By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The debate in this country over whether to get vaccinated against a disease that can kill you simply is astonishing in the extreme.

I cannot get past this utterly irrefutable fact: vaccines save lives and prevent misery, agony and heartache.

Polio struck millions of Americans. Then in the 1950s, they discovered a vaccine. What happened to polio in this country? It vanished. The same can be said of tuberculosis and smallpox. Same for diseases such as scarlet fever, the bubonic plague. We vaccinate our children against measles, mumps, chicken pox, you name it.

But now we have a disease that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans and the debate rages over whether we should get vaccinated. I even have members of my family who suggest — and this just blows my mind — that the Food and Drug Administration didn’t actually approve the vaccines that are being given to Americans and that these family members simply refuse to get vaccinated because, um, it’s all political.

We need to get past the politics that has poisoned the national discussion about the pandemic and how the government has responded to it. If we do not, then I am confident in projecting many more unnecessary deaths … and heartbreak.