Current COVID- 19 vaccine review

Dr. Roach Writes: I deferred making a recommendation about a COVID- 19 vaccine until more data were available. The Food and Drug Administration has now made the data available for the Pfizer COVID- 19 vaccine. It has been approved for use in the U. S., with doses being distributed. After reviewing the data, I recommend getting the vaccine.. I plan to get it as soon as it is offered.

Over 20,000 study participants received the vaccine. Subjects ages from 12 to 91 were studied. The FDA reported data up to four months after subjects received their first vaccination. Eight cases of confirmed COVID- 19 occurred in the group that got the vaccine, compared with 162 in the group that received placebo, meaning the vaccine is 95% effective.

The age of the subject had little effect. The vaccine started to become effective at 14 days. People with a history of infection benefitted from the vaccine just as much as those without.

Vaccine reactions were common and expected. The most common patients reports included redness or swelling at the injection site ( 11%), fatigue ( 6%), headache ( 5%), muscle pain ( 5%) and fever ( 5%). Serious adverse events were rare, less than 0.5%. This puts the vaccine at somewhat more likely to cause a mild side effect than a flu vaccine, but less likely than shingles.

There are some unknowns. We do not know how long immunity will last. It may be that people will need booster shots. There are challenges to getting a large proportion of the population vaccinated so ongoing transmission will be disrupted.. Public health officials are devising the most efficient ways of getting the population protected.