YNHH, NAACP Crush Covid Vaccine Myths

Is the Covid-19 vaccine a rushed and dangerous experiment? Will the vaccine give you the virus? Are side effects worse than the disease?

And — that ​“zombie question” that just won’t die — does the vaccine affect fertility?

Top local doctors and medical researchers fielded those questions and many more Tuesday night during a virtual town hall hosted by Yale New Haven Hospital and the Greater New Haven NAACP.

Under the title ​“Covid-19 Vaccine: The Facts vs. Fiction,” local healthcare providers who have been on the front lines of treating patients, developing a vaccine, and getting doses into the arms of eligible members of the public sought to bust some of the most common Covid-era myths.

Local NAACP President Dori Dumas and Waterbury-based Rev. Leroy Perry joined in on the call to make a direct appeal to Black New Haveners — who, like African Americans across the country, have suffered disproportionately during the pandemic so far — to get vaccinated as soon as they are able to under the governor’s phased statewide vaccine rollout.

“We need the Black and brown communities more than ever to get this vaccine so that we can have longer life expectancies, especially with Covid-19,” said Dumas (pictured).

She recognized the mistrust that some Black people inevitably have towards novel medical interventions because of this country’s ​“long dark history” that includes the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks.

“We understand the doubts,” she said. ​“That’s why it’s important to acknowledge it, to talk about the concerns, and to have the experts here to to answer the questions.”

Which is exactly what Tuesday night’s event did.

YNHH President Keith Churchwell (pictured), Yale School of Medicine infectious diseases expert and local Pfizer vaccine trial principal investigator Onyema Ogbuagu, Yale University chief emergency department doctor Arjun Venkatesh, Yale Center for Clinical Investigation Director Tesheia Johnson, and Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) Chief Clinical Officer Thomas Balcezak took turns tackling myth after myth after myth that might dissuade someone from getting vaccinated when their turn comes.

Over 400,000 Americans nationwide have died from the novel coronavirus, including over 465 in the Greater New Haven area. Churchwell said everyone must do their part to protect themselves, their families, and their communities. At this stage of the pandemic, that means getting vaccinated.

YNHHS Senior Vice President for Public Affairs Vin Petrini told the Independent that the regional hospital system — which includes seven campuses from Greenwich to New Haven to Westerly, R.I. — has vaccinated roughly 33,000 people so far. That includes Phase 1a-eligible healthcare workers and emergency first responders, as well as Phase 1b-eligible Connecticut residents who are 75 or older.

“It’s going to be a long year,” Venkatesh said during Tuesday’s forum. ​“At this point, we have such wide transmission of Covid across the US, across Connecticut, across New Haven, that the only way out of it is if we do it together” by getting shots in the arm.

There are a half-dozen public vaccination sites in New Haven, including one co-run by YNHH and the city Health Department at the Floyd Little Athletic Center next to Hillhouse High School.

Any Connecticut resident who is 75 or older can schedule an appointment to get vaccinated by going to YNHH’s vaccine scheduling website, by calling 1 – 833-ASK-YNHH (275‑9644), or by signing up with the state’s Vaccine Administration Management System (VAMS).

Below are some of the vaccine-related myths debunked Tuesday night by YNHH’s medical experts.

Was the Covid-19 vaccine approval unduly rushed? Is this all a dangerous experiment that healthy people should stay away from?

The two vaccines that have been approved for use in the U.S. so far — one by Pfizer-BioNTech and one by Moderna — did indeed receive emergency use authorizations (EUA) rather than going through the federal government’s typical approval process for new vaccines. But New Haveners should rest assured as to the safety and efficacy of these novel treatments.

“There’s still the same rigor and multiple phases to the clinical trial,” said Johnson.

Roughly 75,000 people have participated in the Pfizer and Moderna trials, which have shown both vaccines to be close to 95 percent effective at protecting people from catching or getting seriously sick from the novel coronavirus, said Venkatesh.

Over 70 million people worldwide have been vaccinated so far, including over 24 million Americans. ​“This is really different” from a typical clinical trial that enrolls a few hundred patients for, say, an experimental cancer treatment, Venkatesha said. ​“This is something that’s happening globally.”

