My personal COVID truth.

[Liberty Belle]

3. We also had a death in our family.

My son-in-law's father died. He was a chef/caterer and the man he shared a kitchen with brought his unmasked, unvaxed young teens in to the workplace. Our relative was only in his early 50s and left behind five children.

Our son who lives with us also had COVID but thankfully a mild case. We had to quarantine at least four times the past year due to COVID exposure.

I happened to interview the very first person in our county who got COVID, when he was sneezing and didn't yet know he had it. He wound up on a ventilator for a while and survived as a long-hauler. I was mildly ill a few days later but no tests were available back then, the first week in March 2020.

It is a scary illness and even if you don't get sick, the inconvenience of repeatedly having to quarantine when exposed, and now not being able to go places like concerts, foreign travel destinations etc. if not vaxxed or repeatedly tested are all good reasons to get the vaccine, plus having the freedom to not wear a mask most places if you feel comfortable doing so.

Side effects of the vaccine are minor and not long-lasting, with only a handful of exceptions worldwide out of hundreds of millions of doses administered. The disease by contrast is fatal around 2% of the time, more if you're older or have serious condiitions, and of those who survive many perhaps most have at least some long-lasting or even permanent disabilities.