What You Need to Know About COVID Vaccines: Fact vs. Fiction
Tags: Wikihow, Safety, Vaccines, Wikihow Partnership, Covid

You may have heard a lot of different things about the new COVID-19 vaccines — some good, some questionable. For many, the vaccines a brilliant medical breakthrough that will help pull us out of the pandemic, but there’s also a bunch of misinformation about them. With so much information being shared online, it can be tough to figure out what’s true and what isn’t. We’ve put together a list of some common myths floating around out there about the vaccines so you can separate fact from fiction.

Fact: Years of prior research helped speed up the process. The remarkable speed of the COVID-19 vaccine development isn’t magic or a miracle. It’s the result of years and years of hard work and previous research on other viruses, including coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS. Using the prior research, scientists were able to quickly come up with effective and safe vaccines.

Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines use the same mRNA technology, but they have minor differences. For instance, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is approved for people aged 16 and older, is 95% effective at preventing COVID-19 infection, and requires 2 shots delivered 21 days apart. The Moderna vaccine is approved for people aged 18 and older, is 94.1% effective, and requires 2 shots delivered 28 days apart.

Fact: All vaccines have to adhere to strict safety standards. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) sets rigorous safety and efficacy guidelines for all vaccines, including the ones for COVID-19. A new vaccine has to go through phases of testing and trials where it’s given to a group of people who are then studied to make sure it’s effective and safe.

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) sets rigorous safety and efficacy guidelines for all vaccines, including the ones for COVID-19. A new vaccine has to go through phases of testing and trials where it’s given to a group of people who are then studied to make sure it’s effective and safe. Every COVID vaccine that has been approved has met these standards and are considered safe and effective.

During the trials, negative side effects are also studied. The FDA won’t approve a vaccine that isn’t safe for the general public.

Fact: The approved vaccines do not contain any live virus in them. Every approved COVID-19 vaccine is an mRNA vaccine. These types of vaccines work by teaching your body to recognize specific proteins on the surface of COVID-19 so your immune system is able to fight off the virus. They don’t actually have the coronavirus in them, so there isn’t a chance the vaccine could ever give you the virus.

Some vaccines for other diseases, such as measles, mumps, and rubella, do use a weakened or dead strain of the live virus. But all of the current COVID-19 vaccines do not.

Fact: The COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t affect fertility at all. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines essentially teach your body’s immune system how to fight off the virus. But it doesn’t affect the fertility of women.

In fact, during the Pfizer vaccine trials, 23 women volunteers became pregnant. Only 1 woman suffered a pregnancy loss, but she was actually given the placebo, which means she hadn’t received the COVID-19 vaccine.

Fact: You can get re-infected with COVID-19. The truth is that people who have gotten sick with the virus can really still benefit from getting the vaccine. It can help prevent potential reinfection, and while you may be protected from getting the virus again for a time, there isn’t enough available evidence to know how long that will be.

The truth is that people who have gotten sick with the virus can really still benefit from getting the vaccine. It can help prevent potential reinfection, and while you may be protected from getting the virus again for a time, there isn’t enough available evidence to know how long that will be. Scientists won’t know exactly how immunity produced by the vaccine lasts until we have more data and info about it.

Fact: mRNA never interacts with your DNA. Messenger ribonucleic acid, a.k.a. mRNA, is basically a set of instructions that tells your immune system to recognize “spike proteins” that exist on the surface of COVID-19 so your body can fight any that it finds. The mRNA never enters the nucleus of your body’s cells, which is where DNA is stored. Because they never actually interact with one another, there’s no way the mRNA could change your DNA.

Fact: Most side effects are very mild. Some people can have side effects that are similar to other vaccines such as muscle pain, chills, and a headache. These are actually normal signs that your body is building up protection, and they should go away within a few days.

Although it’s extremely rare, some people can have allergic reactions to ingredients used in a vaccine. If you have a history of severe allergic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, talk to your doctor. They may recommend that you not get the vaccine.

Though scientists aren’t exactly sure, an allergic reaction may be caused by the vaccine antigen, residual animal protein, antimicrobial agents, preservatives, stabilizers, or other vaccine components.

Fact: There is no evidence that any vaccines cause autism. This myth has been associated with other vaccines as well, such as the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. It stems from a discredited study that incorrectly linked vaccines to autism in children. There is zero evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines cause autism in children or adults.

Fact: There’s no evidence that available vaccines won’t work. While it’s true that there are new strains of coronavirus that are spreading quickly and may be more contagious, there isn’t any convincing data that suggests that currently available vaccines will be ineffective. Viruses mutate often and the current vaccines appear to be effective against the new strains.