No more excuses! Get the FDA-approved vaccine and save SC lives now

Enough with the excuses.

Today, Aug. 23, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, which will now be marketed as Comirnaty, for use by those 16 and older.

The vaccine had been available since Dec. 11, 2020, under the FDA’s emergency use authorization designation.

“The FDA’s approval of this vaccine is a milestone as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorization, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock. “While millions of people have already safely received COVID-19 vaccines, we recognize that for some, the FDA approval of a vaccine may now instill additional confidence to get vaccinated. Today’s milestone puts us one step closer to altering the course of this pandemic in the U.S.”

Many of those who are hesitant or fearful of the vaccine have often cited its status of being available only for emergency use authorization as a sign that the vaccine was less safe or untested.

The last of the excuses is gone.

“Our scientific and medical experts conducted an incredibly thorough and thoughtful evaluation of this vaccine. We evaluated scientific data and information included in hundreds of thousands of pages, conducted our own analyses of Comirnaty’s safety and effectiveness, and performed a detailed assessment of the manufacturing processes, including inspections of the manufacturing facilities,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

So far, more than 10,200 South Carolina residents have died due to COVID-19 and each day we watch as our hospitals struggle to keep up with the influx of new COVID-19 cases.

Hundreds of children and staff have tested positive in Midlands schools just in the past week and Lexington Medical Center, which reported a record-high number of COVID-19 patients this week, has temporarily closed its outpatient surgery center in Irmo and sent some of its nurses to care for patients in the hospital’s overwhelmed intensive care unit, hospital officials said.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control has found that the vast majority of those testing positive and requiring hospitalization are unvaccinated.

Yet, state and federal officials have made sure that every South Carolinian who wants a vaccine can get one.

With today’s news, those who have delayed getting vaccinated need to recognize that the science, the research, the experts and the medical professionals are all on their side.

Get vaccinated today, South Carolina.

This story was originally published August 23, 2021 at 11:50 AM with the headline "No more excuses! Get the FDA-approved vaccine and save SC lives now."