The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines are safe and effective. They give you the best protection against COVID-19.
COVID-19 vaccines are being offered to:
You'll be contacted by the NHS when you're eligible.
You do not need to wait to be contacted if you're in a group listed above. You may be able to book your COVID-19 vaccination appointments online now.
If you did not book when you were contacted, you're still eligible and can book your appointments anytime.
Vaccines were offered to people most at risk from COVID-19 first. They are now being offered to people based on their age.
If you're not eligible yet, wait to be contacted. The NHS will tell you when it's your turn to have the COVID-19 vaccine. It's important not to contact the NHS for a vaccination before then.
Find out more:
There are 2 ways to get a COVID-19 vaccine if you're eligible:
The currently available vaccines are given in 2 doses. You usually have the 2nd dose 8 to 12 weeks after the 1st dose.
If you book your appointments online, you can view, cancel or rebook them if you need to.
If you cannot book online, you can call 119 free of charge. You can speak to a translator if you need to.
If you have difficulties communicating or hearing, or are a British Sign Language (BSL) user, you can use textphone 18001 119 or the NHS 119 BSL interpreter service.
If you book online, you'll need to book appointments for both doses. You can manage your COVID-19 vaccination appointments to view your appointments and rebook if you need to.
If you have your 1st dose through your GP surgery, you'll be contacted when it's time to book your 2nd dose.
The COVID-19 vaccines currently approved for use in the UK are:
You cannot usually choose which vaccine you have.
You will only be offered a specific vaccine if you're either:
If this applies to you, you'll only be shown appointments for the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine when you book your COVID-19 vaccination appointments online.
If you book through your GP surgery, tell them if you're pregnant or under 40.
You should have the same vaccine for both doses, unless you had serious side effects (such as a serious allergic reaction) after your 1st dose.
Anyone who gets COVID-19 can become seriously ill or have long-term effects (long COVID). The COVID-19 vaccines are the best way to protect yourself and others.
Research has shown the vaccines:
The 1st dose should give you good protection from 3 or 4 weeks after you've had it. You need 2 doses for stronger and longer-lasting protection.
There is a chance you might still get or spread COVID-19 even if you have a vaccine, so it's important to continue to follow all social distancing guidance.
The COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the UK have met strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.
They can cause some side effects, but not everyone gets them.
Any side effects are usually mild and should not last longer than a week, such as:
More serious side effects are very rare.
Find out more about COVID-19 vaccines safety and side effects
You can have a COVID-19 vaccine if:
The vaccine cannot give you or your baby COVID-19.
You'll be invited to have the vaccine when your age group are offered it or earlier if you have a health condition or other reason that means you're eligible.
If you're breastfeeding, you can have any of the COVID-19 vaccines.
If you're pregnant and have not had a vaccine yet, it's preferable for you to have the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. This is because they've been more widely used during pregnancy in other countries and no safety concerns have been identified.
If you've already had the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for your 1st dose and did not have any serious side effects, you should have it again for your 2nd dose.
You can book your COVID-19 vaccination appointments online. If you're under 40, you'll only be shown appointments for the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. If you're 40 or over, you'll be asked if you're pregnant to make sure you're only shown appointments for these vaccines.
At your appointment, you'll be able to discuss the benefits and potential risks of having a COVID-19 vaccine in pregnancy. This is so you can make an informed decision about having it. You can also speak to a GP or your maternity team for advice.
There's no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines have any effect on your chances of becoming pregnant. There's no need to avoid pregnancy after vaccination.
Find out more:
The COVID-19 vaccines do not contain egg or animal products.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine contains a tiny amount of alcohol, but this is less than in some everyday foods like bread.
The vaccines are suitable for people of all faiths.
More than 49% of eligible Americans are fully vaccinated.
June 6, 2021, 9:33 PM
4 min read
The U.S. surpassed another milestone Sunday in its efforts to vaccinate Americans against the coronavirus.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that over 300 million vaccines doses have so far been administered across the country.
The Pfizer vaccine is currently eligible for Americans over the age of 12, while the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are eligible for Americans over 16. As of Sunday, roughly 49.3% of the U.S. population over 12 is fully vaccinated, the CDC said.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology and require two doses, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is one dose. All the vaccines are free.
A commuter receives a shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the opening of MTA's public vaccination program at a subway station in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, U.S., May 12, 2021.
Health officials said the increase in vaccinations since states opened up eligibility in April has resulted in a major drop in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
The seven-day average of new daily cases reported has decreased from 65,053 on April 1 to 12,780 on June 5, the CDC reported. The seven-day average of new daily deaths reported decreased from 681 to 367 during the same time period, according to the CDC.
