WEBVTT

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Hello, this is Dr. McCauley. I'm in the 124th Medical Group. I'm a senior flight surgeon there and family medicine doctor, and I'm here to talk to you about getting vaccinated.

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This is the 124th in 124. Start the timer.

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I can sympathize with people who might be apprehensive about getting this vaccine, especially since it's not mandatory and we're used to getting a lot of mandatory vaccines in the military.

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But, I want to tell you why I decided to get this vaccine, myself, three weeks ago and plan on getting the second dose tomorrow.

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So, why get vaccinated? Well, first of all, to protect myself.

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There's a 99% survival rate with this infection, so you might ask why do I need to get vaccinated?

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Well, there's some long-term effects that could happen.

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We've seen a lot of people, even professional athletes, have issues with their heart and lungs, months after an infection that seemed pretty benign

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Also, I want to be able to protect my patients and my family, as well as my fellow Airmen.

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I want to also prevent the healthcare system from getting overwhelmed.

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I also want to make sure we all can return to normalcy in our lives and in our society.

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80% of the people probably need to be vaccinated in order for us to have herd immunity, so that we can all get back to our normal lives without wearing masks and enjoying things that we like to do in public.

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And then finally, I think it's a social responsibility.

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We need to be willing to take a little bit of a risk and sacrifice a little bit in order to help prevent more deaths than we've already seen.

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You could get some side effects. You could have a local reaction.

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You could have flu-like symptoms, but that's to be expected when your body is mounting an immune response.

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Second dose, about 28 days later, also you could have some side effects, but by then you're pretty well-protected.

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If you have any questions or concerns or doubts about getting this vaccine, I'd encourage you to reach out to your health care professionals, either on the military side or the civilian side to get your questions answered.