I Got My Second Shot: The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy of COVID Vaccinations
On December 17, 2020, I received my first coronavirus vaccination. The second jab came on January 7th. Since then, millions of Americans have been immunized, many thousands more have gotten COVID, and at least 50,000 COVID patients have died, including a few under my care.
There are some people who are skeptical about getting the COVID vaccine. If you are on the fence (and you should not be), here are a few questions posed and answered.
“I hear people are getting sick from the shot. I also hear some people have died from it.”
The rate of serious complications from the COVID vaccine is about 0.02%. That compares to a death rate of about 1% for people who have COVID, depending on your risk group. In other words, you are 50 times more likely to die from COVID than to have a serious complication from the shot. Those are good odds. And remember, this is comparing deaths to complications, not deaths to deaths. It is not clear that anyone has died from the shot. There are a few isolated cases of people dying shortly after getting the shot, but so far these deaths are thought to be independent of the vaccine.
Keep in mind: if you give a vaccination to 2 million people, almost certainly someone in that group will die for some reason. The American death rate in recent years has been about 800 per 100,000 people per year. That means if you take a random group of 2 million Americans, about 16,000 will die in the next year whether they get a vaccination or not.
“But I’m young. The virus won’t kill me.”
The virus can kill anyone, although the death rate is much lower the younger you are. First of all, young people can’t get the vaccine yet. But when it is offered, you should get it if you are young not because you might die from COVID but because you could give it to someone more vulnerable. People who are immune are less likely to spread the disease. The sooner the number of cases go down, the sooner you can hit the beach, Party Boy.
“Didn’t Hank Aaron die shortly after getting the shot?”
Hank Aaron died within a few weeks of getting the Pfizer vaccine. He was also 83, and 83 year-olds sometimes die unexpectedly, vaccine or no vaccine. Aaron’s official cause of death was “natural causes.” This means the doctor who was treating him at the time of his death did not believe the vaccination had anything to do with it.
There are many misleading stories going around about people who got the vaccine and died a few days later. First of all, it takes 2-3 weeks for someone to get seriously ill from COVID, and death occurs a month or more after initial infection. So even if these people did get COVID from the shot (and they didn’t, because the shot does not contain the virus), a few days would not be long enough to die from COVID. It would have to be something else.
Could that something else be caused by the shot? Maybe, if there were any proof. But there is no evidence that the shot is causing people to die a few days later.
The COVID vaccine is being given to people who are elderly or have high risk medical conditions. A person who is 83 and gets the vaccine could die for any number of reasons. That doesn’t mean the shot did it.
If you are going to challenge science, at least think like a scientist. Just because two events occur close together doesn’t mean one caused another. If a person gets the COVID vaccine and is struck by lightning the same day, would you say the vaccine causes lighting strikes? I would hope not.
Every death has to be investigated to determine if there is a link. This key point remains: Among the first 1.9 million people who got the Pfizer vaccine in December, only about 4,100, or 0.02%, had serious reactions. Even better, of those, only 175 of the 4,100 were considered life threatening, and only 17 had anaphylaxis, the most serious form of allergic shock. Seventeen out of 1.9 million is a very good track record. Scientists are still looking at incoming data every day, but the vaccines appear to be very, very safe.
We are all looking. I have to identify a cause of death in every patient who dies under my care. So does every other doctor in America. I haven’t treated a patent yet who I thought had a serious reaction to the shot, much less anyone I thought was killed by it.
And no, I do NOT get paid to put COVID on a death certificate. In fact, I don’t get paid a cent to fill out a death certificate. Filling out death certificates is considered a professional responsibility of doctors, and is not paid for by anyone, ever.
In the face of all that, it is far safer to get the vaccine than not to.
“Aren’t people who take the vaccine getting sick?”
If by sick you mean having a non-life-threatening reaction to the shot, then yes. I will not sugarcoat it; when I got the second shot I felt fairly ill for about 24 hours. I felt like I was in the early stages of the flu — headache, significant fatigue, and a cough. It appeared rather suddenly, about 18 hours after the vaccination, and continued for another 24 hours.
I get the flu vaccine every year, and this was worse than any flu shot. On the plus side, as soon as the 24 hours passed, the symptoms rapidly disappeared. In this sense my reaction was very different from having the flu. Unlike the flu, where recovery can take several days, once this reaction passed I was completely back to normal. I went back to work — didn’t miss a day, in fact — and resumed normal activities as if nothing had happened.
In short, my vaccine reaction was strong, lasted a day, and left without any aftereffects. It beat getting COVID, for sure. It wasn’t more than I could handle, and it won’t be more than you can handle.
“What about these new mutant COVID viruses? I could get the shot, and then get COVID anyway.”
