A doctor explains why the Covid vaccine is the best chance at immunity.

Yes I will get the vaccine.

I was in the operating room, finishing a surgical procedure, when the anesthesiologist announced that the Pfizer vaccine had just been approved. I was surprised when the nurse asked if I would be getting vaccinated. “As soon as possible,” I replied.

As I see it, one way or another we are all going to develop an immune response to Covid-19. It is highly infectious – it spreads easily and can be transmitted by people with no symptoms. Despite our efforts, tens of millions of Americans have caught the virus already.

Some will develop immunity by getting infected. They may have few or no symptoms, but even then they may pass the virus on to someone they love. Some will get sick and recover but be left with long-term health problems – chronic lung disease, severe fatigue or heart disease, just to name a few.

And some will die. If getting infected were the only way to achieve immunity, the most conservative estimate is that well over a million Americans would die of Covid-19.

Others, though, will develop an immune response by getting vaccinated. Some of these may have a sore arm or mild flu-like symptoms for a couple of days, but they will develop an immunity that is likely to prevent them from getting an actual infection.

Some are worried about complications of the vaccine, though studies suggest these will be incredibly rare. The truth is that infections of any kind can trigger our immune system to behave destructively – whether our immune system is triggered by a vaccine, or by an infection. I will gladly take my chances with the vaccine.

My only reservation about getting the vaccine early is that I wonder if this rare, precious resource shouldn’t go to someone else, someone perhaps at higher risk. I feel like I am on the Titanic, chosen to board one of the few remaining lifeboats. I have some essential skills, certainly, but I cannot do my work if I can’t buy groceries, or pump gas – aren’t those workers also essential? And who is more essential than the parent of a young child? Or our teachers? The only way I make sense of it is to admit that as careful as I might be, I can catch the virus and I can pass it on to my patients. I could be the contact that makes them sick, or worse.

In the nine months since the pandemic was recognized, more Americans have died than died in all of World War II. For the first time in my lifetime, hospitals and ICUs and morgues and funeral homes have been overwhelmed. We can continue to mask and isolate, while we lose our jobs, our kids go uneducated, our parents die alone and we get the virus anyway.

Or, we can get vaccinated – which is what I did at 6am on Saturday, Dec. 19. I got a vaccine that will probably prevent me from getting infected. I felt nothing from the injection; that night I took two Advil for a sore shoulder and the next morning I was back to normal.

I only hope that when the vaccine becomes widely available, you will do the same.

DR. MARK VIERRA is a surgeon at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.