Is it time to discuss the potentially unpleasant side effects of COVID-19 shots?Scientists say so | National

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer will seek federal permission to release the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of November. This is a move that promises to calm the pandemic, but it also sets a tight time frame to ensure that consumers understand what it really means. Take a shot.

The company’s protocol indicates that this vaccine, and perhaps most other vaccines, requires two doses to function and injections must be given at weekly intervals. Scientists predict that shots can cause flu-like side effects such as arm pain, muscle aches, and fever that can last for days and temporarily move some people away from work or school. doing. And even if the vaccine proves to be 90% effective, Pfizer’s promotion of the product remains vulnerable to 1 in 10 recipients. So, at least in the short term, as population-level immunity grows, people will not be able to stop social distance and throw away their masks.

Dr. Saad Omer, director of the Yale University Institute for Global Health, said that what was left behind to develop vaccines at an unprecedented speed was a large-scale plan to effectively communicate these issues in advance. did.

“You need to be ready,” he said. “The day after the vaccine is approved, you will not be able to find communication materials.”

Omer declined to comment on reports that President-elect Joe Biden was considering taking office in the new administration, calling for a powerful messaging campaign based on the best scientific evidence of vaccine hesitation and acceptance. .. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has created a strategy called “immunize with confidence,” but lacks the resources it needs, Omar said.

“We need to communicate, we need to communicate effectively, we need to plan now,” he said.

In a country where only half of Americans are willing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as of mid-October, such extensive outreach will be needed. Initial doses of the vaccine will be limited initially, but experts predict that it will be widely available by mid-next year. Early discussion of potential side effects can counter false information that exaggerates or distorts risk.

“The biggest tragedy would be to have a safe and effective vaccine that people hesitate to get,” said Dr. Pretty Marani, chief health officer and professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Pfizer and its partner, German company BioNTech, said on November 9 that the vaccine appears to protect 9 out of 10 people from COVID-19 infection, although it did not release underlying data. It was. This is the first of four COVID-19 vaccines to show results in a large efficacy trial in the United States.

Data from early trials of some COVID-19 vaccines suggest that consumers need to be prepared for side effects that are technically mild but can disrupt daily life. Senior Pfizer executives report that the side effects of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine appear to be comparable to standard adult vaccines, but worse than the company’s pneumococcal vaccine, Prevnar, or typical flu shots. I told the institution’s Stat.

For example, a double-dose Shingrix vaccine protects the elderly from the virus that causes painful shingles, causing arm pain in 78% of recipients and muscle soreness in more than 40% of those who take it. It causes malaise. Influenza vaccinations and common flu shots can cause pain, pain, and fever at the injection site.

“We want people to be vaccinated to hurt,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “For a day or two, there are quite a few clumsy people who have arm pain and headaches and muscle aches.”

According to Schaffner, it may be difficult to convince people who have experienced these symptoms to take a second dose and return to a second flu-like symptom in 3-4 weeks.

It is important how public health professionals explain such effects, Omar said. “There is evidence to suggest that if you build pain as a substitute for effect, it helps,” he said. “If it hurts a little, it’s working.”

At the same time, good communication helps consumers plan such impacts. Dr. Eli Perencevich, a professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa, said the COVID-19 vaccine will first be distributed to medical staff and other essential workers, who may become incapacitated if they feel sick. Stated. Health care.

“Many people don’t have sick leave. Many of our key workers don’t have health insurance,” he said, and key workers should be given three days of paid leave after vaccination. Suggested. “These are what a well-functioning government should provide to reinvigorate our economy.”

It is also important to ensure that consumers are informed that the COVID-19 vaccine may require two doses and may take up to a month to be fully effective. Pfizer’s Phase 3 trial, which involved approximately 44,000 people, began in late July. Participants received a second dose 21 days after the first dose. The reported 90% efficacy was measured 7 days after the second dose.

Effective communication is to ensure that the consumer performs the shot and that the first and second doses are from the same manufacturer, assuming that several vaccines have been approved. Is essential to According to Omar, people need to continue to take steps to protect themselves until full protection begins. Wearing a mask, washing your hands, and keeping a social distance. It is important to let people know that taking the right action now will be rewarded later.

“If we show them tunnels instead of light, it brings this massive denial,” he said. “We need to continue this in the medium term, but it looks good in the long term,” he says.

Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccinologist at the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital and a member of the Federal Food and Drug Administration’s advisory board considering the COVID-19 vaccine, said that if complete data, such as the Pfizer trial, were provided, He states that he will get the best communication.

“Looking at these data, which group of people are most likely to have side effects, what is efficacy, what we know about the duration of efficacy, and the length of safety data. You can more accurately define what we know about. Tested. ” “I think you have to be ready to tell it. You can start preparing now.”

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(Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. This is Henry J, an editorial independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

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