Health officials, however, are warning the unequal vaccination rates among states and the recent drop in new vaccine administrations could slow down the country's recovery.
Sisters Guadalupe Flores, 15, right, and Estela Flores, 13, left, from East Los Angeles, get vaccinated with the Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine by licensed vocational nurse Rita Orozco, far left, at the Esteban E. Torres High School in Los Angeles, Thursday, May 27, 2021. Vaccinated Californians will be eligible for $116.5 million in prize money. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the massive pot of money on Thursday as part of an effort to encourage more people to get their shots.
As of Sunday, 14 states, most of which are located in the northeast, have passed the 70% threshold of their population over 18 years old with at least one vaccine dose, CDC data showed. Six states, four of which are in the South, have not passed the 40% threshold of their population over 18 years old with one dose, according to the CDC.
The seven-day average of first doses administered across the country has declined from a peak of 1.96 million on April 11 to 444,000 on May 31, CDC data showed.
Several states are trying to pick up their vaccine rates with incentives such as lotteries, free beers and college scholarships.
Anyone who needs help making an appointment for a vaccine can log onto vaccines.gov.
A vial of the experimental Novavax coronavirus vaccine is ready for use in a London study in 2020. Novavax's vaccine candidate contains a noninfectious bit of the virus the spike protein with a substance called an adjuvant added that helps the body generate a strong immune response. Alastair Grant/AP hide caption
A vial of the experimental Novavax coronavirus vaccine is ready for use in a London study in 2020. Novavax's vaccine candidate contains a noninfectious bit of the virus the spike protein with a substance called an adjuvant added that helps the body generate a strong immune response.
A new kind of COVID-19 vaccine could be available as soon as this summer.
It's what's known as a protein subunit vaccine. It works somewhat differently from the current crop of vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. but is based on a well-understood technology and doesn't require special refrigeration.
In general, vaccines work by showing people's immune systems something that looks like the virus but really isn't. Consider it an advance warning; if the real virus ever turns up, the immune system is ready to try to squelch it.
In the case of the coronavirus, that "something" is one of the proteins in the virus the spike protein.
The vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer contain genetic instructions for the spike protein, and it's up to the cells in our bodies to make the protein itself.
The first protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine to become available will likely come from the biotech company, Novavax. In contrast to the three vaccines already authorized in the U.S., it contains the spike protein itself no need to make it, it's already made along with an adjuvant that enhances the immune system's response, to make the vaccine even more protective.
Protein subunit vaccines made this way have been around for a while. There are vaccines on the market for hepatitis B and pertussis based on this technology.
A large test of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine's effectiveness, conducted in tens of thousands of volunteers in the United States and Mexico, is about to wrap up. Dr. Gregory Glenn, president of research and development for Novavax, told an audience at a recent webinar hosted by the International Society for Vaccines that "we anticipate filing for authorization in the U.K., U.S. and Europe in the third quarter."
Turning plants into factories
To make the virus protein, Novavax uses giant vats of cells grown in the lab. But there's another way to make the protein: Get plants in a greenhouse to do it.
That's the approach being used by the Canadian biotech firm Medicago.
The plants used are related to the tobacco plant, and have been modified to contain the genetic instructions to make the viral protein.
The plants do something very valuable they make a lipid shell that surrounds a bunch of the viral proteins, with the proteins sticking out.
"The plant will assemble the protein in a shape and form that is looking like the virus," says Nathalie Landry, Medicago's executive vice president for scientific and medical affairs. "So, if you look at an image of it, it looks like a virus, but it cannot induce any disease. But when [it's] injected as a vaccine your body will raise a good immune response."
Early studies suggest Medicago's candidate vaccine does just that, and the company is confident enough in those findings that it's already begun a large study in people that could involve as many as 30,000 volunteers in 11 countries.
Landry acknowledges that development of the Medicago COVID-19 vaccine has lagged behind others.
"We're a latecomer, but we're coming," she says.
Another latecomer that's coming is the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. Its protein subunit vaccine against the coronavirus is also grown in cells in the lab.
Late last year the company was getting ready to mount a large study of the vaccine's effectiveness when the early results in a smaller group of people showed it did not seem to be inducing the immune response that would be protective.
"Especially in elderly individuals in that study, it was not as immunogenic as it should be," says Dr. Paul Goepfert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who was one of the researchers involved in those early studies. He says the issue turned out to be an incorrect calculation of the dose of vaccine being delivered.
