Pittsburgh doctor: 'Covid vaccines are lights at the end of the tunnel, but we're still in the tunnel'

Coronavirus vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are likely to be released later this month. The announcements bring excitement for what could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. But some people have concerns about the safety of the vaccines.

Just how safe are vaccines? How do they work compared to other vaccines? And, with nearly half of U.S. adults saying as recently as this fall that they don’t intend to be inoculated, what happens to people who don’t get a vaccine?

The Trib put these questions to Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Trib: It looks like we’re going to have a vaccine available this month. But people still are wondering about the safety of the vaccine. How does the vaccine work compared to other vaccines? Can you get sick from it and are there any reasons why someone shouldn’t get it?

Dr. Adalja: This was a vaccine developed using a new technology that didn’t really exist a decade ago and really allowed a vaccine to be put into clinical trials very early. What we’ve seen in the safety data from animal studies, phase I, phase II and phase III, shows this to be a very safe vaccine. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t injection side-effects that you get once you get the shot into your arm. Those individuals may experience fever, chills, muscle aches or pains, especially it seems after the second dose.

This is something we have to be transparent with people about and talk to people about it. But there hasn’t been a safety signal that I’m worried about or concerned about.

I would get the vaccine. I would get the vaccine today if it was available to me. I do think we will follow people who get vaccinated for several years just like we do with every other vaccine, and we’ll know whether or not there are any long-term complications.

Q: As you well know, there are a lot of people who are still in denial about covid-19. What will happen to those who don’t get the vaccine?

A: If people don’t get the vaccine, they will still be susceptible to infections and still be susceptible to severe disease. Hopefully, that’s a minimum, and the amount of other people in the population who get vaccinated will serve as herd immunity for those individuals who choose not to get vaccinated. It’s going to be something that will delay the end of this public health emergency. The more people who are eligible to get vaccinated that do get vaccinated, the quicker the world can put this behind us.

Q: Do you anticipate employers mandating the vaccine? Should they?

A: I do not think in this first round it will be mandated. You have to remember that this is going to be available not with a full FDA licensure, but with an emergency-use authorization. I don’t think this is something that could be mandated or would be mandated because its availability is based on a limited amount of data.

Maybe somewhere down the road when we have full licensure, when we have more data, you will see employers mandate it. But I do think that employers should highly encourage their employees to get this vaccine, incentivize them to get them and praise those that do get it. I think a lot of social pressure to think that this should be the norm, that we should be getting vaccinated against covid-19, will help to make vaccine hesitancy a little less of a problem than it has been with other vaccines.

Q: Holidays are coming this month. What about get-togethers? A lot of people want to see their relatives, but what kind of precautions should they still be taking?

A: You should think about if it’s necessary to see people outside your household. If you are going to get together, try to minimize risks by limiting the number of people who are invited. Try to keep people 6 feet apart. If you can do it outside with heaters, for example, try and do it that way. Maybe have people wear face coverings if they are coming from different households. Make sure that nobody is coming that is waiting for a test result or that’s under quarantine because they’ve been exposed or have symptoms consistent with coronavirus.

We know people are going to get together irrespective of what public health authorities say. We’ve got to try and meet people where they are and give them the tools to make it a little bit safer than it would be in any other circumstance.

Q: The vaccines are coming. Some people are getting very excited about this. They think this may bring to an end the pandemic as we know it. What words of advice do you have?

A: These vaccines are lights at the end of the tunnel. But remember, we’re still in the tunnel and it takes a while to turn a vaccine into a vaccination. So, for the general public, the average risk person, it’s not likely to be until mid-2021 where they have access to this vaccine.

So, in the interim, a lot of people are going to get infected, a lot of people are going to get hospitalized, a lot of people are going to die and hospitals are going to worry about their capacity on a day-to-day basis.

This is not a reason to stop thinking that we’re in a pandemic or stop behaving as if we’re in a pandemic. We don’t want to get a false sense of security before we even have a vaccination program in place.