Questions Experts Still Have About the COVID-19 Vaccine

 

• The first COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for use by the FDA this month, and a second vaccine made by Moderna may be authorized as soon as Friday.
• But even with these authorizations, there are lingering questions about the vaccine, such as how effective it’ll be in the real world and how long it’ll offer protection.
• We talked to experts about the questions they still have about the vaccine and when we might have answers.

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Since the early days of the pandemic, Operation Warp Speed was launched to help create a COVID-19 vaccine as quickly and as safely as possible.

On Dec. 14, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization (EUA), which would allow millions of people to get vaccinated.

Despite this breakthrough, there are still some lingering questions about the vaccine and the road ahead. We try to provide answers to 10 of these questions.

Does the vaccine authorization mean an end to double-blind vaccine trials?

The Pfizer vaccine trial has over 37,000 participants, the majority of which are in the United States. Over 18,000 received a vaccine and a similar number of people were given a placebo.

Although enough data has been collected for EUA, many experts believe that the trials will still go on, particularly with these original participants.

This allows for long-term monitoring of side effects of the vaccine beyond the initial monitoring period used for FDA approval.

“Although many of the steps for authorization have been accelerated, the public should be totally confident that none of the science steps along the way have been compromised,” Henry Bernstein, DO, pediatrician at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Queens, New York, and a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization PracticesTrusted Source, told Healthline.

“As a result, the scientific integrity is clear, and these vaccine studies will continue to gather ongoing data,” he said.

How long will the vaccine be effective?

With the speed at which this vaccine was approved, from enrollment to acceptance, there’s no clear information on how long this vaccine is going to be effective.

The virus was only just discovered at the end of 2019.

Based on Moderna’s and Pfizer’s clinical trials, which both started at the end of July, experts have been able to show that the vaccines have long-lasting protection, but the actual length of time is still unknown.

However, with the data that’s available, research shows continued protection since the start of the trial, and further monitoring of trial participants in the months and years to come will allow for understanding of long-term immunity.

general population?

Although there’s a strong protection against COVID-19 after receiving the vaccination, there’s still a chance that one could get the virus after being vaccinated.

The vaccine takes time to provide protection, and no vaccine is perfect.

The Pfizer vaccine is said to be 95 percent effective, according to evidence released by regulators. The Moderna vaccine appears to be about 94 percent effective.

But even after getting these vaccines, it may take several weeks for the body to start building immunity after the vaccination. This means that someone could get sick with the virus just before or even just after getting the vaccination.