"So instead of giving 10 micrograms of the dose, they were actually giving one microgram," Goepfert says.
Sanofi has fixed that problem and repeated the early studies with good results. The company is now enrolling volunteers in a large efficacy trial.
Goepfert says it'll be a good thing if all these vaccines make it to consumers. But that alone isn't going to solve the problem of getting people vaccinated.
Why? "Because the vaccines that we have now are just beyond our wildest dreams kind of effective," he says. "And I'm living in a state right now where it just frustrates me how slow our vaccine uptake is."
Goepfert lives in Alabama. According to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only Mississippi has a lower per capita rate of vaccination.
One-third of unvaccinated U.S. adults say they will only get in line for the COVID-19 jab once it's fully approved, but medical experts say it can also be risky to wait.
Moderna became the latest COVID-19 vaccine maker to apply for full approval by the Food and Drug Administration, announcing last week that it has started the process for approval in people ages 18 and up. That follows Pfizer's announcement in early May that it was seeking approval in those ages 16 and up.
About half the country so far has gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, which has been made available in the U.S. through an emergency use authorization due to the public emergency the pandemic poses. As vaccination rates decline, full FDA approval could give them a boost, as the distinction holds significance for a large chunk of people who remain unvaccinated. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's latest vaccine monitor report, nearly a third -- 32% -- of unvaccinated adults are waiting for full FDA approval of a vaccine before getting it.
Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the large share of those waiting for approval came as a surprise.
"My sense is that it probably means more to the general public than it actually should," Moss told ABC News. "To think that that approval process is going to be the be-all and end-all is misguided to me."
Both authorization and approval are rigorous processes that look at the safety and efficacy of a vaccine, Moss said. A key difference between the two is that at least two months of follow-up data from phase 3 clinical trials are considered for authorization, versus at least six months for approval.
RN Natalie O'Connor loads syringes with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine before heading out to see patients in Bloomfield, Ct., Feb. 12, 2021.
The FDA will take several months to review the full set of data before granting approval, which several experts told ABC News was very likely. For Moss, with nearly 300 million doses administered in the U.S., "there's nothing about that review process that's going to reveal anything we don't know."
"Yes, it's kind of a formal stamp of approval, but I don't think it really provides much more than what we already know," he said. "We have more data on vaccine safety than with any other vaccine, even before the review of the full approval."
Both Pfizer and Moderna have said their vaccines continued to offer strong protection at six months after a second dose, including against emerging variants, and reported no serious safety concerns. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System also provides transparency and helped identify the very rare chance of blood clotting some were diagnosed with after getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Full approval would allow the vaccines to be used after the public health emergency is over in the U.S. It will also allow the companies to advertise their vaccines to people, which could help encourage vaccination, Dr. James McDeavitt, senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine, told ABC News.
"I think there's a significant benefit if we start to have some privately produced, professionally produced advertisements that are gonna encourage people to get vaccinated," he said. "It could be a significant driver."
At the same time, McDeavitt would also encourage people not to wait for approval if they plan to get the vaccine.
"If you wait a month or two or three, you're exposing yourself to risk that is unnecessary and preventable," he said. "[The COVID-19 vaccine is] free, it's incredibly safe and it's readily available. In my personal opinion, it makes no sense to wait."
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said that if waiting for approval gets more people vaccinated, that's a positive, but he also said there are risks in waiting as COVID-19 transmission remains active.
"All signs point to the full approval," he said. "So that may factor into the decision, of expected approval versus the potential risk of being unvaccinated."
A vial containing roughly 6 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is displayed in Vernon, Calif., March 23, 2021.
Beyond approval, paid time off was another sticking point for people who are not yet vaccinated. The Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 21% of employed, unvaccinated adults would be more likely to get the vaccine if their employer gave them paid time off to get it and recover from side effects.
Additionally, between 10% and 15% of unvaccinated adults said they would be more likely to get the vaccine if there was a financial incentive, such as money or free tickets, the survey found.
Seven percent said they would get vaccinated "only if required." Full FDA approval could open the door to more companies and schools mandating it, further increasing vaccine uptake, Brownstein said.
"I think we will see an opening up of more vaccine mandates by employers or other institutions, even perhaps government institutions," Moss said. "I think they will feel more comfortable mandating that their employees get vaccinated, obviously with certain rules about exemptions, after a full approval."
