by Cesse Ip

I was lucky enough to receive my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in mid-March, and as the months go by I have been dismayed at hearing about the people in our country who refuse to get vaccinated. I know a few people that are not anti-vaccination, nor do they think the government is “magnetizing them” or inserting microchips but are still hesitant to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

I’ve been listening to their various concerns and have put together a list of facts from reputable sources that hopefully can be used to dispel some fears. If you’re on the fence, I hope that you can use this list to either change your mind about getting a COVID-19 vaccine or share the information to your family and friends so they can change their minds.

One of the hesitation reasons I hear over and over is fear of the vaccine’s potential long-term side effects. It’s true that we won’t know this for many more years, but historical vaccine monitoring has shown that side effects generally happen within six weeks of receiving a vaccine dose, according to the CDC. Common side effects include minor pain, redness and swelling of your arm at the injection area. Additionally, some people reported body aches, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever and nausea. Some people have no side effects, but if you do have them, they should go away in a day or two.

However, we do know about lingering side effects of COVID-19.

Here is a list of common side effects that linger over time, according to the Mayo Clinic: fatigue, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, cough, joint pain, chest pain, memory, concentration or sleep problems, muscle pain or headache, fast or pounding heartbeat, loss of smell or taste, depression or anxiety, fever, dizziness when you stand, worsened symptoms after physical or mental activities.

Other less common but lingering damages and effects from COVID-19 can also be found in the Mayo Clinic article.

While some people continue to deal with long COVID months after their initial infection, the mRNA material from the vaccine only stays in your body for about 72 hours. See this article from Memorial Sloan Kettering for more specific information about how mRNA vaccines work, and this video from Harvard which shows how mRNA vaccines work.

Another common reason for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is that they trust their immune systems. Yes, many people that become infected with COVID-19 remain asymptomatic. According to this article from UC Health from last November, an estimated 20-30% of people fall into this category.

On the other end of the spectrum, 1.7% of people who get infected in America with COVID-19 succumb to the disease, according to Johns Hopkins as reported on 10 August 2021. Most of the people who get infected have mild symptoms, while others have severe enough symptoms that they are knocked down for weeks, and even hospitalized.

Many people believe that they are young and healthy, and that they will be fine. According to the CDC, you are probably correct. The demographic that is at the highest risk of morbidity from COVID-19 are those who are over 65. However, 18% of those who died from COVID in America were 45-64 years of age. And while 1.8% of those who died were under the age of 45 seems like a small percentage, this is still over 17,000 deaths in the United States alone.

I have also heard that people are hesitant because the vaccines are not fully FDA approved. Up until this year I was ignorant of the approval process, and the nuances of the difference between emergency use authorization (EUA) and full approval. I’ll summarize below.

There are three phases in getting something FDA approved.

In phase 1, the vaccine is given to a small number of healthy people to assess its safety.

In phase 2, various dosages are tested on hundreds of people with typically varying health statuses and from different demographic groups, in randomized-controlled studies. The goal from this phase is to provide additional safety information on common short-term side effects and risks, examine the relationship between the dose administered and the immune response, and may provide initial information regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine.

In phase 3, the vaccine is generally administered to thousands of people in randomized, controlled studies involving broad demographic groups, (i.e., the population intended for use of the vaccine) and generates critical information on effectiveness and additional important safety data. This phase provides additional information about the immune response in people who receive the vaccine compared to those who receive a control, such as a placebo.

For a EUA to be issued, the third phase must include at least 3,000 vaccine recipients, and half of recipients in phase 3 clinical trials must have at least 2 months of follow-up. An EUA is issued by the FDA to prevent serious or life-threatening diseases when there are no adequate, approved, or available alternatives.

While breakthrough COVID cases are becoming more common, the COVID vaccines are still working. Positive cases are less likely from people that are vaccinated, and hospitalizations and deaths are significantly lower in people that are vaccinated. According to internal CDC documents obtained by the Washington Post, there have been about 35,000 breakthrough infections a week. While this number may sound alarming, that is only two hundredths of a percent (0.02%) of all fully vaccinated people.

In terms of hospitalization and death from COVID as a vaccinated person, your chances become even slimmer. As reported by MIT:

“According to the CDC, as of July 26, only 6,587 vaccinated Americans had become sick enough to be hospitalized with breakthrough infections, out of more than 164 million who have been fully vaccinated. That is a breakthrough hospitalization rate of a little more than 0.003 percent. There have been 1,263 COVID-19 deaths in vaccinated individuals, representing a death rate of 0.0008 percent among vaccinated individuals.”

There are many reasons to be hesitant to get a new vaccine… but there are millions of reasons to get vaccinated and protect the people around you. Your family. Your friends. Your neighbors. Yourself.

If you’re healthy, Petworth News asks that you get vaccinated. If you’re unsure, talk to your doctor. Get the facts and make a fact-based decision.