While I am not a doctor or a medical professional, I have been keeping track of the vaccine that is taking the nation by storm. I have multiple family members that are in the medical field as well and have heard their thoughts and opinion. I am not here to sway either way, only to give more information to help whoever reads this article become more informed.

The COVID-19 vaccine was first formulated in less than a year, beating the record of the fasted vaccine formulated since 1967 when the mumps vaccine took four years to create. It usually takes about 10-15 years to formulate a vaccine, but this was a special case.

Those who were creating the COVID-19 vaccine were under immense pressure and had all the funding that they needed that would help push this vaccine through. Just because it was made quickly doesn't mean it is a bad vaccine, but it should be a part of your decision.

There are currently three different companies with vaccines out right now. The three companies that have vaccines out right now are Pfizer-BioNtech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. One major fact that differentiates the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines from the Johnson & Johnson one is that the two former are two-dose vaccines whereas the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is only one dose.

Another major difference is that the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines are mRNA based and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a viral vector. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccine, was described by Hackensack Meridian Health, who said "COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA work with the body's natural defenses to safely develop protection (immunity) to the disease".

The Johnson & Johnson viral vector vaccine is, as stated by Hackensack Meridian Health, "A gene code unique to SARS-CoV-2 helps produce a spike protein and display it on the cell's surface. Once on the surface of the cell, it causes the immune system to begin producing antibodies and activating T-cells to fight off what it thinks is an infection". This is a major difference that needs to be considered when deciding if you want the vaccine and which you want.

Age is another factor. The COVID-19 vaccine was first produced and tested on those who were high risk, which was generally older people. This means that there was a small number of testing groups that were age ranges under 16. At this point there are no vaccines that are approved for children under 16.

I have talked to doctors and nurses about the vaccine and if they would give their children the vaccine and a large majority said no, they wouldn't give their children the vaccine. There was also a quote from a news article that said, "Children are not simply smaller adults, meaning it's not safe to assume that any drug or vaccine that works well for adults will also be highly safe and effective in children."

Taking all of this information and considering it is important and should be looked into especially if you are a younger person. There are also some data that say there is a higher percentage of younger recipients of the vaccine that get mildly to severely sick afterward. One article explained, "In Johnson & Johnson's clinical trial, more than 60% of younger patients had systemic reactions compared to about 45% of patients over age 60. Pfizer and Moderna's studies show similar numbers, but not as large of a difference. The amount of reactions increase with the second shot."

In addition to the resources linked above, below are a few other resources that are good to look at when considering what to do and are varied on whether they are for or against the vaccine. That said, most of them are factually based.

These sources include: a news article from ABC News, a piece by BioSpace, and information by the CDC.

All of the information that I stated was found in one of these articles. Two other articles that I particularly enjoyed reading and felt were good sources of information were ones by Yale Medicine and Yale Health.