By Larimer County Public Health Director Tom Gonzales, MPH, REHS
In Larimer County, cases of COVID-19 have significantly decreased in recent weeks, reducing the strain on our local hospitals, allowing us to gather with our friends and loved ones again, and helping to strengthen our economy. In May alone, COVID-19 cases decreased 70%, thanks to vaccination.
In less than 6 months, over 352,300 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been received by Larimer County residents. This incredible work has been provided by a team of 19 vaccine providers working to distribute the vaccine in an equitable manner. 58% of our community members ages 16 and up are fully vaccinated. In less than a month of being eligible to receive the vaccine, 36% of 12-15 year olds have already received their first dose. Through large fixed vaccination sites like Moby Area and mobile pop-up clinics in rural areas, churches, community centers, correctional facilities, locations for those experiencing homelessness, and small local grocery stores, the Health Department alone has given over 30,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine this year.
While we are just shy of reaching Larimer Countys goal for 65% of residents over age 16 having received at least one dose by May 25th, we understood that even with the overwhelming demand for COVID-19 vaccines a few months ago, we would hit a point in our community where vaccination demand slowed. We are starting to lose momentum, and this should raise concerns for all of us.
In April, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that about 30% of those who havent received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine do not plan to get vaccinated. However, 21 percent say they plan to get vaccinated as soon as possible, 35 percent say they will wait and see, 14 percent say they will only get the vaccine if it is required.
We are still learning the number of people that need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before a return to a pre-pandemic lifestyle, however, experts agree that in order to keep COVID-19 infections down without restrictions on activities, well need well over 70% of the entire population to be immune, either by recovering from COVID-19 infection or through getting vaccinated. But this level depends on whether or not well see more infectious variants and how people, particularly those not yet immune, interact with each other. One thing that is clear from real world data is that the more people vaccinated, the better.
Larimer County businesses are helping to lead the way to increase vaccination rates, by either requiring or encouraging employees to get vaccinated and offering incentives like paid time off, special events for fully vaccinated employees, and other compensation strategies. Many local businesses in Larimer County have partnered with us to host onsite mobile vaccine clinics for the public, and in some cases, even throw in a free beer.
Employers can play an important role in increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake, and theyre smart to do so. One of the greatest benefits of a vaccinated workforce is that fully vaccinated employees generally do not need to quarantine if they are exposed to someone with COVID-19, reducing costs due to missed work and improving productivity.
Currently, everyone 12 years of age and older is eligible to be vaccinated and COVID-19 vaccines are widely available in Larimer County. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. After receiving a vaccine, there may be mild side effects, but these are normal. It takes about 2 weeks after a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, or a second dose of either Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, for a person to have full immunity from the virus.
Every person who gets a COVID-19 vaccine helps to end the pandemic and this supports the full economic recovery of our local businesses, and the sooner the better. My biggest concern right now is that there wont be enough people vaccinated come fall and winter and we wont be able to prevent another surge of cases like we saw in November and December. To keep our case rate low, widespread vaccine uptake among all parts of the population, in all areas of the county, is essential.
Please, if you are considering getting vaccinated but have been waiting, make a plan today. If you have a friend or family member on the fence about vaccination, offer to go with them to get their shot. Employers, consider requiring or encouraging your staff to get vaccinated and offering incentives and reaching out to my team at the Health Department if you want to host an onsite clinic. More information can be found at www.larimer.org/covidvaccine or by calling 970-498-5500 during the week. Together, we can do this.
Amid a global tragedy, the striking effectiveness of vaccines against the coronavirus stands out as one of the pandemics few good-news stories for humanity.
And the vaccines are the success story that, so far, has kept on going. Vaccinations are proving to be just as effective in the real world as they were in clinical trials, while remaining highly protective against the more contagious variants spreading worldwide. And two recent studies found that immunity to the virus could last for years.
While some viruses, most notably HIV, have eluded vaccination efforts for decades, SARS-CoV-2 has turned out to be an ideal target.
Its going to sound odd, but the truth is, we humans sort of lucked out, said James Musser, a pathologist at Houston Methodist Hospital. It doesnt always go this way with vaccines.
In November, initial reports of the stunning 95% efficacy of the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna came as a breakthrough moment just ahead of a crushing surge in US cases. Those results were far above the 50% efficacy threshold for shots set by the FDA in October of last year, and they well exceeded the 70% to 75% bar that some, including Anthony Fauci, chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had initially hoped for.
Nobody really expected it to be this good, said vaccinologist George Rutherford of the University of California, San Francisco. Its remarkable. Its why we invested in molecular biology for the last 40 years.
