One year ago, something few people expected could happen, did happen. After nearly a year of people living in isolation, wearing masks and working from home, if their jobs hadn’t been eliminated due the the COVID-19 pandemic, a safe, effective vaccine was ready to ship to health care centers around the world.

Developed over months, instead of the traditional years under the Trump Administration’s “Warp Speed” program, the Pfizer vaccine, then the Modern and Johnson & Johnson vaccine was administered to those most at risk from the virus. Within a couple of months, the number of deaths per day was dropping, and states began to ease upon the restrictions they had adopted to slow the spread of the virus.

One would theink the success of the vaccine would draw more and more people, eager to protect themselves and their families from the disease, eager to return to more normal ways of life.

Today, a year after the vaccines were first shipped, the vaccines are doing their job, but far too many people are refusing to accept it. Misinformation about side effects, ineffectiveness and the sinister hand of Big Pharma and “power-hungry” government officials has led many to refuse vaccination, leaving them open and unprotected to the variants that are sweeping around the globe.

Vaccines are the best hope we have to get the upper hand over this virus. It is hard to believe that the issue of vaccines could be so politicized and polarized.

Let’s hope the second anniversary of the COVID-19 vaccines finds them more accepted, putting us all in a better situation.