FAQs
When you get vaccinated, you’re not just doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for your family, your friends, your community and the world.
Why is it so important that everyone gets vaccinated?
We’re in this together. The more people who vaccinate, the more the threat of exposure will be mitigated and the faster we’ll get back to normal, or at least close to normal. So, remember, when you get vaccinated, you’re not just doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for your family, your friends, your community and the world.
Why should I trust the clinical studies?
Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are companies with a long history of safety and efficacy in the medications they produce. The FDA, one of the most stringent regulatory agencies in the world, has wholeheartedly sanctioned the vaccines for emergency use.
So how do the vaccines work, am I actually getting myself injected with the COVID virus?
No, these are not like other vaccines that actually inject you with a dormant form of the disease to stimulate antibody production. These vaccines take a small portion of mRNA (Messenger RNA) from the virus and, once injected into a human, the mRNA tells the body to produce antibodies which fight the disease.
But won’t the disease keep on mutating, making these vaccines ineffective?
So far, we’ve observed that COVID-19 does not seem to mutate as quickly as the flu. To date, there have been only three or four mutations. With the vaccines available today, you are pretty much protected from the US and Wuhan strains of the disease. Even with the strains in South Africa and Great Britain, you are much less likely to get a serious disease if vaccinated.
There’s been comments about side effects after the second dose. Any truth to them?
There have been side effects, but most are mild. We’ve seen a little bit of a higher rate with the Moderna product, but both vaccines are equal in efficacy. People who have side effects will probably feel slightly sick for a few hours within the first twenty four. This should quickly go away. Think about it like this: the slight side-effects are a signal that your body is responding to the vaccine. When you come out the other side, your immune system will have much greater capacity to fight COVID-19.`
What exactly is meant by the term “herd immunity?”
It’s quite simple. When people are vaccinated, they can’t catch the virus and can no longer pass it along. At a certain point when enough are vaccinated, there are much less people capable of passing it along and the disease becomes much less of a threat. It’s simple math.
Top Doctors
As the nation’s Top Doctors, we believe in the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness. So get vaccinated. For our loved ones, our friends and the world.