But getting everyone immunized with these remarkable vaccines remains a huge challenge. Even as the US returns to more normal life, with more than 40% of the population fully vaccinated and a goal of 70% having at least one shot by July 4, the rest of the world continues to face severe outbreaks. Less than 6% of the global population has been vaccinated, with more than 60 countries having administered fewer than five shots for every 100 people in their population. Globally, at least 3.7 million people have died of COVID-19.
That's left countries clamoring for more vaccine options, even ones that are less effective than those authorized in the US. On Monday, the World Health Organization authorized Chinas CoronaVac shots, an older kind of vaccine made from inactivated viral particles, for its global vaccine-sharing program. It is only about 50% effective in preventing an infection, but studies show it reduces the risk of severe disease.
The world desperately needs multiple COVID-19 vaccines to address the huge access inequity across the globe, the WHOs Maringela Simo said in a statement announcing the authorization. And on Thursday, the Biden administration unveiled a plan to share 25 million vaccines worldwide, three-quarters of them through the WHOs COVAX program, the first step toward sharing at least 80 million doses by the end of June.
The basic bottom line on this is that the United States is not doing this as some kind of back-and-forth deal where we're getting something for what we're giving, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at the White House briefing announcing the change. We are giving these for a single purpose; it is the purpose of ending this pandemic.
That we can talk about ending the pandemic with vaccines at all is partly due to good luck and partly due to decades of research preparing for such a deadly virus.
Charles Muro, age 13, celebrates being inoculated in Hartford, Connecticut.
Vaccines have been a triumph of science in the last century, eradicating smallpox and drastically curbing polio, rabies, and measles. But there have also been disappointments: We still have no vaccines against HIV or malaria despite decades of research. So in early 2020, scientists were unsure whether SARS-CoV-2 would be a virus we could fight with a vaccine.
There was a lot of fear early on that this virus was doing something very strange, said Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. The novel coronavirus attacked in a confusing way, causing no symptoms in some people and proving deadly for others. This suggested a complex interplay with the human immune system that would make it hard to design a vaccine against.
A little over a year ago, however, Crottys lab released data from recovered COVID-19 patients suggesting that their immune responses were similar to those seen after infections with other viruses. People who recovered first made antibodies to the virus and then generated longer lasting immune cells called T cells and B cells that retained a memory of the virus to fight off future infections. Vaccines spur the same response, only without causing any illness. This was an early sign that vaccines could be effective against the new virus.
We could say, This looks like a perfectly normal virus, we are playing by rules we understand, Crotty said. But the immune system is labyrinthine, and often surprising, in its complexity. So it was only when early safety studies of vaccine candidates were released last summer showing a level of antibodies postvaccination that was roughly eight times higher than those seen after a natural infection that things started to look really encouraging.
And scientists knew that, unlike the flu, which sloppily shuffles its genes when it reproduces, the coronavirus is a more sophisticated bug, repairing errors that crop up in its genes during replication. That competitive advantage ends up working against SARS-CoV-2 when it comes to vaccines, making it a slower-moving target than other viruses.
If this was HIV, for every variant we see now with SARS-2, wed see 1,000 more, Rutherford said.
Scientists were still cautious early on, said Mathai Mammen, Johnson & Johnsons global head of pharmaceutical research and development, because while the repair mechanism for the coronavirus was known, the virus doesnt stay as unchanging as measles, for example, where vaccination lasts a lifetime.
And the success rate for prototype vaccines is below 10%, Crotty noted. So it was unsurprising that vaccinologists, who deal with the hassles of proving out new immunizations in clinical trials, kept their hopes in check. And as expected, some of the vaccine candidates did face problems: Pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi delayed their vaccine to adjust its recipe in December, while Merck discontinued its vaccines a month later after disappointing early clinical trial results.
I was always optimistic, Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, said. This was an acute virus; you get it and get over it. Viruses that cause chronic infections, like HIV and herpes, which the body doesnt clear, are much harder to vaccinate against.
Here, instead, we saw there was a natural pathway to immunization we could take advantage of, Bhattacharya said.
Coronavirus spikes, which the viruses use to attach to cells, also made vaccination easier. Early last year, scientists at the National Institutes of Health mapped the atomic structure of SARS-CoV-2. This launched an early campaign to design vaccines aimed against the spike, based on earlier work used to develop experimental SARS and MERS vaccines.
Blocking the spike made the most sense from an immunology standpoint, Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist at Yale University, told BuzzFeed News. The spike is essentially the business end of the virus. If the spike is blocked from latching onto a cell, the virus is left powerless. So designing a vaccine that could summon antibodies aimed precisely at the spike protein (instead of somewhere else on the virus) seemed like a more direct approach to immunization.
