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President Trump's Operation Warp Speed program has led to the development and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. While the novel coronavirus has claimed 33,604 lives as of this writing, the mitigation strategies, notable lockdowns, have also wreaked havoc of their own. Multiple big pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca have come out with vaccine doses. As of now, the COVID-19 vaccines are not yet available to everyone; the individuals being prioritized for the COVID-19 vaccination are the elderly, individuals with chronic health conditions, and frontline workers. Last month, multiple healthcare workers in California made headlines for turning down the vaccine against coronavirus. This month, multiple firefighters in Los Angeles are also saying 'no deal' to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Why firefighters don't want the COVID-19 vaccine

At this time, roughly 40% of firefighters employed by the Los Angeles Fire Department are not vaccinated against COVID-19. This is a decision of their own volition, seeing as the coronavirus vaccine became available to the LAFD in December 2020. Some officials in the healthcare community have expressed concerns about resistance against this vaccine; however, both the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines have engendered allergic reactions in certain individuals. Reports of anaphylaxis, allergic reactions, and fainting after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine concerned many people; these adverse side effects also raised questions about the vaccine's safety, especially due to the rapid timeframe of its production.

Will the coronavirus vaccine become mandatory?

Despite the documented adverse side effects that some recipients experienced after vaccination against COVID-19, some leaders still harbor frustration with first responders' reluctance. This frustration is leading to talks of potential mandates for firefighters and other frontline workers to receive the vaccine. Mandatory vaccination is highly controversial, however; many Americans on the right-wing oppose it. Some people also believe that coronavirus vaccine mandates will backfire and only deepen mistrust towards this injection. Time will tell whether or not more first responders across the country receive the vaccine. Many civilians who are not frontline workers have expressed their decisions not to receive the shot; others are waiting to observe the reactions from other COVID-19 vaccine recipients before rolling up their own sleeves. In the coming weeks and months, the vaccine for coronavirus will become more readily available to additional segments of the U.S. population.