COVID Forever Changed Our Society

The Covid pandemic has forever changed our society. Nurses stand to lose respect unless they are consistent in believing science and supporting vaccines. Our divisiveness about vaccines is hurting us as a profession.

The truth will eventually come out about the Covid pandemic. Not fake news, not misinformation, but the most unvarnished truth. The pandemic and our society’s reaction to it are being studied and will be for years to come. How it started, how politics affected it, what worked, and what did not. Who was wrong, who was right. So which side of history does the nursing profession want to be on?

The nursing profession was already challenged by shortage before the pandemic even hit. We didn’t have enough nurses when I began in the profession over 35 years ago and that never improved. This situation has gradually worsened due to baby boomers getting older, needing more medical care and nurses retiring. There are not enough nursing programs, not enough teachers, not enough clinical placements to educate enough nurses. Tuition has skyrocketed. Covid killed nurses and drove others out of the profession. And now we are dealing with those among us who refuse to take the vaccine.

I have yet to hear what I would consider to be a good excuse for not getting the vaccine, especially for nurses doing direct patient care. Being unwilling to get the vaccine because it is mandated is not one of them. “But my rights!”, some nurses protest. Working as a nurse puts a person into a very vulnerable community where the greater good has to take precedence over the provider’s individual rights. If you don’t take every precaution, you should not be there. We take Hep A, Hep B, flu, and MMR with few qualms. How did the Covid vaccine become so demonized?

Our society in general looks up to nurses. We are not perceived to have a god complex. We are thought to be more relatable, good communicators and honest. Not always true, of course, but largely positive. Our handling of the pandemic may well cost us this reputation.

When the truth finally sifts out, I suspect it may look something like this: The vaccine will be considered safe. Future improvements will make it even safer. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine will probably not be used to treat Covid, but other medicines (maybe even related to them) will be developed that do and will be cost-effective as well. Rather than just accept new medicines, treatments and vaccines without question, as many people have done for years, consumers will ask for more information. This is a good thing and the knowledge they seek will be available; it has never been a secret.

On the negative side of the situation, we will find out the total cost of the pandemic: economic, physical, psychological, political, and ethical. We will find out how unprepared we were to deal with Covid and why. We will find out how the pandemic was affected by our very divided politics. We will hopefully find ways to prevent social media from gumming up the works again.

Nurses have plenty of disagreements, but on the subject of vaccines, we need to be on the same page. As the Covid pandemic wanes and we pick up the pieces, we need to be aware that this will happen again. Whether another dangerous new variant appears or another virus entirely, we will face a similar situation sooner or later. If we don’t want to lose another 750,000+ lives or more, we need to be better prepared. We need to believe the science that we were taught, as imperfect and changeable as it may be, and be good interpreters of that information for others. We need to be examples other people can continue to look up to.

As a society, we have all sustained a major blow with Covid. Whether we got sick, took care of the sick, lost family, friends, jobs, businesses, or got depressed sitting at home for days on end, no one has been unaffected. We all need healing. We all need to make some sense out of what happened. We all need to hear the truth, and the truth is that the Covid vaccine needs to be accepted as one way to stay well. We don’t need to be afraid of it and nurses can help unify our society by carrying that message. So please, get your shots.