Vaccines help protect us from a variety of diseases. Vaccines not only help protect us from getting sick, but they also help keep us from spreading illnesses to others. With the help of vaccines, we have eliminated and reduced the presence of numerous diseases.
During this time, health care providers and scientists are working diligently to reduce the severity and presence of COVID-19. One thing you can do on an individual level to assist with this hefty task is get vaccinated. At Ross Bridge Medical Center, we want to make that task more accessible, which is why we are now offering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Reasons to get vaccinated
There are many reasons to get vaccinated, especially during this time. Some of these reasons include the following:
Vaccines can help keep you healthy
One of the main misconceptions about vaccines is that they make you sick. While you may experience some mild or moderate side effects with certain vaccines, they don’t actually cause an illness. On the contrary, the side effects are your immune system’s way of letting you know you’re protected if you do come into contact with the disease it’s meant to prevent.
Vaccines can help keep your loved ones healthy
When you get a vaccine, it’s not only you who gets protected. Some people aren’t able to get vaccinated due to their age, allergies, or weakened immune systems. However, if everyone around them gets vaccinated, their risk of coming in contact with certain diseases is significantly reduced.
Hospital stays are expensive
Vaccine-preventable diseases can cost you a pretty penny if you get one. If you fall ill, medical bills from treatments and hospital stays can be expensive. Every year, many Americans face financial hardship due to medical debt, with some cashing in their retirement or life savings to pay bills.
Vaccines can save your life
In some cases, getting vaccinated could be the difference between life and death. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, 50,000 adults died per year in America from vaccine-preventable diseases. That number has skyrocketed in the COVID-19 era, making it more important now than in previous years to get vaccinated.
About the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
This one-shot vaccine can reduce the severity of COVID-19 or even prevent it entirely. It’s a viral vector vaccine, meaning it uses a different version of the virus it’s designed to protect against to send information to our cells. This version of the virus is harmless and is used to prepare our bodies for the actual virus, should we come in contact with it.
Clinical trials have shown the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be 66.3% effective in preventing the virus and highly effective in preventing hospitalization and death. It’s not yet known if it protects against asymptomatic infections — meaning that people can be infected with the virus and not experience any symptoms — though early evidence suggests that it can.
Take control of you and your loved ones’ health by getting vaccinated today. Ross Bridge Medical Center offers several critical vaccines, including the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, at our Hoover, Alabama, office. To learn more, book an appointment online or over the phone.
