SECOND DOSE WORRIES
More time between shots may be of some benefit
Experts say wider window between vaccine doses not cause for alarm, could even be beneficial.
While COVID-19 vaccine supply issues have left thousands of San Diegans in limbo between their first and second doses, local researchers say not to worry about getting your second shot late.
What’s more important is coming back for that next appointment once it’s available, says Dr. Mark Sawyer, an infectious disease expert at Rady Children’s Hospital who served on the Food and Drug Administration advisory panels that reviewed the safety and effectiveness of the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
“People don’t have to worry that their first dose has gone to waste if they have to wait five weeks, or six weeks or seven weeks between dose one and dose two,” Sawyer said. “It will still work, and they’ll be protected.”
About 307,000 San Diegans who’ve received a COVID-19 vaccine still need a second dose, according to the county’s dashboard, as it takes two shots of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to maximize immunity against the coronavirus. And while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend getting your second shot within six weeks of the first, that won’t happen for some residents due to a severe shortage of vaccine from Massachusetts biotech Moderna.
During the county’s weekly coronavirus briefing, officials said that ongoing vaccine supply issues still haven’t been resolved. And while local COVID-19 numbers are trending in the right direction, with 352 coronavirus infections and 17 new hospitalizations reported Wednesday, recent progress won’t be secure until the vast majority of San Diegans have been inoculated.
“This is a struggle. This is very hard,” said County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher. “I know it creates frustration.”
It also creates confusion for people wondering if they’ll need to start the whole vaccination process again due to a delayed second dose.
The short answer? No. “If the second dose is administered beyond these intervals, there is no need to restart the series,” reads CDC guidelines posted online in mid-February.
Waiting longer for your next dose might even be helpful, says Dr. Douglas Richman, a virologist at UC San Diego, noting that other multidose vaccines, such as measles, tetanus and hepatitis A, often space out shots by two to six months — sometimes longer.
“The delay doesn’t worry me at all, and it may be beneficial,” Richman said. “The magnitude of the response for a boost improves the longer you wait.”
The recommended second dose timing for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — four and three weeks, respectively — is based on the clinical trials. These trials were designed to quickly test whether the vaccines were safe and effective; longer gaps between doses would have delayed finding those answers.
It takes about two weeks to mount a full immune response to a vaccine, so three to four weeks is on the shorter end of when it would make sense to get a second dose. That response involves both antibodies — Y-shaped proteins that can coat a virus and prevent infection — and T cells, which can kill infected cells before they spew out more virus.
Most of these immune cells will eventually die off, but a few stick around in case you’re exposed to that same virus again. These so-called memory cells can take a month or longer to form, says Richman. Once they do, reactivating them produces a faster, stronger immune response than you had the first time. That’s the whole point of getting a booster shot.
Along those lines, researchers have reported that British pharma giant AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine is 55 percent effective for people who received both doses within less than six weeks, but that efficacy steadily rises with longer intervals, reaching 82 percent among participants who waited at least 12 weeks for their second shot.
And while you wait, there’s ample data to show that the first dose offers strong short-term protection. A single shot of Moderna’s vaccine is about 80 percent effective at keeping people from getting sick with COVID-19, according to data submitted to the FDA.
It’s unclear, however, how long single-dose protection lasts. And with growing evidence that some coronavirus variants aren’t stopped as effectively by antibodies, it’s still important to get your second dose as soon as you’re able to.
“You amplify your response (and) your antibodies after the second shot, so you’ve got a higher level. As your immune response decays over time, you probably have more durability, and you have probably more protection,” Richman said. “There’s lots of good reasons to get a second shot, no question about it.”
Another good reason: The current COVID-19 vaccines are extremely effective at preventing severe illness and death. On Wednesday, the county reported 25 additional coronavirus-related deaths, bringing the region’s total to 3,342.
Several years back, Claudia Erickson started preaching to her two teenagers about the importance of unplugging themselves from cellphones and other devices to spend more time with family, friends, books and the outdoors. It worked. Now she’s ready to take on the world.
The La Mesa businesswoman is the co-founder of Unplug Collaborative,
a nonprofit Erickson launched early last year with Los Angeles digital wellness entrepreneur Kim Anenberg Cavallo. Through the Collaborative, the two women are organizing more than 40 events in the U.S. and beyond on Saturday for the inaugural launch of the new and improved National Day of Unplugging. Five of those events will take place Saturday in San Diego County.
Started in 2009 by the Jewish organization Reboot, National Day of
Unplugging was created as a way for families and friends to gather for technology-free Shabbat dinners. It’s traditionally held on the first weekend in March during the 24 hours between dinner on Friday and Saturday evening to tie into Shabbat, which is the Jewish day of rest.
Over the years, National Day of Unplugging was a loosely organized and slow-growing grassroots movement that attracted nearly 112,000 followers worldwide. Because of their shared enthusiasm for the concept, Cavallo and Erickson teamed up last year to create the Unplug Collaborative as the central and official hosting organization for National Day of Unplugging, with the blessing of the event’s original creators and their global email database.
Cavallo is the executive director and Erickson is director of strategic partnerships. Both are volunteering their time on the passion project.