March 2021 Volume 4, Issue 2
Side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines
As the vaccines for COVID-19 become more accessible, people have described the side effects in varying degrees of severity. Some people experience little to no effects in the following days, while others feel very sick for a day or two after receiving the shots.
General side effects of both Moderna’s and Pfizer’s Coronavirus vaccines include pain and swelling at the injection site on the arm accompanied by fever, chills, tiredness, and headaches throughout the rest of the body.
Typically, it is after the second dose that the side effects are more intense and can, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, “affect your ability to do daily activities.” The website goes on to say that they should go away in a few days.
Kaycee Byrd, an ICU nurse at Baptist Health Hospital in Paducah, Ky, describes her experience after receiving her second dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, “It was exactly sixteen hours after I got mine that I started to get chills. I couldn’t do much more than lay on the couch. I felt like I was hit by a bus!” After about twelve hours she said that the side effects had almost completely vanished, other than her arm being somewhat sore.
Byrd’s experience is common to many other people who have had both doses of Moderna’s vaccine.
CNA, Jen Dent, who administered vaccination shots to patients at Brody School of Medicine’s clinic in Greenville, North Carolina had Pfizer’s version of the vaccine. “I was really tired after the first one. I was exhausted after the second!”
After an injection of the vaccine it is standard practice to have the patient wait in the clinic for 15 minutes in case of an adverse reaction that may require treatment. Dent, having administered dozens of vaccines a day said, “We had to wait 15 minutes unless you’ve had bad reactions to vaccines in the past- then you had to wait 30 minutes. I didn’t hear of anyone having any bad reactions in the clinic.”
While the side effects of the vaccine were a rough experience for many people, there are several individuals who had virtually no noticeable ramifications afterward.
Inez Vits, of Dixon, said, “I didn’t have any symptoms after, maybe a slight headache.”
According to the CDC, they do not alter human DNA in any way.
Pfizer, Inc., and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2) and ModernaTX, Inc.’s vaccine (mRNA-1273) are both messenger RNA vaccines, which instruct the body’s cells to produce “spike proteins” that are found on the surface of the virus that is responsible for COVID-19.
Neither of the vaccines contain egg, preservatives, or latex. The vaccines cannot cause a COVID infection. More information can be found on the CDC’s website as well as the vaccine manufacturers’ websites.