Talk of Downtown
The Covid-19 Vaccines
What you need to know today. By Islara Souto.
Two weeks ago, I got the COVID-19 vaccine at Jackson after waiting in the hot sun for four hours. Why? Because my shot-in-the-arm protects you, and yours protects me — and ours protect everyone else.
COVID-19 is extremely contagious, spreading easily from person to person, and causes severe illness or death. The virus is tricky, changing constantly to meet its one goal: to replicate itself as easily as possible. The only way to conquer this malevolent piece-of-protein is to achieve Herd Immunity, where at least 60% of us are protected and the virus eventually peters out. The fastest and safest route to Herd Immunity is mass vaccination of millions of people — an enormous undertaking slowed down in the U.S. by the hiccups from the past administration. The new administration promises to use science and the force of community action to accelerate mass vaccination in a fair, equitable way.
But what is a vaccine? It is simply any compound intentionally put into the body to start an immune reaction. A vaccine’s purpose is to prevent disease or make it less severe. Pandemics that killed and maimed millions of people (measles, diphtheria, mumps, whooping cough, polio) were abated by vaccines and driven by the people who bravely rolled up their sleeves to show their neighbors that a vaccine does not cause the illness.
When you are vaccinated (a.k.a, inoculated), you are given a weak piece of a virus or bacteria. It does not make you sick; rather, it stimulates your body to make antibodies that protect you from future attack by that same germ. Then, if you are ever again exposed to the actual disease-causing germ, your immune system remembers and is prepared to fight the infection. Some vaccines take longer than others to provide immunity. Others need to be given annually, more than once or by booster shots.
It usually takes 10–15 years for a vaccine to be made, thoroughly tested and distributed, but the two COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the U.S. were created in only 10 months! The two vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, are similar: both are between 94% to 95% effective and both require two doses; neither is a live virus nor impacts your body’s DNA, instead using a new technology called mRNA. And both have similar side effects.
The National Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System collects adverse events from health-care providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public. So far, a handful of people have had serious side effects, mainly allergic anaphylaxis (the allergy numbers have been far less than those of the annual flu vaccine). Mild side effects from the COVID-19 vaccines have been reported and include pain, redness or swelling where the shot was given; fever and chills; fatigue; headache; muscle and joint pains. These are normal, but it does NOT mean you have COVID-19. If you get these reactions, rest and allow your body to recover; if you have a fever, stay home.
Current supplies of the COVID-19 vaccine are extremely low and cannot be made fast enough for everyone right away, but eventually the vaccine will be offered to everybody. Florida’s policy is to prioritize older people age 65+ first, then residents in long-term care facilities and health-care workers. The vaccine is not recommended for pregnant women or children under 16 years of age.
Not everything will change back to “normal’ the second that syringe enters your arm. While many of us are thinking about the pandemic in binary terms — there’s life before I get the shot and life after I get the shot — it is better to think more gradually, like in three stages: Stage 1 is what you can safely do once you and your close friends and family are vaccinated; Stage 2 is what you can safely do once Miami-Dade County reaches Herd Immunity, when enough of us are protected against infection that the virus cannot easily spread; and Stage 3 is what we can ALL do once Herd Immunity is reached internationally.
There is a good chance we will not reach that last Stage 3 in 2021. The COVID-19 virus is expected to persist and mutate constantly, much like its influenza cousin virus does. New strains of COVID-19 appear daily, and we are not confident they will respond to the current vaccines. Around the world, scientists are using the new mRNA and older, proven vaccine-making techniques in the race against COVID-19 and its mutations.
Not all is grim, though. Incidence rates are much lower for this season’s flu, mitigating fears of a double-whammy pandemic. We now have one year of experience with COVID-19 and treatments are proving to help lessen its severity, if not its contagion. Death rates seem to be leveling. Dreams of working from home have come true and children are being prepared for a higher-tech future. The best thing we can do to reach Stage 3 is to consider COVID-19 a silent and persistent enemy — and get used to living with it as best we can.
Islara Souto is Downtown News Health Correspondent and Culturist.
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