The COVID-19 Vaccine

By Varnika Dhandapani and Mallika Saoji

Throughout an unending self-quarantine in the face of a global pandemic, people all over the world have been apprehensively monitoring the development, testing, and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. However, in California, vaccine rollout has been slower than expected. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown that California is in the bottom third of states in the number of vaccinations administered per capita.

Currently, the state is focusing on Phases 1A and 1B. Phase 1A includes vaccinating medical workers and those living in long-term care facilities, and Phase 1B involves vaccinating frontline essential workers, like teachers and agricultural workers, as well as those 65 and older. Blue Shield of California is now working with the state government to distribute vaccines. Though the number of vaccines provided to the state will not change, there is hope that involving Blue Shield in the process will allow available vaccines to be distributed faster.

In mid-February, the phases system is changing to administer vaccines in an age-based system instead of the original plan involving phases. Phase 1C was supposed to include people aged 16 to 64 who were at-risk, but this is not the plan anymore, as the age-based system is being implemented to make the rollout quicker and simpler.

President Joe Biden and Governor Gavin Newsom announced their plan to open vaccination sites in Los Angeles and Oakland at CSU Los Angeles and the Oakland Coliseum respectively that will be run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES). Opening these vaccination sites are part of the Biden administration’s plan to establish 100 vaccination sites across the country in their first 100 days in office. The locations of the sites have been deliberately chosen to make the vaccine accessible to less fortunate communities.

The site in Oakland hopes to administer 6,000 vaccines per day and is set to open on February 16th. Starting February 11th, the vaccination will be available at 100 locations of CVS Pharmacy across the state including in Bay Area cities: Sonoma, Sunnyvale, and San Francisco. Their goal is to administer 81,900 vaccines to those eligible. Additionally, in Alameda County vaccinations are being administered by healthcare providers such as Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente, and Stanford Health Care to eligible workers and senior citizens.

The Alameda County Health Department has received 74,100 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 79,900 doses of the Moderna vaccine. The county is currently focusing on vaccinating those in Phases 1A and is expected to start vaccinating those in Phase 1B starting the week of February 8th.  At the end of January, the Public Health Department had distributed 26,266 out of the 45,380 doses it received. The remaining doses were provided to the county’s healthcare partners.

Blue Shield of California, a healthcare provider, is working with the government of California to efficiently and equitably distribute vaccines throughout the state. Because Blue Shield is a third party provider, concerns are that the vaccine may not be distributed equitably, especially because of Governor Gavin Newsom’s announcement that they would focus on distributing vaccines based on age rather than occupation. While the tier system still applies, these new guidelines may move people with health issues farther down the line.

Supplies are extremely limited, however, as Kaiser Permanente, the healthcare provider for 9.3 million Californians, has only received 300,000 doses. They are planning to distribute vaccines to the 9.3 million members in their care, but lack the resources to do so. Kaiser is currently focusing on vaccinating those 75 years or older. Blue Shield and the state are currently working together to identify communities to focus on for vaccine distribution that will save the most lives. According to Dr. Erica Pan, State Epidemiologist, out of the 6.3 million doses delivered, 3.8 million have been administered and more than 600,000 have been given both doses, meaning that they are fully vaccinated.

So far, both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine appear to be maintaining their efficacy against the new variants of the vaccine. Although there are new variants, it is still important to get vaccinated: fewer infections means that the virus has less of an opportunity to mutate and evolve into potentially more harmful or infectious strains. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, data has shown that the vaccine is relatively effective against the UK variant of the virus as it does not have a large effect on the antibodies provided by the vaccine.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are 95% and 94.1% effective respectively and have both been approved for use with Emergency Use Authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration. They require two doses so that your body can build up protection. Because of the limited supply of doses, you will not be able to choose which vaccine you receive. Your second dose must be the same as your first dose, so bring your COVID-19 vaccination record card to your second dose to ensure this. For the Pfizer vaccine, you must wait 21 days after your first dose to get the second, and for the Moderna vaccine, you need to wait 28 days. You can get the dose after the recommended number of days, but it is recommended to stay close to the given interval.

Both vaccines have been tested through clinical trials, and have been shown to be safe, although there are some common side effects: you may experience some pain or swelling on the arm you received the vaccine, and fever, chills, headaches, or tiredness throughout your body. A rare, but more extreme, side effect of the vaccine is anaphylaxis, an allergic reaction to the vaccine. For this reason, you will be monitored for 15 minutes (30 minutes if you have a history of allergic reactions to vaccines or anaphylaxis reactions in general) after you receive the vaccine, as the anaphylaxis reactions to the vaccine have mostly occurred within 15 minutes of vaccination.

Clinical trials for both vaccines for children are currently underway. Those 18 years and older can receive the Moderna vaccine while those 16 years and older can receive the Pfizer vaccine. Both are mRNA vaccines, meaning that neither of the vaccines actually contain the virus. Instead, they contain the instructions to make a spike protein, which is harmless on its own but used by the virus to infiltrate and infect cells to reproduce. Your body will detect the protein as an antigen and build an immune response with white blood cells such that your immune system is prepared to recognize and fight the virus if you get infected in the future.

To find out if you are eligible to get the vaccine, confer with your healthcare provider or use My Turn, which is a tool the state uses so you can determine eligibility and even schedule an appointment. Because scientists can not predict how long the vaccine will protect you, it is vital to continue social distancing, wearing masks, and minimizing interactions even after you are vaccinated in order to protect one another.

Sources: [abc7news.com, abc10.com, oaklandside.org, covid19.acgov.org, sfchronicle.com, abc7news.com]