There is a balance to this kind of specific targeting in vaccines. While all the most successful COVID-19 vaccines are aimed against the spike protein, some earlier prototypes targeted only its uppermost tip. That too-narrow approach proved to be less effective.
So did aiming too broadly. More-traditional vaccines, like the 50% effective Sinopharm vaccine made out of inactivated virus particles, train the body to make antibodies against the entire virus. That trick of biology explains its lower effectiveness.
[The spike is] sort of a sitting duck in a lot of ways for vaccination, Bhattacharya said. Its just asking for it.
In particular, mRNA vaccines have emerged as the big winners in the pandemic, topping 90% effectiveness. These shots deliver genetic instructions to human cells so they make coronavirus spike proteins themselves. The proteins that the cells then churn out sensitize the immune system to spikes and thus protect it from a future infection by the genuine virus.
These will be among the most efficacious vaccines that we have. Period, said John Wherry, director of the Penn Institute for Immunology.
Two decades of research went into making mRNA vaccines that are perfect for battling coronaviruses, right down to figuring out the best kinds of fatty molecules to cushion the genetic material within each shot. NIH did a great job at identifying exactly what part of the virus to use and exactly how to stabilize it in a form that makes the immune system recognize the most important part of it, Wherry said.
That form is the prefusion stage of the spike protein, which is seen just at the moment where the spikes unfold and shape-shift to dock onto the cell surface. Interrupting this stage of an infection is like jamming gum into a keyhole, Wherry said. You can stick gum all over a door and it might not do anything, but if you put gum in that keyhole, a key isnt going to fit in there to open that door.
Researchers knew about this vulnerability because of work done studying other viruses over the last decade. NIH scientists delivered a blueprint of this form of the spike protein to pharmaceutical companies so fast within days of first seeing the coronavirus genome in January that safety trials in people were already underway by April.
The payoff for all those decades of research came in November 2020, when late-stage clinical trials reported the 95% efficacy results for the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, which took aim at the SARS-CoV-2 prefusion spike.
The way I think about it is simply that this organism was built with mRNA vaccination in mind, said Musser, since the spike protein is such a solid target. For the flu, in contrast, many locations on the virus need blocking. Imagine you need to target 20 locations on a pathogen, and each one only gives you 5% immunity, Musser said. You have to hit a whole lot of them.
Even with such high levels of vaccine effectiveness, some immunized people may still get COVID-19, also known as a breakthrough infection. A small number of those people, drastically fewer than those who havent been vaccinated, can get severely ill. Of the more than 150 million people who have so far been fully vaccinated in the US, 439 have gotten so sick that they have died.
These breakthrough infections can help scientists understand more about correlates of protection, or precise measurements of the levels of antibodies and other immune cells needed to fend off the coronavirus. The problem is, in order to calculate this threshold, you need to take a blood sample just before a breakthrough infection occurs. Because the vaccines are so effective, this would require taking blood regularly from thousands of people just to catch the few infections that manage to break through.
And its getting harder and harder to know as the number of infections go down, Wherry said. So were sort of victims of our own success in knowing how well were protected.
Travelers are seen at Orlando International Airport on the Friday before Memorial Day.
There are two big hanging questions about our COVID-19 vaccines: How long will immunity last? And will they be able to fight off new strains of the coronavirus?
On the first question, we really just dont know for sure, because we have only been living with the virus for a year and a half. But some recent work has been encouraging; a May study published in Nature found that mild SARS-CoV-2 infections produced immune memory cells that last for at least a year, and possibly quite longer.
And of the CDCs five listed coronavirus variants of concern that appear to be more threatening than the original SARS-CoV-2 strain, four of them reduce vaccine effectiveness but not by very much. Even for the most worrisome variants the P.1 variant, first observed in Brazil, and the B.1.351 variant, first identified in South Africa the mRNA vaccines appear to be around 75% effective at preventing infections. Among the latest study findings, Public Health England reported last week that Pfizers mRNA vaccine is 88% effective against a highly contagious variant that is now widespread in India. AstraZenecas vaccine is 60% effective against the strain.
Nevertheless, pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna are already testing booster shots trained against new strains of the virus, in case COVID-19 shots become a yearly recommendation, like seasonal flu shots.
