While I don't want to wade into the muck that is rampant disinformation, some of it posted here -- Covid vaccines, for example, are not "gene therapy" -- nor the argument that getting a vaccine is somehow impinging on one's "freedom," it is simply worth noting (again) that 98-99% of all people dying from Covid in the US are unvaccinated, and 99% of people hospitalized for Covid are not vaccinated. In the United States, Covid is affecting much more seriously the places where vaccination rates are lower, including higher rates of hospitalization and death. These are not opinions or partisan bickering, these are simply facts.
Foregoing sensationalist media and reading just a little bit of scientifically based literature on the subject will tell you that even vaccinated people can carry the virus and *possibly* pass it along to other people without showing symptoms. The point of the vaccination, if anyone really is unsure, is to prevent the spread of the virus (which it does do, although perhaps not perfectly -- but no vaccines are perfect) and to reduce the rate of death and hospitalization from Covid. Factual evidence, easily accessed and obtainable within a few clicks, shows that for those latter two, it is doing a remarkable job.
Because, however, the vaccine is admittedly imperfect and *may* continue to allow vaccinated people to pass Covid along, the CDC is reacting to events on the ground and recommending masks even for vaccinated people. In places where people wore masks and followed protocols in the early stages of the pandemic, spread was lessened. In places where protocols were ignored, the virus spread.
In short, more people getting the vaccine does make populations safer. It's not necessarily selfless -- you're helping yourself too.
