Editors’ Expressions: I Will (Also) Get the Vaccine, and I (Also) Hope You Do the Same

Last week EMS1’s editorial director, Greg Friese, a friend, EMS leader, and sometimes competitor, wrote an editorial about the importance of EMS providers taking the COVID-19 vaccine.

Today, Dec. 14, 2020, is a day we should all memorialize: It’s the day the COVID-19 vaccine was first administered to the American public.

Today I must borrow Greg’s words and echo his message by saying, “I will get the COVID-19 vaccine. I hope you do the same.”

I stand proudly alongside other EMS leaders who have stated their support of the vaccine: NAEMT’s Matt Zavadsky; Hilton Head Island Fire Rescue’s EMS chief, Tom Bouthillet; DC Fire and EMS’s chief, medical director, and firefighter/EMTs; and many of our support organizations like the American Ambulance Association, which today started the hashtag #EMSVax.

Get on this bandwagon with us. State publicly and unequivocally your support of the vaccine. Make it clear you believe in the importance of being vaccinated. Go now and shout it from the Twitter treetops, post it in the Facebook comments, make an emphatic but clever TikTok video. Tell the world: “I will #getvaccinated.”

There isn’t much to add to Greg’s article, in which he lays out a number of rational, sensible arguments.

He eloquently aligns the well-established EMS philosophy of provider safety being No. 1 with the importance of keeping us safe from this deadly disease. Not only will the vaccine prevent more EMS providers from acquiring COVID, but being vaccinated will also free healthcare providers from some of the emotional and job-related stress that has come with treating patients during this harrowing pandemic. How I wish that for all my EMS peeps who are experiencing some of the most difficult and demanding times in their professional lives!

Greg writes that “Vaccination is a risk mitigation technique we take to protect ourselves from the patient and protect our partner and the patient from us.” We all know the coronavirus has asymptomatic shedding that can infect others without the infectious feeling sick. What if that is happening in the back of the ambulance? When the back doors are shut and we are side by side with our partner, crew, and patient, wouldn’t we like to know we aren’t making anyone sicker?

The EMS profession should be proud role models of the benefits of the vaccine, Greg says. He’s right.

Let us lead the charge and bare our deltoids.

Let us honor the memories of our fallen brothers and sisters by helping stem the tide of suffering and death.

Let us contribute to a healthier population by helping change the course of this disease.

Greg, I stand beside you in spirit, also at the back of the line, “cheering for as many paramedics, healthcare professionals, and other public safety professionals to be millions of places ahead of me.”

Addendum: On Dec. 31, 2020, JEMS Editor Emeritus A.J. Heightman published another call for EMS to #GetVaccinated.  Glad to stand with both A.J. and Greg in this important work!

Hilary Gates, MAEd, NRP, is the senior editorial and program director for EMS World.