Since I am a practicing physician at NYU Langone Health, today it was my turn to get it Pfizer vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes it COVID-19.
In addition to seeing patients in my office, I perform procedures like a gastroenterologist who can expose me to the aerosolized virus.
I was in the COVID wards in April last year, amazed by the devastation.
Dr. Jon LaPook
I am now amazed – and delighted – that the vaccines have been developed in less than a year. I know some people have been put off Warp operating speed due to fears that vaccines are being developed too quickly. But the record time from the publication of the SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence to the start of phase 1 safety studies was achieved due to decades of previous research that developed so-called “vaccination platforms”.
On December 15, I interviewed the director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Francis Collinsand gave me an easy-to-understand analogy for these platforms. Imagine that a factory produces a kind of widget. “You figure out how to make widgets very well and then you can change the design a little bit and make a different widget, but very fast, because you already have the assembly line there. That’s about what we’re doing with these vaccination platforms. “
While vaccines against COVID are being developed in record time, it was not so much a sudden leap as a gradual decrease in the time we need to develop a vaccine.
According to the National Institutes of Health, in 2003, 20 months passed from the selection of a genetic sequence for the SARS virus that was circulating at the time to the first human injection of the vaccine. With H5N1 (bird flu) in 2006, this time was shortened to 11 months. H1N1 (swine flu) lasted 4 months, Zika, 3.25 months. With Modern vaccine against COVID-19, the SARS-CoV-2 sequence was posted on January 10, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Moderna started work on January 11, production started on January 14, and the phase 1 process began on March 16, 2020 – only about two months after the viral sequence was known. What a scientific tour de force!
Operation Warp Speed began on May 15 and helped speed up vaccine candidate testing by cutting red tape, but public health officials are confident, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, they assured me that no corners had been cut. I analized the data presented at public meetings of the FDA Advisory Committee that reviewed applications for emergency use of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and agreed with the FDA’s decision that, based on current scientific evidence, the benefits of these vaccines far outweigh the risks. Pfizer vaccine was authorized for people aged 16 and over, Modern for those aged 18 and over.
Researchers are looking into something serious alergic reactions which have occurred in about 1 in 45,000 people so far who have received the Pfizer vaccine and will look for any other unexpected side effects in the future. It is too early to know the exact incidence of these reactions. This morning, I contacted Dr. Fauci for information about allergic reactions and he sent me a text: “One of my divisions here at NIAID is planning a study to explore all of this – the incidence, mechanisms, etc.”
For me, the benefit of protection far outweighs the extremely unlikely risk of a serious side effect.
The administration of the vaccine seemed to me exactly the same as the flu vaccine. I felt a little pinched and I still feel good two hours later. It’s not a big deal.
What I felt the most was a mixture of emotions – all good. I was surprised when I began to describe how I felt about our CBS News camera. I think that the weight of all these months – patient care, trying to keep me, my loved ones, my friends and so many others safe, along with the stressful work of reporting on the pandemic – has caught up with me. .
I felt a flood of relief, although I know it will still be a challenge to get enough people immunized herd immunity. I was grateful that the vaccines became available less than a year after I recognized that there was a new coronavirus.
And I was amazed by the scientific achievement. I know logically about the decades of research that led to my immunization. I understand how a small piece of genetic code – messenger RNA – hidden inside a protective lipid nanoparticle creates immunity to SARS-CoV-2, fooling the immune system into believing it is being attacked by the virus. But there is also a part of me that regards this amazing achievement as pure magic.