Our View: Vaccinate for 2022

The end of 2021 means the COVID-19 pandemic will have lasted nearly two years in Wyoming.

While the first signs of the pandemic didn’t hit the state until March 2020, its impacts were immediate. State basketball championships were canceled, followed by a closure of public buildings and schools as people scrambled to make sense of the disease this novel coronavirus caused.

Now, at the absolute end of 2021, more than 800,000 deaths in the United States have been attributed to COVID-19. It isn’t hard to see a day when that tally hits seven figures. We imagine that day will come in 2022.

Its an oft-repeated message, but vaccinations are really the only way to go and we encourage residents to both seek out a vaccination or get a booster if they’re eligible.

People will openly claim that vaccines and boosters do nothing but prolong the pandemic. They are wrong. There are people who tout any number of natural and unorthodox treatments and procedures will alleviate the symptoms and cure the disease. They are wrong as well.

As a new variant of COVID-19 is sweeping across the nation, we need to be willing to do whatever it takes to make sure this pandemic ends. What’s really at stake is our hospital’s ability to care for non COVID-19 patients. Our healthcare system breaks down if large numbers of COVID-19 patients begin overrunning services. To avoid this, we need to be willing to not only vaccinate ourselves, but be willing to mask up and ensure we follow the six-foot social distancing guidelines initially proposed. The state needs to become more serious about fighting COVID-19 and enact policies that can help the state’s hospitals. The federal government should also be working with other nations to push for true world-wide vaccination effort, which includes ensuring vaccines are available in poorer nations.

We can’t simply sit back and just adopt the current state of COVID-19 to be the new normal we live with. We need to be willing to do what’s necessary to limit the virus’ transmission. This includes vaccination and the goal of a severely limited coronavirus won’t be accomplished without it.