Trust Science: Help Make Essex Covid-Safe
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A CSES Imagine! STEAM Competition
We are pleased to announce another online competition, hot on the heels of our CSES Imagine! Environmental Challenge and CSES Imagine! Plastic – Friend or Foe?
Vaccination is the only way that we are going to beat COVID-19 and get back to normal. But this only works if over 80% of people are vaccinated.
It is vital that the Covid-19 vaccination message is understood by your family and people who are worried, unsure, resist or reject being vaccinated.
Help us de-bunk myths, lies and fake news about the vaccine! If you are a primary, secondary or home-schooled pupil or student in Essex, CSES is challenging YOU to help beat Covid-19 and make Essex Covid-safe.
Imagine! how you would persuade people to get vaccinated. Design a poster or make your "call to action" Video and get your own message across. You could win a prize! And your video or poster will be published.
The deadline for entry is Friday 4 June 2021. Open to children and school students of all ages.
Read on to find out more about the competition and click here to register.
Virus and vaccine primer
When germs, such as the virus that causes COVID-19, invade our bodies, they attack and multiply. This invasion is what causes illness. Our body's immune system uses several tools to fight infection. These tools include red blood cells, which carry oxygen to tissues and organs; and white or immune cells, which fight infection.
When a person is infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, it can take many days or weeks for their body to make and use all the germ-fighting tools needed to combat the infection. Sometimes this is too late! Before our body can fight the invasion, the virus has developed an overwhelming control and we become very sick and sometimes die. COVID-19 vaccines work by injecting a harmless piece of the virus into our body, fooling it into thinking we're being attacked by the virus and so develop the germ-fighting tools we need without us having to get sick in the first place. Should we then be infected by the real virus, our body is ready to react immediately.
After COVID-19 vaccination, the person's immune system remembers what it learned about how to protect the body against that disease.
It's important to remember that the vaccine is manufactured in a sterile laboratory and contains nothing which is harmful to people.
Getting vaccinated is the most effective of many steps you can take to protect yourself and others from COVID-19. Protection from COVID-19 is critically important because for some people, it can cause severe illness or death. Vaccination is the only way to eradicate disease.
Remember:
Many trials have proved that the vaccines are safe. They reduce the risk of catching coronavirus, and significantly lower the chance of becoming seriously ill if it is contracted. Over 100 million people have been vaccinated worldwide (with at least one jab) and this is currently growing by 4 million per day. The risk of minor side effects is very low, and scientists and medical experts agree that it's safe. Vaccination is available locally and it's free!
The Challenge
Many people are hesitant about taking the COVID-19 vaccine, sometimes for religious or cultural reasons and sometimes because they are confused by false facts and misinformation. They are just not convinced yet.
So can you create a poster or video which would help persuade those people who are resistant to take up the offer of the vaccine in their own best interest, and for the health of the country as a whole?
Together we can beat the virus and get back to our normal lives.