To the editor:

I just got off of a one week work isolation for COVID. After almost two years of masking at work and in public, social distancing, including curbside pickup of groceries and restaurant food, giving up my KU basketball season tickets and canceling a recent cruise, because the CDC said not to go, I accepted a free ticket to the Texas Tech game and got COVID, despite wearing a mask.

Turns out, it was worth it to watch a great double-overtime win. I had one day of sore throat and five days of runny nose. Given the fact that I am 75 years old with at least three pre-existing high-risk conditions, you might call me lucky. Realistically, though, I was lucky to be fully vaccinated and boosted.

Each day, currently, 300,00 people get COVID, 123,000 people with COVID are in the hospital and 2600 of them die, exhausting our doctors and nurses and devastating their families. According to the CDC, being vaccinated with a booster reduces that risk of hospitalization by 23-fold and the risk of death 53-fold. A person vaccinated and boosted has less than a one in a million chance per week of dying of COVID, less than the risk of dying in an automobile accident. We can, collectively, turn the scourge of COVID into something equivalent to the common cold by getting vaccinated and boosted. At this point, anyone not vaccinated and boosted is either seriously misinformed of dangerously foolish. Don’t be one of them.

Steven Bruner,

Lawrence