“These kinds of technologies have been around for more than 10 years in making vaccines,” Balcezak added about the mRNA-based vaccines. ​“We’re lucky that this was on the shelf when this pandemic came along so it could be repurposed to get this virus.”

Perry recalled one of the participants in his Waterbury-based fatherhood program asking him, ​“Why don’t we just wait and find out how everybody else makes out when they take the vaccine?”

“I said, ​‘My brother, you may not be around,’” Perry remembered replying. ​“We don’t really have the luxury of waiting and seeing. There’s an urgency here. Every 30 seconds, someone dies from Covid. We’ve got to push the envelope.”

Will the vaccine give you Covid? Are the vaccine’s side effects really bad?

No, Venkatesh said, none of the Covid-19 vaccines work by infecting people with the novel coronavirus itself. ​“You’re not putting any of the actual virus in your body.”

Instead, these Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines ​“give your body the playbook” on how to fight the virus by providing a picture of a protein which looks like the novel coronavirus, and causes one’s body to start building up antibodies to fight Covid.

“There are no microchips in it,” Venkatesh said. Instead, the vaccine trains your body to remember how to fight Covid. And, after a two-dose treatment, recipients have enough antibodies to successfully ward off the virus.

Venkatesh (pictured) cited his own personal experience getting vaccinated as representative of the side effects experienced by most recipients.

“After the first shot, my arm was sore, maybe for the afternoon.” Any discomfort was gone by the end of the day.

“The second shot is the one where we see more of these side effects,” he said. ​“You feel things like a fever, you feel a little achy, you feel sleepy and a little tired.” While uncomfortable in the moment, and even for a few hours or an entire day, these side effects do pass, he said. And they should be welcomed.

“They’re proof that the vaccine works” by causing one’s body to fight off what it believes to be the virus by developing necessary antibodies. ​“The side effects are totally worth it” if they mean that people can return to pre-pandemic life sooner than they would be able to without a vaccine.

Balcezak agreed. ​“The side effects of not taking it, which is the risk of Covid, is incredibly, incredibly dangerous,” he said.

Ogbuagu stressed the importance of getting both shots, not just the first.

“The protection after the first dose is suboptimal,” he said. It’s only around 52 percent effective in protecting one against Covid.

One week after the second dose, recipients are 95 percent protected.

What about fertility?

“This is the zombie question,” Balcezak said. ​“This is the question that won’t stay dead.”

There is zero data that show that the vaccine has any affect whatsoever on one’s fertility, he said. ​“There is no scientific basis” to that concern.

He said that pregnant women couldn’t join the initial vaccine trials because of special federal requirements concerning testing drugs and pregnant participants.

But, he and Ogbuagu said, the 75,000 people who made up the Pfizer and Moderna trials inevitably included some pregnant women.

“A large number of women became pregnant while getting vaccinated” as part of the trials, Balcezak said. ​“They did perfectly well, and their babies did well.”

“There were pregnancies detected at the study entry,” Ogbuagu said. ​“There were pregnancies between doses one and two. And there were pregnancies many weeks after dose two.”

There is no scientific data from the trial or from the mass vaccinations going on around the world today that show that pregnant women are put at risk by getting vaccinated, he said.

“I hope that myth is busted.”

That’s all the more important because roughly 80 percent of healthcare workers in this country are women. ​“They’re a huge part of the healthcare workforce,” he said.

Balcezak said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine have all agreed that pregnant and breastfeeding women who are eligible for vaccination should be vaccinated.

And what about all these new variants?

Ogbuagu said that the Pfizer vaccine, which he has spent so much time studying and overseeing trials for, definitely works against the British variant known as B.1.1.7.

As far as one of the other variants, from South Africa, he said, that variant’s mutations appear to have decreased that virus’s susceptibility to antibodies by five- or tenfold. Nevertheless, the current vaccine should be able to cover it.

“We should expect future variants,” Ogbuagu said. After all, that’s what viruses do. They adapt.

“The quicker we’re all vaccinated,” he said, ​“the quicker we end things and don’t have to worry about” how effective the next variant may be at eluding the current vaccines.

Click on the Facebook Live video above to watch the full town hall.