Please just get vaccinated

“Double-jabbed people are finding out they can be infected AND transmit the virus to the unvaccinated,” John Weisenburger writes (Letters, August 15). True. Also true: men can get breast cancer. About 1% of breast cancer cases are in men. And the best recent data show a rate of breakthrough cases among the vaccinated way below 1% (https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-data-from-the-states/).

‘Breakthrough’ infection is a euphemistic way of saying mRNA vaccines don’t work as advertised.” Mr. Weisenburger seems to demand perfection. He must oppose all vaccines, because all have breakthrough cases—-e.g., those for smallpox, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, and polio (examples that Meg McCoy astutely cites in her Aug. 15 letter).

“The ‘Big Lie’ … is unvaccinated, healthy people are the main source of COVID infection. How is that scientifically possible? You CANNOT give someone a disease you don’t have.” Well, it’s trivially true that an uninfected person can’t infect another person. But a healthy person who contracts an infection can. How else do diseases, from the common cold to Ebola, spread?

All indications are that the COVID vaccines in use in America provide robust and long-lasting protection against infection and even stronger protection against serious illness and death. Where are the worst COVID hot spots today? Hint: not in highly vaccinated states.

It’s maddening to reflect that if all vaccine-eligible people had gotten their shots three months ago, we could be living normally today. Thus, the growing impatience with vaccination refuseniks, while perhaps not productive, is entirely understandable.

Brian Keeling

Spokane