It is true that there are several mutations of COVID out there that virologists are concerned about. There is one in the United Kingdom which appears to be about 50% more contagious than the original virus. There is also some evidence that the UK virus may be more deadly.
There is also a Brazilian variant, and a variant in South Africa which may be a problem for vaccines.
The important thing to know, though, is that while there is some evidence that these new mutants may have characteristics that allow them to infect vaccinated people, so far there is no proof that the vaccines won’t protect against severe illness and death. That is to say, a person who is vaccinated and is exposed to a mutant virus might contract a mild case, but so far indications are that the vaccine can still protect against severe outcomes.
In my mind, this is what the vaccine is for. I am not concerned if COVID gives me a cold. I am concerned that COVID could kill me. If the vaccine prevents death, and there is strong reason to believe that it still can, it is very much worth getting.
You may recall that in the early days COVID was referred to as the “novel” coronavirus. Novel meant that the virus was new to human beings, that humans had no immunity. But if you get the vaccine, COVID is no longer novel to you — your body has seen it before. It will likely be less dangerous in that case.
This is why it is crucial that as many people as possible get the vaccine as soon as possible. If the majority of the world’s population can be immunized, humans will be at least partially immune to most mutations. Protecting against new mutations may require updating the vaccine and giving out periodic boosters, but as long as humans maintain some degree of immunity to coronavirus, we should be able to stay ahead of the game.
Saying ahead of the game means movies, weddings, music concerts, religious services, open schools, restaurants, parties, open bars, more jobs, and the ability to take a walk down a busy street.
Fighting coronavirus means getting started with the fight. Taking the shot is getting started.
“So no more masks and social distancing?”
Sorry, no. Masks buy us time until we can get everyone immunized. As I noted above, because coronavirus mutates, it is possible that an immunized person could get a mild case and spread the infection to people who are not immunized. Spreading the disease only prolongs the suffering.
If you hate wearing a mask, good! You should. But if you wear one now, you will shorten the time you will be asked to wear one in the future. Take your medicine now, and suffer less later on.
That’s how life works.
“Here are some other things I have heard: The first shot you get is a placebo. The virus in the shot will get into your DNA. There is a chip in the shot that the government uses to track you. White people get a different shot than black people.”
Ok. No. No. No. And hell no.
You know you are dealing with a conspiracy theorist when the story keeps changing. Every time I look on the Internet there is a new fake story about the vaccine. First doctors were getting paid to falsely report the diagnosis. Then there was hydroxychloroqine. Then the results were faked, the Chinese were trying to kill us — no wait, it was the CIA — no, the Democrats — then…. Sheesh.
If the story keeps changing, you should consider that it may be false. True allegations don’t change every week. True allegations remain true, and are repeated the same way each time — because they are true. False allegations change as soon as the evidence builds against them. Do yourself a favor and resist the temptation to buy into a new story every day of the week.
In brief:
The first shot is not a placebo. What would be the point of spending millions of dollars to deliver a shot that does nothing, then give the real shot later? That would be dumb. Many vaccines require repeat shots. The Hep B vaccine, MMR, and tetanus, to name a few. There is nothing strange about needing more than one shot.
No, the vaccine does not get into your DNA. The coronavirus vaccine is an mRNA vaccine. mRNA is not DNA just because it shares some of the molecular structure of DNA. Ammonia has most of same atoms in it as water does, but that doesn’t make ammonia and water the same. The mRNA induces your immune cells to produce proteins that cause an immune response to coronavirus. It does not affect your DNA.
No, there is not a chip in the shot that can be used to track you. In the first place, no one makes chips small enough to go through a hypodermic needle. In the second place, the vaccine is cooled to 90 degrees below zero for the Pfizer vaccine and 4 below zero for the Moderna. If I wanted to inject a computer chip into you, would it make sense to freeze it at subzero temperatures? Of course not. Thirdly, everyone carries a cell phone everywhere they go. I think if the government wanted to track you, they could do that already.
No, white people don’t get a different shot. When I got my shot, the nurse took a random vial from the supply to give me. Blacks and whites were both in the clinic that day, getting shots from the same vials. The coronavirus vaccine, both the Pfizer and Moderna versions, come in multiple use vials. You can get 5-6 out of a Pfizer vial and 10 from a Moderna vial. Now I ask you, if these companies wanted to manufacture “good” shots and “bad” shots, don’t you think they would produce single-use vials instead of vials used for multiple patients? It is much harder to segregate vaccines if people are sharing bottles. You’d have to make sure to re-use the right vial for the right person.
No one even requires race to register for the vaccine. If you have tried to register, you know this. Without that information, how would they know who to set aside the “good”vaccines for? If you are really concerned about this, don’t give your race when you register. Problem solved.
