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Two Personal Outcomes from the Pandemic

You will be protected or infected. You decide!

Individual freedoms are great. I used to tell my children: You make the choice, I provide the consequences.

However, it is not me providing the consequence of your choice when it comes to getting vaccinated. The coronavirus will provide your consequences.

Today at 5 a.m. as I left the house to catch a train to Seattle, I heard an interview about vaccinations. The speaker shared that there will be two possible individual outcomes from this pandemic: You will either become vaccinated and protected from COVID-19 or you will get the virus. If you get the virus, you may only have slight symptoms or become ill and perhaps be hospitalized. Then, it all comes down to how healthy you were before you became infected, your age, and any underlying medical conditions that in the majority determine your outcome.

The reality is also true that you might be young and in excellent health and still die from the virus. It is estimated that 1 in 1,000 children infected die from COVID-19.

As I have shared before, there is the “give me liberty or give me death” crowd. Actually, with the virus circulating you can have both!
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.