To receive a COVID-19 vaccine or not — for some, this is the major question of the first half of 2021.
As new versions of the coronavirus vaccine roll out in the United States, some people are eager to receive one, while others are hesitant. Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance on safe behaviors for people who have been vaccinated, such as spending time indoors with other vaccinated people without wearing masks or maintaining physical distance.
Health professionals, including the New River Health District, say that all three coronavirus vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — are effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death as a result of COVID-19.
Two Virginia Tech experts on public health and vaccine efficacy provide answers to common questions about the safety, timing, and testing process of the coronavirus vaccine.
Read more from Laura Hungerford, a professor who heads the Department of Population Health Sciences, and Kate Langwig, an infectious disease ecologist and assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.
Q. The coronavirus vaccine was created and approved at an unprecedented rate. How can we have confidence in the testing process?
Langwig: One of the reasons we were able to create the vaccines so fast was that scientists had been previously developing vaccines for SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] and MERS [Middle East Respiratory Syndrome], which are also both caused by coronaviruses. Those diseases were never as widespread as this one, so there wasn't as much momentum to bring those vaccines online rapidly.
Obviously for SARS-CoV-2, there was a greater availability of resources to develop and test the vaccines. Another key point is that Phase III vaccine trials, which are the ones that usually measure the efficacy of a vaccine (not just whether it causes side effects) rely on participants becoming infected in the control group of the study. Because SARS-CoV-2 is so prevalent, the studies reached the number of cases in the control group needed to assess vaccine efficacy very quickly. Importantly though, no steps were skipped.
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