Evidence is clear: Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your community by making it more difficult for the virus to spread from person to person. It is much safer to get vaccinated than it is to get infected. Vaccines make our immune systems stronger by building antibodies to fight off disease. Because COVID-19 is a new virus, no one has pre-existing immunity.

Delaying or refusing vaccination carries serious risks. Albertans who are not fully vaccinated account for 80% of patients in hospital and 90% of patients in ICU with COVID-19. It may also extend the need for public health measures to continue.

All approved vaccines are researched until proven safe

Thanks to worldwide collaboration, COVID-19 vaccines were developed quickly without compromising safety, by building on decades of research on these vaccine technologies. Every approved vaccine has met Health Canada's strict standards for safety, quality and effectiveness.

Even the young and healthy should get vaccinated

Anyone can get seriously ill from COVID-19 and end up in the hospital or worse. Thousands of Albertans have died, including many young, previously healthy people. Also, when the young and healthy are immunized it keeps everyone in the community safer because the virus has fewer opportunities to spread.

The vaccine and your personal beliefs

Many faith leaders around the world have spoken about the moral duty of their faith communities to be immunized to help protect their friends and neighbours. The vaccines approved in Canada do not contain gelatin, pork products or fetal tissue.

If you've had COVID-19, you should still get vaccinated

Evidence suggests immunity after infection may not last very long or be as effective against variants. Getting vaccinated will strengthen your immunity to give you the best protection.

Getting vaccinated won't hurt your paycheque

COVID-19 vaccines are free in Alberta. Employees are also entitled to take up to 3 hours of paid leave for each vaccination appointment under the Employment Standards Code.

Doctors cannot use unauthorized treatments

All physicians have an ethical and professional responsibility to only use treatments approved by Health Canada. Approval is only granted following rigorous review to ensure the drug is safe and effective. It can be extremely dangerous for a physician to use a medicine or drug to treat COVID-19 that has not be approved or authorized. Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself.

Hospital beds and cancelled surgeries

Alberta’s healthcare system is always busy. AHS has been able to increase Alberta’s acute care and ICU capacity during all 5 waves of the pandemic, adding 278 net new surge inpatient hospital beds, and repurposing 883 existing beds so that they can be used for patients with COVID as needed.

However, healthcare resources are finite. AHS can only open additional beds if they have the physicians and other healthcare professionals to provide care to the patients in those beds. When COVID-19 sends a lot of people to hospital, AHS is forced to postpone some scheduled surgeries to redeploy surgical teams to our intensive care and critical care beds. Doing this also reduces the number of surgical patients who may require ICU care after their surgery.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and save lives. Get the facts.

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Everyone who can get it, should get it: Book your free shot. It's safe and easy.