Worried about the COVID vaccine? Mississippi doctors answer common questions, concerns
As COVID-19 cases decline in Mississippi and vaccine supplies increase, Gov. Tate Reeves held a news conference Tuesday to debunk myths that may cause people to be hesitant about getting a vaccine.
He invited two doctors from Jackson — a cardiologist and an obstetrician/gynecologist — to join him and State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs so they could reassure Mississippians that the approved COVID-19 vaccines are safe.
“We have vaccine hesitancy by individuals in all groups across Mississippi, and that is just a fact,” Reeves said. “. . . We find ourselves in a position now where we’ve got to encourage more and more of our citizens to get the vaccine.”
Reeves said about 25% of eligible Mississippians have been fully vaccinated — approaching 600,000 residents — while nearly 1.4 million people have received one dose.
By May, he said, supply could outstrip demand. He said that he invited the doctors to the news conference to discuss vaccine questions they’re hearing from patients to help ease Mississippians’ concerns.
“I’m optimistic that we are near the end of this road,” the governor said, “but I also know for us to continue on the right path, we need more and more Mississippians willing to get the vaccine.”
Pregnancy, breastfeeding and vaccines
Dr. Meredith Travelstead, an obstetrician and gynecologist for 20 years, says she answers vaccine questions daily from patients who are pregnant or breastfeeding or want to become pregnant in the future.
While pregnant women were not included in first vaccine studies, she said, some women became pregnant while participating in the trial without any adverse effects, and many more pregnant women have been vaccinated since the rollout of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in December.
She said a database of 30,000 pregnant women who have been vaccinated shows complications like miscarriages and still births are no higher than they are in the general public.
The vaccines also have shown to be safe when breastfeeding, she said.
Complications from COVID-19, on the other hand, can be serious for pregnant women, she said. Pneumonia and blood clots are two conditions the virus can cause.
Vaccines don’t change DNA
Travelstead said the vaccines do not replicate the virus and also do not cross the placenta.
Vaccines also don’t stay in the body very long, she said, and degrade quickly after doing their job of providing information to cells on how to fight the coronavirus.
“It rapidly degrades ... it’s not something that’s going to stick around forever,” she said.
There also is no truth to the rumor that the vaccines change DNA, and they don’t even reach that part of the cells, Travelstead said.
Vaccine safety fears
For the general public, Reeves and the doctors said, COVID-19 vaccines are proving to have fewer side effects than initial studies had indicated.
“Some people will have a fever or aches or what have you,” said Dr. Clay Hays, a cardiologist. “That’s to be expected. About one out of every four people who get the vaccine, they don’t feel right, they don’t feel well, but after a few days, they are OK.”
Hays said the vaccine is simply sparking an immune response through low-grade fever or other complaints that quickly pass.
He said four registries tracking vaccine recipients bear out the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Once any medicine is available to the public, Hays said, patients are put into a registry so that unexpected reactions can be tracked.
Reeves said that he felt flu-like symptoms, including a low-grade fever, after his second vaccination, but those symptoms went away quickly.
“You may have a little turbulence, but you’re still gonna get to your destination,” Hays said of vaccine reactions.
Vaccine approval too fast, some fear
Dobbs said that Operation Warp Speed, the vaccine development program under former President Donald Trump, cut red tape for vaccine development but not studies on the drugs themselves.
Manufacturing started as the drugs were studied with the understanding that vaccines found to be unsafe would be thrown out.
He said vaccine studies were “thorough” and “efficient.”
The technology behind the messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines has been studied for more than a decade. It’s also used in other medications like those that fight high cholesterol, Hays said.
“As a medical community, we believe in the vaccine and we’re going to encourage people to get it,” Hays said. He said about 90% of the staff at St. Dominic Memorial Hospital in Jackson has been vaccinated.
He said fewer side effects than forecast are showing up in those vaccinated.
“We feel very good and we fill like the vaccines are very safe,” Hays said.
Young people should get the vaccine, doctors say
Dobbs said studies are now showing the Pfizer vaccine is 100% effective for young people and Mississippi could within the next few weeks include residents 12 and older in vaccine eligibility.
The Pfizer vaccine is now available to Mississippi residents 16 and 17 years old at state drive-thru sites. Residents 18 and older can schedule vaccines through the state, participating drug stores or medical clinics and even doctor’s offices.
Dobbs also said he’s heard of some young people questioning why they should get the vaccine when they’re less likely to have severe reactions from catching COVID-19. He pointed out that even young people can end up with what is called “the long tail of COVID-19” where symptoms last months or indefinitely.
“Under every circumstance, the vaccine is better than COVID,” Dobbs said.
Hundreds of community partners have signed on to offer vaccines. More Mississippians are expressing a preference for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the latest approved, because it is administered in one dose rather than two, Reeves said.
Dobbs said the state and its providers administered 130,000 COVID-19 vaccines last week.
No COVID-19 mandates planned
Reeves said Mississippi’s COVID-19 numbers — sickness, hospitalizations and ICU rates — are some of the lowest the state has seen since April 2020, when the virus began to take hold.
“The higher the percentage that is vaccinated, the lower the percentage and the lower the likelihood that COVID is going to spike up,” he said.
The president has urged states to continue with mask mandates and slow relaxation of COVID-19 guidelines, but Reeves rejected a cookie-cutter approach. He said Mississippi is not going to shut down its economy again, although calls to do so have come from Washington in recent days.
He said that he will not reinstate a mask mandate or initiate other measures because cases are declining in Mississippi, not increasing as they are in northeastern states such as New York and Michigan.
“I think governors are better positioned to make decisions for our state than anyone in Washington would be,” Reeves said. “ . . . They believe in a one-size-fits all approach.”
With COVID-19 variants on the increase, the medical community fears another spike unless people are vaccinated as quickly as possible.
“We may have a light at the end of the tunnel,” Dobbs said, echoing the governor’s sentiment, “but we also have a train behind us.”
