Answers to readers’ questions on choosing vaccine, immunity and more
Confused about COVID-19 or vaccines? The Houston Chronicle’s COVID-19 Help Desk is here to… well, you know: help. Every week, a Chronicle reporter answers readers’ questions about how the virus works, what to expect with the vaccine and other concerns on Houstonians’ minds.
Can I take Tylenol, aspirin or other pain relievers before or after the shot?
Short answer: Don’t pregame. But if you feel lousy after the jab, and your doctor doesn’t object, it’s probably fine to take your favorite overthe-counter anti-inflammatory.
Long explanation: Revving up your immune system to fight COVID-19 is the whole point of getting vaccinated, and those drugs reduce fever and swelling, which are your immune system’s go-to moves.
A January article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Virology found that when cells are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, anti-inflammatories cause the immune system to make fewer antibodies and cytokines — both of which fight disease.
So taking them before you’re vaccinated is like braking at the beginning of the race.
Postjab is a different story. The common vaccine side effects — swell
ing at the injection site, flulike symptoms — are actually signs that your immune system is revving hard. At that point, it’s not a big deal if an antiinflammatory takes it down a notch.
In the soothing words of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention : “Antipyretic or analgesic medications (e.g., acetaminophen, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) may be taken for the treatment of post-vaccination local or systemic symptoms, if medically appropriate. However, routine prophylactic administration of these medications for the purpose of preventing postvaccination symptoms is not currently recommended, as information on the impact of such use on mRNA COVID-19 vaccine-induced antibody responses is not available at this time.”
Can I choose which vaccine I get?
Texas vaccine sites generally have one vaccine or the other, so no, once you’ve rolled up your sleeve, you won’t be offered a choice.
Theoretically, if you’re determined to pick your vaccine, you could go to the Texas Department of State Health Services’ website and check where the state has sent its latest allotments of vaccine.
The state lists whether it’s sent each place Pfizer or Moderna.
But with long waiting lists for vaccination appointments, and with so little difference between the two vaccines, shopping around like that doesn’t make much sense. Either of the mRNA vaccines will induce the virus-neutralizing antibodies that could keep
you out of the hospital.
Vaccine researcher Peter Hotez strongly recommends taking any federally authorized vaccine you can get. “Later,” Hotez wrote, “if it turns out the first vaccine we receive is not the best in terms of durability of protection or other factors, we can potentially receive a boost, either with the same vaccine or one of the others.”
How long does immunity last?
Scientists don’t know yet.
For people who’ve been infected, the CDC says, “current evidence suggests that getting the virus again (reinfection) is uncommon in the 90 days after the first infection.” But notably, people who’ve been infected with the virus have wildly different immune responses, possibly related to how much virus they were were exposed to in the first place — so some people’s immunity is likely to last much longer.
As for vaccines? “We won’t know how long immunity lasts after vaccination until we have more data on how well COVID-19 vaccines work in real-world conditions,” the CDC says.
Factor in the new COVID variants, and the question becomes even harder to answer. The Brazilian variant, P.1, has mutations that, according to the CDC, “may affect its ability to be recognized by antibodies.” That could be very bad news.
Is there a difference between natural immunity from getting sick and immunity from being vaccinated?
Yes. With an infection, your immune system is exposed to the entire virus. The vaccines train your immune system using only the part of the virus with the spike protein.
There’s also the matter of dose. Everyone gets the same dose of vaccine, but virus exposure varies
wildly. The more virus in your system, the greater your immune response is likely to be.
As for whether natural immunity lasts longer than the vaccine immunity, scientists don’t know yet — and it’s even possible that it’s the other way around. Early data from a Moderna trial, published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, look good for vaccines — but it’s too soon to be sure.
The biggest difference of all between vaccine immunity and natural immunity is super obvious but worth stating: According to the CDC, vaccines are definitely the safer way to acquire immunity. Catching the SARS-COV-2 virus out in the world is much more likely to make you severely sick or kill you. Dead people don’t get new infections, but that’s not the immunity you’re looking for.