If the side effect symptoms seem severe, linger for more than a few days or the site of injection gets increasingly tender or red, contact your doctor or health care provider.
If there’s a chance for side effects, do young, healthy adults really need to get vaccinated?
There are plenty of reasons why young, healthy people should get a Covid-19 vaccine:
A dangerous, highly contagious new variant is affecting young people. “In the Upper Midwest, we’re starting to see lots of younger adults getting sick and going to the hospital from Covid because of the B.1.1.7 variant,” Hotez said.
“So remember that the B.1.1.7 variant is different from past types of Covid infections that we’ve seen — more serious and possibly more severe disease among younger people.”
Young people can get long-term Covid-19 complications. While they’re less likely to die from Covid-19, plenty of young, healthy people have turned into Covid-19 “long-haulers.”
Many have suffered chronic fatigue, chest pain, shortness of breath and brain fog months after their infection.
And a recent study found that 30% of people who had Covid-19 still had symptoms up to nine months after infection.
Young people can easily be transmitters of coronavirus. Several states recently reported spikes in young people with Covid-19. “A lot of the spread is happening among younger people,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “That’s the group that is moving around, kind of relaxing, getting infected.”
If not enough people get vaccinated, we’ll never reach herd immunity. “It’s important to vaccinate as many adults as possible as soon as possible,” internal medicine specialist Dr. Jorge Rodriguez said. “If you want to open up America, get vaccinated.”
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Should I take a day off work after getting vaccinated?
It’s not necessary, but Hotez suggests taking it easy for a day after each shot.
“After your first or second dose, what I’m recommending is people not try to take on too ambitious of an agenda for the next 24 hours afterward,” he said.
“In other words, if you’re getting vaccinated, don’t schedule an important meeting or an important presentation or a meaningful family event. And then just be modest in your ambition the day you’re getting vaccinated and the day afterwards.”
That’s just to err on the side of caution, he said. “Chances are, you may be fine.”
Are the covid vaccine side effects worth it?
Absolutely. “Remember what we’re protecting against,” Hotez said.
“We’re protecting against an illness that’s killed more than half a million Americans. And so it’s a very modest price to pay.”
Even those who had bad covid vaccine side effects said they have no regrets.
“I actually had some pretty significant symptoms after I got the second dose,” said Yasir Batalvi, who volunteered in Moderna’s vaccine trial. “That evening was rough. I mean, I developed a low-grade fever and fatigue and chills,” he said. But by the next morning, Batalvi “felt ready to go.” “I think mass scale vaccination is really the only realistic way out of the pandemic,” he said. “I took the vaccine — it was all right. I think we can get through this.”
More than 150 million doses of vaccines had been administered by the end of March. So far, there is no evidence of any death caused by a Covid-19 vaccine, the CDC said.