I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine yesterday. So far I just have a sore arm and slight fatigue. Interestingly, I have soreness on the same spot on the both arms even though I only got the shot on one arm. The arm that got the shot was more sore but the other one had the same type of pain.
If the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was available and I can choose, I would have chosen Johnson. The Johnson vaccine uses old technology for which side effects from that type of shots are well known and mild. There has not been long term side effect from that technology. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use new technology so we don't know for sure if there are long term side effects. Plus, Johnson is a one shot deal and the others are two shots. From what I heard, the second shot has worse side effects. But I would recommend that everyone get a vaccine whenever it is possible and not wait. The quicker we get enough people vaccinated, the quicker we can end the pandemic. The chances of any bad side effects are small from any of these vaccines.
The storm across Texas and other parts of the country has affected the vaccine distribution. In LA my in laws were not able to get their scheduled second shot at Dodger stadium when the shots did not arrive. I was lucky my appointment in my county was not postponed. But I am sure the delay in LA was not an isolated incident in the country.
I heard that some people that are Trump supporters will not get the vaccine. The question is if you get the vaccine, you still carry it and can still spread it to others, correct? So if 9 out of 10 people are vaccinated, one of them can still infect the one that is not vaccinated if I understand that correctly. I figure you would know.
ReplyDeleteAlso, would it be beneficial to get the next shot in the other arm just in case there is still soreness in the first arm?
Were there a lot of people getting the shot when you went? Did you do it in your hometown or did you have to travel to another city?
-LBOAYM
The vaccine does not prevent one from getting infected by the virus. It does prevent one from getting very sick and die. So if one does not wear a mask and does not social distant after the vaccines, he still can catch the virus and pass it to someone else. But he won't die and since the antibodies elicited from the vaccine kills the virus so the viral load in his body is much less than before, thus he will less likely to infect others. So if another person did not get the vaccine and refuses to wear a mask, he can still get the virus from someone who had the vaccine but the chances are less likely to get a big viral load from that person. But the unvaccinated person may get sick and die still since the small amount of virus he did breathe in may replicate out of control in his body since he has no antibody against it.
ReplyDeleteWe probably can reach herd immunity if 80% of people get the vaccine and/or already got the virus and survived. At that point, it is hard for the virus to get transmitted since it would keep running into people whose body can kill it. The problem is that the virus can mutate so the variants that we are seeing now and those in the future may not be killed by the vaccine or the immune systems of those who had COVID already. So it is essential that we get as many people vaccinated as possible to prevent new mutations which are resistant to vaccines. That is why we not just have to vaccinate the rich countries but the whole world because unless it is controlled everywhere, new variants may still develop and end up everywhere.
By the way, that is one reason that I don't buy the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines having 95% efficacy where those with old technology is only 70%. The old ones were tested later and maybe they were tested in more third world countries and thus run into more variants. So I think the efficacies are going to be more similar in final analysis.
By the third or fourth week, I am sure the soreness will have completed gone away. My arm is already 50% better today. So it won't matter which arm you use for the second shot. Most people would use his non-dominant arm for both shots.
My city did not have a site until this past week. I was told that new vaccines were coming on Tuesday, the day after President's Day. I got up early and got an appointment online. I got there 10 minutes before my appointment. The checking in was efficient and I got my shot 5 minutes after my appointment time. Had to wait 20 minutes instead of 15 for them to discharge me. So the whole thing took about 35-40 minutes which was not bad at all. But our county does not give appointment for the second shot right there. I will have to wait for them to send me an email one to two weeks before my second shot is due to make an appointment. My in laws in LA county got their appointment for the second shot the same day they got the first shot. But they got postponed so the appointments from 4 weeks ago are not written in stone anyway.