The Vaccine is Here — Now What?
Pfizer’s revolutionary vaccine may be approved, but when can we expect this pandemic to be over?
On Friday, the FDA approved the first vaccine designed to combat the Covid-19 epidemic. Pfizer, along with German company BioNTech, was granted emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for their novel vaccine late Friday evening following the administration’s review of safety and efficacy data.
Pfizer’s vaccine, the first-ever mRNA vaccine to be blessed for use, demonstrated an astounding efficacy of 95% based on its enrolled cohort of about 44,000 participants. The vaccine’s greenlight will pave the way for state and local governments to institute their distribution and inoculation plans.
A brief review of the vaccine
Pfizer’s vaccine, officially dubbed BNT162b2, is an mRNA vaccine designed to assist your body in preparation to fight the Covid-19 virus by helping identify a unique antigen.
Unlike most other vaccines, which typically use a damaged or inactive virus, the mRNA vaccines use the human body’s cells to produce antigens of the target virus. These antigens resemble a specific target of the virus, the spike protein, and allows the immune system to quickly identify and dispatch the virus.
What should I expect when I get the vaccine?
This vaccine, while safe, does produce some unfavorable side effects. Pain at the site of injection, fever, nausea, and vomiting have all been described by those enrolled in the study. These side effects, while a very real possibility and expected consequence of the vaccine, are all temporary and don’t typically last longer than a day.
According to the New York State Department of Health, slight side effects are confirmation to the recipient that the vaccine is doing what it was intended to do. A discernible immune response will produce immunity and bring with it the potential to feel crummy, achy, or lethargic for the next day or so.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, has provided some guidance for those who have experienced allergic reactions in the past. “…if I were a person that had an underlying allergic tendency, I might want to be prepared that I might get a reaction, and therefore be ready to treat it.” This statement comes on the heels of reports that two healthcare workers in the UK experienced severe allergic reactions to the vaccine following administration.
Who will receive it?
That depends on which state you live in. Overwhelmingly, states have rationed the first batch of vaccines to the healthcare workers in direct or indirect contact with the virus at the premier recipients.
Following healthcare workers, the next in line in most states are residents of long-term care facilities. States are trying to utilize what scarcely available vaccines will be at their disposal, which makes providing these residents with inoculation the most efficient use. According to an article published by the LA Times, despite these residents making up less than 1% of the US population, they have accounted for 7% of the Covid caseload and a whopping 40% of the associated deaths.
Essential workers, individuals at high risk for serious illness, and the incarcerated population are to follow. For a clearer sense of where you may be in line for the vaccine, the New York Times has a calculator to give you a rough idea of your place in line.
Once I get it, will life return to normal?
While getting a vaccine out and available to the public has been nothing short of a scientific miracle, we won’t be out of the woods for a while.
Speaking with Jake Tapper, Dr. Fauci, when asked if the public can go back to life as normal after vaccination, warned of prematurely abandoning public health measures following vaccination.
“Obviously, with a 90-plus percent effective vaccine, you could feel much more confident. But I would recommend to people to not abandon all public health measures just because you have been vaccinated, because even though, for the general population, it might be 90 to 95 percent effective, you don’t necessarily know, for you, how effective it is.”
In addition to the opportunity to still contract the virus, however small that number is, is the unknown about the vaccine itself. We don’t have enough data yet to determine if those who have received the vaccine are completely immune from the virus, or if those who are vaccinated are silently and asymptomatically spreading the disease. Further research will solve that question, but in the interim, it is advised that we still follow the public health guidelines.
Furthermore, despite a growing optimism of the lasting immunity of the vaccine, there is no definitive data to suggest exactly how long the immunity may last. There remains the potential for yearly boosters to maintain immunity.
What about other vaccines?
As we move past Christmas and into the new year, several vaccine candidates are primed for making their appearance on the market. AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax all have a vaccine candidate in phase 3 clinical trials.
Perhaps the closest candidate, however, is the Moderna mRNA vaccine. The vaccine, which utilizes messenger RNA like the Pfizer product, has shown a robust 94.5% efficacy in a study of about 30,000 participants.
While it may seem that these vaccines lost the race to the market, distribution and national inoculation will likely require the coordination of multiple vaccine manufacturers.
Johnson & Johnson, for example, is a one-dose regimen (as opposed to both mRNA vaccines designed two-dose regimen) and doesn’t require extreme temperature control during transport and storage to ensure the efficacy of the vaccine. This will allow for easier distribution of vaccinations throughout the country, and subsequently across the world.
When can we expect a return to normalcy?
Much of this is up-in-the-air. Pending vaccine authorizations, assumptions about distribution, and longevity of viral immunity all play crucial components in answering this question. Assuming these factors play out as drawn up by the experts, Dr. Fauci predicts a return to normalcy by “the end of 2021.” Speaking on an online event via Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the New England Journal of Medicine, Fauci continued,
Certainly, the end of this pandemic is in sight. However, state and local governments need to provide precise coordination to ensure vaccines are rolled out expediently and administered efficiently. We, as the public, have a responsibility to do our part and get vaccinated if we truly want this pandemic to end. Science has done its part for us, now we must ensure it wasn’t all for waste.
For further information regarding when and how to get vaccinated, contact your local health department, or sign up for updates regarding vaccinations in your area.
