COVID-19 Vaccine Part II: Q&A with Dr. Chidi Akusobi
Dr. Chidi Akusobi, a Bronx native, joined the Healthy Bronx Podcast to answer questions submitted by Bronx community members about the vaccine. You can listen to the full episode here, and check out the Q&A below.
For more information about what COVID-19 vaccines are available, who is eligibile and how to make a vaccine appointment, check out our recent post COVID-19 Vaccine Part I where we address these questions and more!
Dr. Akusobi was born in Nigeria and moved to the Bronx with his family at the age of 2. He completed his PhD in Infectious Disease last spring at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and he will recieve his MD from Harvard Medical School in 2022.
My family is concerned about the efficacy of the vaccine being that the vaccine was developed in a relatively short period of time. Can you talk about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine? What is the most common misleading information that you can address regarding the vaccine?
-Ashley, Morris Heights
While it may seem like the COVID-19 vaccine was approved very rapidly, the vaccine has actually been decades in the making! The mRNA technology used to make the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was first developed in the 1990s, and scientists have been studying and refining the technology ever since. Secondly, the urgent need posed by the pandemic meant that unprecedented resources and collaboration were thrown behind vaccine development. And finally, the ongoing pandemic meant that lots of people were contracting COVID-19, which allowed the vaccines to be tested in real time in a very large group of people. Together, this meant that the vaccine was finalized, tested and approved extremely efficiently. In many ways, it serves as a model for future vaccine development. Both vaccines are considered very safe and were rigorously tested in hundreds of thousands of people before they were approved.
One myth that has been circulating is that the vaccine contains a microchip that the government will use to track people. This probably stems from the fact that people don’t know what’s in the vaccine. In reality, the vaccine is very simple, and has just 3 ingredients: mRNA (the instructions that tell your body how to make bits of the virus, so your immune system learns to recognize it), lipids (naturally-occurring fats), and buffers (salts and water). I’ve also heard myths that the COVID-19 vaccines will permanently alter you in some way. This isn’t true; mRNA is extremely unstable, which means that it is shortlived and degraded very quickly in the body.
Healthy Bronx Note: The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both considered extremely safe. The most common side effects include arm soreness, fatigue and headaches. Severe allergic reaction is the most dangerous side effect, and it is extremely rare. A recent study looking at the first few months of vaccine rollout found that out of roughly 17.5 million shots, only 66 cases of anaphalaxis (severe allergic reaction) occurred, and none resulted in death.
Do I have to worry about giving COVID-19 to my grandchildren, children and friends even if I’ve had the vaccine? After I’ve had both shots and waited for two weeks, can I still get COVID-19 and be contagious?
-Vivian, Little Falls
We know that getting the vaccine protects you from showing symptoms of COVID-19, but it is still unclear whether the vaccine protects you against asymptomatic cases of COVID-19. That means that we still don’t know for sure whether you can be vaccinated and still be contagious with an asymptomatic case of COVID-19. So it’s important that even vaccinated people still take precautions like hand-washing, wearing masks and social distancing until more people are fully vaccinated.
Healthy Bronx Note: Whether vaccinated people can contract an asymptomatic case of COVID-19 and be contagious to others is still an open question, but many experts believe this is unlikely. According to new CDC guidelines, people who have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine do not need to quarantine if they have been exposed to someone infected with the virus.
Due to the new strains of the virus that are now arising, if needed, how quickly can pharma companies develop new vaccines that would provide greater immunity from Covid?
-Ijeoma, Bronx
A major benefit of the existing COVID-19 vaccines is that they are very flexible. If a new variant comes out that the vaccines aren’t effective against, you can take the genetic material from that variant and plop it into the vaccine we already have. This will allow us to hopefully respond very quickly to new variants that may be resistent to current vaccines.
While we don’t yet know for sure, the thinking right now is that the current vaccines will likely offer some, if not complete, protection against new variants of the virus. This is because the vaccines teach our bodies to make proteins that can recognize lots of different spots on the virus. So the thinking is that even if the COVID-19 virus mutates, some of the proteins our body made will still be able to recognize it. This means we’d be at least partially protected against new variants.
If, after you’ve received your 1st vaccine; do you have to return to the same provider for the booster shot? Additionally, must both vaccines be from the same manufacturer?
-Joyce
Both doses have to be from the same manufacturer. Mixing doses (for example, having your first dose be the Pfizer vaccine and the second be the Moderna vaccine) hasn’t been studied, so you would be signing up to be an experiment!
Healthy Bronx Note: According to the NYC COVID-19 Vaccines page, you must get your second dose at the same location as your first.
Are there other (safer, more effective) vaccines coming down the line that are worth waiting for?
-Abel, Norwood
The two vaccines currently approved for use in the US (Pfizer and Moderna) are extremely safe and the most effective vaccines in the pipeline (both are 95% effective at preventing moderate or severe cases of COVID-19). Other vaccines are starting to be approved in other countries and they are also very safe, ranging from 50–75% efficacy. It’s possible that a more effective vaccine would be developed sometime in the future, but likely not within the next five years. So I wouldn’t wait to get the vaccine. If you have the opportunity and it’s something you want to do, I would go ahead and get it.
Healthy Bronx Note: On February 27, the FDA approved a third vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson. This vaccine requires just one shot, and uses a different techonology than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It is 85% effective at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19. Authorities aren’t yet certain when the J&J vaccine will become widely available.
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