A vaccine for the coronavirus had been a recurring topic for the past couple of months and now we have finally heard some good news: The vaccine for the virus is said to now be more than 90 percent effective. The total number of cases in the United States has risen to 10.3 million, and there’s a total of 35,605 cases in Fulton County. Scientists have said they could have enough vaccines for doses by mid-2021 so the question is, when the vaccine is released and available to the public, would you take it?

This breakthrough in progress with the COVID vaccine is something that many have been anticipated since it turned into a worldwide pandemic in March. While much of the world has recovered from the coronavirus, the United States is still getting worse and an effective vaccine could help get things running again much faster in the country. “I would take the Vaccine so I can confidently feel safer around others knowing that I most likely won’t spread it and it wont get to me again,” said junior Kesiye Ogoun. “It would also be one step for us to get back to normal for people to take the vaccine, since refusing it may prolong the dire circumstances we are in now.”

The company Moderna is seeing some unexpectedly high effectiveness rates with their vaccine for the virus, and it’s now proven to be 95 percent effective. However, there are certain people in the United States that will object to vaccines regardless. Some fear that you could still get sick even after having the vaccine, or that the coronavirus could just adapt to become resistant to the vaccine. “I don’t think I would take the vaccine, and I’ve never taken the flu vaccine either,” said junior Dakota Fields, “I just don’t want to take the chance of this new COVID vaccine without knowing all of the consequences.”

Researchers have estimated that they could have 20 million doses of the vaccine before January, and that they could have enough doses for the whole country by mid-2021. Of course, even if you do get the vaccine, you will still have to take precautions in public, as it is not a cure-all to bring us back to normalcy. The vaccine really only lowers the risk of you contracting the virus and the mask may help double the effect like an extra shield. Whether or not you take the vaccine, hopefully everyone still follows the public regulations so the spread of the virus can slow down and our country can begin to heal.