I’d like to start off by stating that I am not against people receiving the COVID-19 MRNA vaccine; both my father and mother are vaccinated, as well as my sister and brother-in-law. You will never hear me telling people to NOT get the vaccine. However, as a healthy 21-year-old, I personally feel that I don’t have to be vaccinated in order to live a healthy and safe life. Some argue that this is “selfish thinking”, but I actually find it to be thinking freely. We know that Covid-19 affects middle aged and older adults, especially those with pre-existing conditions. A study published by John Elflein on June 1, found that since the beginning of January 2020, COVID-19 has killed 579,029 Americans with 300 of them being ages 0-17 and 2,253 of them between 18 to 29 years old.

I went to college in North Carolina at High Point University during COVID and before I left home to start the new school year, my closest friends were warning me that I would soon be back home because school would “eventually shut down.” School never shut down, not once. We peaked at 156 cases, a school with a student population of 4,951. It staggers my imagination that this country had to shut down most schools because of this virus. I don’t understand why people are allowed to get onto a fully boarded plane, but students can’t go to school and learn. We must find ways to adapt and move forward and doing school online is not the answer. This is setting a very bad precedent for the future of this country. It might sound like vaccinations are the solution, but not if they have to be required. It goes against our civil liberties.

Although I am not against people getting the vaccine, I am against the pressure that is coming from society. It reminds me of high school when the “cool kids” would pressure you into drinking. I feel like I am being pressured by society’s “cool people” to get vaccinated. Whenever I see these videos of celebrities telling me to get vaccinated, deep down, it only makes me not want to take it even more. We should be encouraging Americans to get outside, exercise, and eat healthy foods instead of incentivizing unhealthy behavior like offering free hamburgers for getting vaccinated (Shake Shack) or even giving out free donuts (Krispy Kreme). It seems to me that this is all about making money and taking control, yet we are being told this is “getting back to normal”. This might sound like anti-vaccine rhetoric, but don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I have a problem with the pressure coming from all institutions and factions of life. Whatever happened to “my body, my choice”? No one knows the side effects that it may cause in the long run, and it is crucial to find out these answers when we are encouraging and in some cases requiring young people to get vaccinated.

In April of 2021, Duke University announced that they will require all students attending campus to get vaccinated, and society is congratulating it. I understand that the United States has mandated vaccine passports in the past such as smallpox, but this is not smallpox (1970s). This is an illness that has a 99% survival rate. According to coronavirus data from the North Carolina DHHS, there have been more than 992,000 COVID-19 cases statewide since the pandemic’s start. To date, there have been close to 13,000 coronavirus-related deaths. In addition, we don’t even know if all of these coronavirus-related deaths have actually been directly caused from COVID-19. On June 6th, the Associated Press reported that “A Northern California county has changed its methodology to record coronavirus deaths, causing its fatality figures to decrease by 25%.”

I want to be very careful about who I listen to on this issue, and feel at times I have been misled by certain leaders during this pandemic. I am not a scientist nor a doctor, so I don’t advise anyone to follow me for medical advice, and everything written here is nothing more than my opinion. I fully understand the risk that I am taking by not taking the vaccine, and I will live with those results. We can only speak, act, and think for ourselves.