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Whenever I talk to people about vaccines, the same questions come up over and over again: have we tested them for long enough?
And how do we
really know they are going to be safe, long term?
It seems like a compelling point. The first vaccine trials started about 16 months ago. Sure, we can be confident in their short-term safety … but how do we know in a decade or two we’re not going to start turning into horrifying lizard creatures?
The answers are surprising. Vaccine trials are shorter than you might think – but time and time again, they produce safe and effective vaccines. And we probably have better data about COVID-19 vaccines at this point than almost any other vaccine we have developed.
Australia COVID: How do we know vaccines won t have long-term safety risks? theage.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theage.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Theyâre Not Anti-Vaccine, but These Parents Are Hesitant About the Covid Shot
Many of them are vaccinated, but when it comes to their kids, the unknowns give them pause.
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Alejandra Gerardo, 9, looked up at her mother as she received her first shot of the Pfizer vaccine during a clinical trial for children at Duke Health in Durham, N.C.Credit.Associated Press
On May 4, Dr. Hina Talib, who goes by the handle @teenhealthdoc on Instagram, asked the parents among her 33,000 followers if they were hesitant to get the coronavirus vaccine for their 12- to 15-year-olds, and if so, why. Dr. Talib, who is a physician in the adolescent medicine division at Childrenâs Hospital at Montefiore in New York, was surprised to get 600 messages filled with questions and concerns.
FDA OKs Covid-19 Vaccine for Ages 12 to 15 courthousenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from courthousenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
But while herd immunity may be elusive, stopping transmission with vaccines can restore a similar semblance of normalcy, she said.
Catherine Hankins, the co-chair of Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, says factors like the coronavirus variants-of-concerns may mean Canada doesn t achieve herd immunity any time soon or at all. (Submitted by Catherine Hankins )
Herd immunity occurs when enough of a population is immune to a virus either naturally from infection or through vaccination so the virus can t find hosts and eventually dies off.
The threshold for herd immunity is different depending on the virus. For COVID-19, people initially thought we d need about 60-70 per cent of the population to be immune in order to achieve it, said Hankins