Q & A: What we know about the COVID-19 vaccine – Columbia Missourian

Although a COVID-19 vaccine is on its way, it will be months until it is distributed to the general public and months more before enough people are vaccinated to diminish the threat of the virus.

Gov. Mike Parson submitted Missouris COVID-19 vaccine plan to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in October, saying the state hoped to have a vaccine by December and make it available to all residents by April.

However, a vaccine does not mean that pandemic precautions, such as mask-wearing and social distancing, will no longer be necessary.

As misinformation about COVID-19 rages on and the death toll continues to rise, Christelle Ilboudo, doctor of pediatric infectious diseases at MU Health Care, explains how the vaccine will work and what life will be like when the general public is vaccinated. (The following has been edited for clarity and brevity.)

Q: What does the vaccine timeline look like right now?

A: The information that we have as of now is that it is going to go through an FDA approval process, which looks at safetyand reviews the data, in mid-December.And then after that, it's going to be reviewed by another entity which makes recommendations to the CDC about vaccines and whether or not they recommend it for the general public. Hopefully, after that meeting, we'll have an idea of a little clearer guidance on who should be prioritized. We have some guidance now, but maybe better guidance on who should be prioritized. And then after that is when its going to be available with the thought that initially those priority groups will be the first people to get it. And the hope is that or the consensus is that by next spring, these vaccines should be available more broadly to most people in general.

Q: What will life look like once the vaccine is generally available?

A: As of now, we are still recommending those public health measures. I think there's more and more data coming out about immunity. So the big question is, well, if I've had it, if I've had the disease, or if I get the vaccine, how long will I be protected from getting really sick if I was exposed again? And I think that their initial data were up to 90 days, because that's how far they had followed those people. But it seems like there's more and more data coming out to say that most people will have immunity for six months or longer. And if it's anything like some of the other coronaviruses that we've seen, people are estimating a year to two years.

But it's still a new virus, and so we're still learning about it every day. But I think some of that determination about public health measures will really depend on how long people have immunity that lasts, knowing that the thought is that they're going to continue to follow those patients or those people who are part of the vaccine trials initially, to actually measure how long they have immunity for us to get a sense by next spring of how much longer we'll need to continue these measures even after people get the vaccine.

Q: Will people who have had COVID-19 still need to get the vaccine or will they have immunity?

A: That's a great question, and that's what we're also hoping to (know) by mid-December is to really understand people who had the disease and were vaccinated, or people who got vaccinated, did some of them end up having COVID-19? And if so, was it severe? I think that information is available. In some of the vaccine trials they have followed people with COVID-19. I just don't have that information yet, and I believe it's Dec. 10 or 11 when all of those questions or all of that information will be available to the public to understand that specific question, of people who had the disease or not and what the vaccine did or did not do for them.

Q: Once someone gets the vaccine can they go back to how they were living pre-pandemic, or will vaccinated people still need to wear masks and social distance?

A:What we know of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are the first two that we've heard a lot about, is that you need two doses. And it also looks like the latest one, the AstraZeneca vaccine out of the UK, looks like you also need a booster dose. I don't know exactly how far apart. And so you have to at least finish the complete series of whichever vaccine you are getting before you consider yourself protected at all. And so an example that I can give is for the flu vaccine. What we tell people is you need two weeks, your body needs two good weeks, to develop that immunity, to build that immunity after you've gotten it.

And so we will have a similar message about this coronavirus vaccine that is not going to be Im good to go from the moment I get the vaccine and I don't have to do anything else, that we might still need social distance and wear the mask and do all of that. Not only for ourselves but to have enough people in the community immunized to say that, even if I get the virus, because I now know that all of the people around me are vaccinated, we are all safe. Not only am I safe, but the people around me are safe, should one of us get exposed to the virus.

Q: Can you still carry and spread the virus once youve had the vaccine?

A: The thought with any vaccine is not that I'm never going to get exposed to the virus. The thought is that my body will remember that antibody, so my body is primed to fight it. But for some people, even when they get exposed to the virus, they can get an infection but not get as sick. And as we see now, there's a lot of people who have asymptomatic disease, meaning that they don't have any symptoms, but they can still shed the virus through the nose and through their mouth and still infect people around them.

So the thought is that, yes, you might still be able to infect other people around you, even if you are protected from getting seriously ill. So until we have more information, the masks and the washing hands and the social distancing will be crucial, until we have more data on exactly how well protected I am and also how well protected are other people around me from me vaccinated.

Q: When do you think well go back to normal life or do you think well always have some of these public health guidelines in place?

A: I think everybody should be washing their hands no matter what. I think if we learned anything, it is that we should be careful, stay home when we are sick, really avoiding to get people around us sick. I do think that our public measures will still be in place well into the springtime, because, remember, we have to immunize enough people to have that herd immunity. Enough people need to get the vaccine, and I don't know what that number is yet, but enough people need to get the vaccine first to say, okay, we've protected 70% or 90% of the population, and now we can start relaxing on some of those measures. So my prediction is that we're going to still continue to do these well into the springtime until enough people get the vaccine, and we have more data about how long our immune system reaction lasts to the vaccine.

Q: What else can people do to limit their exposure to COVID-19 after getting the vaccine?

A:I would go back to what we said in flu season. Yes, you get the vaccine, but, remember, you can still get the flu. So avoiding crowds is still necessary. Staying home when we are sick is still necessary. And then watching out for those that are most vulnerable around us, so our older people, people with chronic conditions, just being careful around them, washing our hands more thoroughly, go a long way whether we have the vaccine or not. Those are still good measures to have, good practices to have in place, and continue to do well beyond the vaccine coming out.

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Q & A: What we know about the COVID-19 vaccine - Columbia Missourian