If you are anything like me, you are terrified of getting vaccines. When I found out I needed five mandatory vaccines to come to college, I was mortified. I felt this fear again when I heard about possibly having to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Right now, COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire, especially throughout colleges. There are COVID-19 vaccines, but they are not available to college students, and who knows when they will be. When the vaccine is available to college students, many colleges will have to decide if the COVID-19 vaccine should be mandatory.

I believe the COVID-19 vaccine should be listed as a mandatory vaccine because everyone is in such close contact in classes and on campus in general.

The vaccine is just now beginning to make its way into the public, and people are hesitant to get it.  This is a result of fear and the lack of knowledge.

If you have ever had the common cold, chances are you have had a coronavirus. There are many strains of the coronavirus. The strain that is so deadly is SARS-CoV-2, which is a mutation.

The virus has been studied by many organizations for over 50 years. This means scientists from all over the world already have the foundation of the virus.

As we were struggling, scientists collaborated to come up with a vaccine. They had most of the information, but they had to incorporate the SARS-CoV-2 strain.

Messenger RNA, mRNA, is the specific approach to the COVID-19 vaccine. The mRNA does not contain live parts of the virus. It carries the spike protein that makes the SARS-CoV-2 strain so dangerous. Our DNA takes the spike protein, which makes our bodies able to produce antibodies for the virus.

Still with all of this information, some people are afraid to get the vaccine because of possible reactions.

There have been a few people with reactions to the vaccine, but that’s expected with any vaccine. The effects sound much worse than they are because  of the way the media broadcasted everything that has gone wrong. 

Students should be required to take the vaccine to create  herd immunity, eventually weeding out the virus, so we can go back to normal life.