manageable and should clear up in a few days. If you have additional concerns about how the vaccine may affect your condition or health, you should consult with your doctor.
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Should you self-isolate if you come into contact with an infected person?
If you’ve had close contact with someone who has COVID-19, you should:
- Get tested 3-5 days after your exposure, even if you don’t have symptoms.
- Wear a mask indoors in public for 14 days following exposure or until your test result is negative.
- Isolate for 10 days if your test result is positive.
What is the difference between efficacy and effectiveness?
While doing your research on vaccines, you may have heard the terms efficacy and effectiveness thrown around, but do you know what they mean?
Efficacy refers to a result acquired under ideal or controlled conditions. Vaccine efficacy is defined as how well a vaccine performs under the best of conditions, such as in a clinical trial.
Effectiveness is the term that will be most important to you as you go back to normal life after getting a vaccine. Effectiveness refers to a result acquired in settings outside of clinical trials, such as doctor’s offices, hospitals, or other real-world settings.
Overall, the COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be effective in slowing the spread of the virus as well as preventing someone from becoming seriously ill should they contract the virus.
Can you leave right after getting a COVID-19 vaccine?
Not right away. When you get a COVID-19 vaccine, the health care workers will ask you to stay for at least 15 minutes before you leave. This is to make sure you don’t have an allergic reaction or feel sick.
If you have had severe allergic reactions or any type of immediate allergic reaction to a vaccine or shot in the past, tell the health care workers when you arrive. They will check on you for at least 30 minutes after you get the vaccine.
Do you have to get a COVID-19 vaccine every year?
Doctors still aren’t completely sure if you will need to get a COVID-19 vaccine every year.
This content is brought to you by The Lungevity Foundation and the BDO Editorial Staff.