I'm pretty sure I just hit my limit of dealing with all the COVID bulls&%t. I'm sorry to be so frank, but the waiting for waaayyy backed-up test results to prove your child who has a sore throat does not have COVID and can go to school has just pushed my frustration to the breaking point. I'm not blaming their school. I'm not blaming the over-worked medical community and testing labs. I'm not even blaming Illinois' COVID mandates. I'm just SICK OF COVID.

The One Thing I Really Don't Understand About the COVID Pandemic

Since a ridiculously high number of COVID cases are again being reported in the Rockford area, I turned to my husband, who works in the emergency department at one Rockford hospital, to help me understand why this is happening. Half of the Rockford area community is unvaccinated and everyone has the right to make that choice, but the part that I am really struggling with is how people can still think COVID isn't "real", or just a major problem the media is creating. I simply asked my husband, "is it as bad at the hospital as every story portrays it to be?" "How can people not take this virus seriously, I just don't understand?" His response was pretty much, "It's bad". That is not ok. I've never seen him so exhausted by work.

Contrary to how this may sound, I am not here to preach about what you should or should not do. I guess what I'm really asking you to do is think with your heart. If you don't want to get vaccinated, fine, just please take precautions to protect others and yourself.  We really need to start behaving like a team where everyone does their part to beat COVID, or this crap will be a part of our lives forever, and I don't think anyone wants that.

When I saw this desperate post on Mercyhealth Rockford Region's Facebook, it really hit me.  The post says; "We’re heartbroken and overwhelmed. Our hospitals are full. Our employees are exhausted."

The choices we are all free to make are hurting so many other people. Quite literally, they are killing people. The medical community is working tirelessly to do their part, now, please, can we get serious about doing ours?

Answers to 25 common COVID-19 vaccine questions

Vaccinations for COVID-19 began being administered in the U.S. on Dec. 14, 2020. The quick rollout came a little more than a year after the virus was first identified in November 2019. The impressive speed with which vaccines were developed has also left a lot of people with a lot of questions. The questions range from the practical—how will I get vaccinated?—to the scientific—how do these vaccines even work?

Keep reading to discover answers to 25 common COVID-19 vaccine questions.

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