In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Svoboda talks about why he chose to get a Covid vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine. Several people have asked me to comment on this, and I can testify that, after due deliberation, I made the decision to get vaccinated. I have received two doses of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine. Being a scientist, I felt that it was important to evaluate the data as best I could, and I made it a point to read information from both sides of the question. I was fortunate in having only a mild reaction: sore arms both times. I know that people have had much more severe reactions, and those reactions need to be factored into one’s decision.

It is also the case, however, that there are no guarantees in life, and it is an illusion to think that we can be risk-free, that we can ever be completely safe, or that we can eliminate all danger from life. Sometimes one has to move ahead understanding that there is a risk involved and trying to evaluate the risk-benefit profile very carefully.

I have heard people in the wellness community suggest that COVID-19 is equivalent to the seasonal flu, and while its death rate is approximately the same, it is very much not the seasonal flu. It has the potential to provide problems that last for months after the initial infection, and I know people who have had ongoing symptoms from so-called long COVID. Some also suggest that there is no need for them to take the vaccine because they have strong immune systems. I personally have a generally strong immune system, but no immune system is perfect. No immune system will eliminate all possible dangers from your life.

One of the reasons I think it was important for me to take the vaccine is that I am concerned about the health of the people around me. Not only am I almost 68, and therefore, by virtue of being older, at greater risk for serious disease if infected, but many of my friends and relatives are also older. Many of them are not in as good health as I am, and many of them are refusing to take the vaccine. So it is not all about me. It is about me in the context of the life that I live, in the context of my friends and loved ones, and my responsibility to try to avoid subjecting those friends and loved ones – and potentially people I do not even know – to pain, misery, and suffering if I happen to become the vector that infects them with this disease.

I think this is an important aspect of this reality: you need to remember that life is not all about you. Life is about you in the context of your world, and your world is made up of the people around you in addition to the external environment of plants, trees, animals, and so on. So it is not simply a matter of being ecologically sound and concerned with the non-human environment; you also have to be concerned with the human environment.

I think a lot of this concern comes from the fear of death, which motivates everyone. Everyone should always be aware that they are going to die and that death is quite inevitable. But it is one thing to be aware that you might die today and another thing to so fear death that you resist doing anything that might possibly cause you to come, in any way, any closer to dying.

I will admit that another important reason I took the vaccine is that I do like to travel internationally, and I believe that, for certain reasons having to do with individuals in other countries, I may need to visit other countries. I do believe that things are trending in the direction that, quite possibly, to visit many countries one may need to be vaccinated. In this context, let me simply state that I am not afraid of vaccines. I maintain my yellow fever vaccination as current because sometimes I do go to South America, and it is essential to have that vaccine available and current if one wishes to avoid quarantine.

I do understand that there may be vaccine hesitancy for many reasons, one of which may be that governments in general, and the U.S. government in particular, do not have a good track record of having the best interests of their populations at heart. I think that this is something that needs to be acknowledged, and at the same time we need to evaluate the situation as objectively as possible in this particular case.

In conclusion, I would like to encourage everyone to dispassionately and objectively examine the data, evaluate very carefully for yourself what your responsibilities are both to yourself and to others, and make an informed decision on this very important subject.