So many questions about long term effects of vaccine. So a quick thread about what we know, what we don’t know, and what we’ll find out pretty soon

(Apologies if typos)

1/

We don’t know how long immunity lasts after the COVID-19 vaccine. Hopefully long enough to get us to herd immunity and stop community spread. We may need a booster shot, it’s true. We shall see.

It appears immunity from COVID-19 infection doesn’t last long enough for this
2/

We do not know if the COVID-19 vaccine will stop transmission, but we will know about that pretty soon.

We know that the COVID-19 vaccine reduced people’s chances by 95% of getting sick from the virus. The vaccine trials published so far are quite big. And very good.

3/

We also know with confidence that the COVID-19 vaccines work well and are safe in a range of people - those of different ages and ethnicities.

This is not an experimental treatment.
The experiment is done.
It was a success.
That’s why we’re moving forward.

4/

We know people get side effects from the vaccine. You will likely have a sore arm, maybe pains or tiredness for a couple days.
Those symptoms are not COVID. The vaccine can’t give you COVID.

Side effects come from your immune system response. It means the vaccine is working.

5/

All vaccines work by activating your immune system. by showing your immune system something that looks like the infection of interest so it will remember that thing later and be ready to identify and kill it before it can make you sick.

Vaccines prep our natural immunity.

/6

Side effects from vaccines tend to happen within 6 weeks. The mRNA vaccine itself is long gone by then. The initial response of your immune system to generate its memory will also be long gone by then.

That’s why in the two mRNA trials so far, they did follow up for 8 weeks.
/7

Of course we will monitor for anything else that could arise - and all the participants in the trials are still being monitored too - but we don’t expect new side effects after 6 weeks from vaccines.

What we really want long term data for is to know how long immunity lasts.
/8

The other reason to continue monitoring very closely is to look for things that are more rare than 1 in 70,000 and would not have been observed in the two trials so far, or to clarify things that appear in the trials but not often enough to cause concern. Very very rare things
/9

TLDR: I’m very keen to follow longer term vaccine data, but we have enough data now to move forward with these vaccines with a great deal of confidence - thank you science!

/fin