Asked how soon he expects to see a booster, Fauci, at a May 25 White House briefing, said, I'd like to give you a specific time and say X number of months, but quite frankly, we don't know the answer to that right now. Understanding when boosters might be needed will likely depend on figuring out the correlates of immunity, which he conceded might be years away, or, more likely, when doctors suddenly see lots of people sick either from a new variant or from immunity wearing off.
The bad news is, the evolution of new variants has accelerated, according to a recent review. Selective pressure on the coronavirus from vaccines, past infections, and treatments like monoclonal antibodies all require the virus to devise clever new ways to infect people.
Experts contacted by BuzzFeed News varied widely on their best estimates of when a booster shot might be needed. Some guessed next year, others said it could be another five years from now.
I think were going to end up with a booster. The question is what the booster looks like, Musser said. It might be a 50-50 mix of the original vaccine mixed with one targeted against a dangerous new variant. Or the booster might only be needed for older people who are at higher risk. Some people are inadvertently getting a booster because traveling to Europe requires a vaccination in the last six months, and they got their shots in December, Musser added. Thats one way it will happen.
While vaccines could slowly lose their efficacy against infections, they might still remain quite effective against severe disease. COVID-19 cases follow a two-part pattern: Early on, its contagious and causes cold symptoms; a week later it can turn into a serious illness. The more infectious variants are thought to evolve mostly in the earlier stages, when the symptoms are less severe.
That makes it harder to determine when booster shots should become a national imperative. Im probably still going to get the booster shot because I hate colds, said Bhattacharya, even if the original vaccines still keep you safe from severe disease.
Scientists are also studying how well mRNA vaccines will tackle other viruses, like the flu, HIV, and the Nipah virus. The expectation is that viruses that are similar to SARS-CoV-2 those with an essential, exposed target that doesnt mutate much will result in similar successes. But everyone wants to see the results of studies first, given past vaccine disappointments.
In the end, its a race between how quickly we can vaccinate the world and how quickly the virus continues to mutate. It will be all about the organism, Bhattacharya said. Thats what always makes the decision.
The word "COVID-19" is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration taken November 9, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Over 7,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been disposed of in Japan due to mishandling, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Sunday, as Japan races to inoculate its people amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections.
A hospital and a mass vaccination each had to dispose of some 1,000 doses of the Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) vaccine because they expired at room temperature, while 12 doses went to waste at a ward in Tokyo because of over-dilution, a survey by the daily found.
Omuta National Hospital in the southwestern prefecture of Fukuoka apologised in a statement, saying, "We hugely regret having to dispose of the precious vaccine due to our mismanagement, when many local residents are eager to get vaccinated."
Less than 50 days before the scheduled start of the Tokyo Olympics, Japan has vaccinated about 9% of its people with at least one dose, a slow rollout among advanced economies.
The nation's capital, Tokyo, set to host the once-delayed Games from July 23, is under a COVID-19 state of emergency along with eight other regions, while the government struggles to bring the fourth wave under control.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Gov. Jim Justice, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, and the West Virginia Joint Interagency Task Force for COVID-19 Vaccines announced COVID-19 vaccine clinics that will be held across the state.
All West Virginians, age 12 years and older, are encouraged to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. More information may be found at www.vaccinate.wv.gov. For assistance by phone, please call 1-833-734-0965.
Please check with the local county venue for information regarding appointment requirements.
Monday, June 7, 2021Ohio County9:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m., Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department, 1500 Chapline Street, Wheeling, WV 26003.
Tuesday, June 8, 2021Cabell County8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m., COVID-19 Vaccine Center, 100 Huntington Mall Road, Barboursville, WV 25504.
Grant County8:00 a.m. 3:00 p.m., Grant County Health Department, 739 N. Fork Highway, Petersburg, WV 26847.
Ohio County8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m., Community Vaccination Center at the Highlands, 550 Cabela Drive, Triadelphia, WV 26059.
Wednesday, June 9, 2021Cabell County8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m., COVID-19 Vaccine Center, 100 Huntington Mall Road, Barboursville, WV 25504.
Lewis County9:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m., WVU Jacksons Mill Airstrip, 160 Jacksons Mill Road, Weston, WV 26452.
Logan County9:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m., Logan County Resource Center, 100 Recovery Road, Peach Creek, WV 25639.
Nicholas County10:00 a.m. 4:30 p.m., Nicholas County Health Department, 1 Stevens Road, Suite 201, Summersville, WV 26651.
Ohio County9:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m., Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department, 1500 Chapline Street, Wheeling, WV 26003.
Wood County3:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m., WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center, 705 Garfield Avenue, Suite 360, Parkersburg, WV 26101.
