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Letter: Getting vaccinated stopped smallpox and polio. Stopping COVID requires the same.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Irene Stukshis administers the Covid -19 vaccine to Stephan Rich, at the Mountain America Expo site in Sandy on Monday, March 8, 2021.

I just don’t get it.

Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s we all got the smallpox vaccine, and we have the scar on our upper arms to prove it. And, because it worked, the younger generations no longer have the need to receive the vaccine.

Then in the early 1960s we received the polio vaccine, some of us got it at school, some of us went to the doctor, and some of us drove over to the local drive-in as a family and received the vaccine in a sugar cube. That is why we no longer see iron lungs all over in the hospitals.

We defeated both afflictions because the vaccines worked, and for the most part everyone received the vaccine. I do not recall anyone saying, it’s all a hoax, or vaccines do to work, we cooperated to stop these diseases dead in their tracks.

Now that brings up the COVID-19 vaccines. To date, over 577,000 have died and counting, we still have a pandemic not only affecting the U.S., but the entire world. Science and our government worked together to provide us with vaccines to stop COVID-19, and so far millions have received the vaccines, but the percent of Americans getting vaccinated is barely at 30%. We need 70% to 80% to reach herd immunity, and yet, many Americans are refusing to get the vaccine. People should be, by all accounts, lining up to receive it, and they aren’t, it should have never become political like it has.

This is not a hoax. COVID-19 is real and thousands have died and/or are still dying because of it. Everyone complains they want everything to go back to normal, and then refuse to do the simple task of getting vaccinated.

Please, please, please, do your part get vaccinated so we can all get back to sense of normalcy in our daily lives. This is the only way for things to get better again.

Rusty Carroll, Taylorsville

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