A message from our President and CEO Paul Stewart
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Hello, everyone. I’m Paul Stewart, president and CEO of Sky Lakes Medical Center.
Just like nearly 20,000 of my friends and neighbors in Klamath County, I have been vaccinated against the covid-19 virus.
And today, I’d like to share some thoughts regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.
I get that the vaccine is new, and for some, a little scary.
There are potential, at least minor, side effects for some people.
Across the country nearly 75 million Americans have now been vaccinated, and we have growing amounts of data that help support the case for getting the vaccine.
For those who have received the vaccine, thank you – you are helping protect yourself and others from this virus.
I’d like to ask those of you who haven’t to please consider getting the vaccine.
I understand that some people may not want to get their COVID shots because they believe there may not have been enough testing or research.
These vaccines were not developed by the government., they were developed by scientists using research and knowledge that has been around for decades.
The science behind the vaccines is rock solid!
Granted, conducting randomized clinical testing in the middle of a pandemic is hard, but the data is mounting that they work – safely.
Think about seat belts and the decision to put them in every vehicle.
It’s not like we went out and did some Randomized Clinical Trials: Here, we’re going to take all of you subjects and put you in a really bad crash and half of you will have seat belts that work and the other half will have seat belts that don’t work, and we’re going to crash you all and see what the results are.
Doing that would be unthinkable.
Today, we know through evidence that seat belts greatly reduce the severity of injury in vehicle crashes and they probably save the lives of 15,000 people a year.
We may not like wearing them, but we do so we can help keep ourselves and others safe.
The odds that we’re going to be in a serious car crash are not all that high, but they do exist.
And – remote as it may be – wearing that seat belt will prevent or greatly reduce injury and it may in fact save your life if you are in an accident.
Similarly, the evidence is mounting that being vaccinated against COVID-19 will do several things safely:
It will likely keep you from getting seriously ill and being hospitalized with COVID.
And it will keep those around you – the people you hold dearest – safer because your vaccination means you likely won’t be infecting them.
While it is still possible a vaccinated person could catch the virus, the odds of that are very low.
A vaccinated person has a less than 1 in 11,000 chance of even catching the virus and your chance of dying from COVID drops to almost zero. (.00003%)
Getting vaccinated now is the single best thing we can do to keep our businesses open and our children and grandchildren in school.
Anybody 16 and older can now get a COVID-19 vaccination – there are no longer qualifying health conditions.
And the vaccine is free and you do not need health insurance to get it.
So please, do your part.
Get vaccinated.
Thank you.
