| By Cameron, 6th grade |
January 2021 … To get back to normal, pre-pandemic times, we need a way to stop the coronavirus. The best way to do that is for everyone receive a vaccine against the virus so they are immune, and it looks like that’s starting to happen.
The Food and Drug Administration on Dec.11, 2020, approved emergency use for a vaccine against COVID-19 developed by Pfizer-BioNTech. But what does that mean for the fight against COVID?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccines train people’s immune systems to create proteins known as antibodies to fight diseases to which they are exposed. Vaccines make people immune without making people sick, according to WHO.
Now that a vaccine has been approved for COVID-19, there will be a rush to get them to people with the greatest need. The New York Times recently reported that the first available doses are going to health-care workers, first responders, and older people at high risk.
Most people won’t be able to get the vaccine until later in 2021. That means we still have to wear masks until we reach herd immunity. WHO says herd immunity means a population is protected from a virus once a certain number of people have been vaccinated.
Though waiting until later in 2021 for the vaccine may seem like a long time, it is amazing to think that in under a year, scientists have developed a working vaccine to protect against COVID-19. Rarely in the history of vaccine development has a vaccine been created in less than five years, according to the Kaiser Health Network.
I look forward to life being normal again in just a few months. I can’t wait to play with my friends without a mask, to be able to go out to eat at a restaurant, to go on vacation, and to even be able to go back to school in person. When we return to normal, it will be because many people worked very hard to do something amazing that had never been done before.
— Cameron is a reporter for the East Norriton Bulldog Bulletin. He also illustrated the image with this article.
