin with. It only survives for a few days. Once it carries out its purpose the cell breaks it down in to harmless particles.

Here is a chart that lists the ingredients in both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Pfizer is FDA approved for ages 16 and up. It can be used under the EUA for ages 12-16.

Moderna should have its FDA approval soon, but in the meantime can be used under the EUA for ages 18 and up