Thursday, June 10, 2021Braxton County11:00 a.m. 2:00 p.m., Braxton County Health Department, 617 Old Turnpike Road, Sutton, WV 26601.
Cabell County8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m., Centennial Fire Station, 839 7th Avenue, Huntington, WV 25701.8:00 a.m. 8:00 p.m., COVID-19 Vaccine Center, 100 Huntington Mall Road, Barboursville, WV 25504.
Nicholas County10:00 a.m. 4:30 p.m., Nicholas County Health Department, 1 Stevens Road, Suite 201, Summersville, WV 26651
Ohio County8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m., Community Vaccination Center at the Highlands, 550 Cabela Drive, Triadelphia, WV 26059.
Webster County9:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m., Webster County Health Department, 112 Bell Street, Suite C, Webster Springs, WV 26288.
Wetzel & Tyler Counties9:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m., New Martinsville United Methodist Church, 10 Howard Jeffers Drive, New Martinsville, WV 26155.
Wood County9:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m., WVU-Parkersburg Early Learning Center, 300 Campus Drive, Parkersburg, WV 26014.
Friday, June 11, 2021Cabell County8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m., COVID-19 Vaccine Center, 100 Huntington Mall Road, Barboursville, WV 25504.
Ohio County9:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m., Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department, 1500 Chapline Street, Wheeling, WV 26003.
Saturday, June 12, 2021Cabell County8:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m., COVID-19 Vaccine Center, 100 Huntington Mall Road, Barboursville, WV 25504.
In Plain community newspapers, the obituaries for Amish and Old Order Mennonites rose during the pandemic, just as they did in other communities.
Thats how Steven Nolt identified COVID-19s impact on the Plain communities across Pennsylvania because, beyond that, there are no reliable methods for measuring how many people in those communities contracted the virus or received the vaccination.
We dont have data because Amish folks were, generally speaking, not interested in being tested, for a number of reasons, said Nolt, interim director of Elizabethtown Colleges Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.
Full coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak and how it impacts you
In some cases, they would say things like: I knew I was sick. I didnt have to go and tell someone I was sick. Or another concern of: Well, if it turns out Im sick, Im going to be told to do this and this that I dont want to do.
Donald Kraybill, senior fellow emeritus at the Young Center, said the vaccination decisions among the Plain community are as diverse as the 550 Amish congregations in Pennsylvania, because thats where the decisions are made.
I know of some congregations where they had an onset of infections back in last summer and last fall, and many of them feel, well, theyre already immunized by the fact that they already had the virus, he said.
Alice Yoder, executive director of Community Health at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital, said, There is general belief in that community that they have a level of herd immunity because so many of them had been sick early on.
Herd immunity, an idea that took hold early in the pandemic, is unlikely for the foreseeable future, experts say, because there are too many variants and the immunization rate has slowed recently.
There is no way to track how many Amish and horse-and-buggy Mennonite families have received their vaccinations, experts say, but theyre following the same path as many other rural residents: Theyre skeptical; resistant to the government mandating what they should do; but following along with shots, in some cases, when its easy and accessible. In addition, some Amish believe their community has reached herd immunity because so many of them had the virus early in the pandemic.
Many of the attitudes toward the vaccine in the Plain community reflect the stance of the people they live near, Kraybill said.
Amish people arent living on an island. They are all living in rural areas. None of them live in towns or cities. They get a lot of their information from local, rural people who may share negative attitudes about masking or vaccination, he said.
To push past any negativity, Penn Medicine LGH placed ads in Plain community newspapers and circulated flyers to explain the virus and the vaccine. They have even used telephone conferences to draw the Amish community into conversations with physicians.
Pop-up clinics in the eastern and southern parts of Lancaster County, where the Amish populations are highest, have helped, Yoder said. Just making the clinics easy and accessible have drawn both Amish and other rural residents in for vaccinations. Some waited to get their vaccination, and their success encouraged others to follow suit.
The number of Amish residents LGH has vaccinated or treated for the coronavirus is unknown because religious affiliations are not asked by medical staff, Yoder said.
Wellspan Health provides fact-based information on the vaccine in community publications, said spokesman Ryan Coyle.
The ultimately goal is for those in the community to make an informed decision, he said.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health said it has community health nurses who work regularly with the Amish community.
These nurses are in nearly every county in the state (except for those that have their own health departments). They have worked extensively to build relationships with the Amish community over the years and throughout the COVID-19 response, said Maggi Barton, deputy press secretary, in an email.
Read this article at the York Daily Record.
