MADISON, Wis. — UW Health’s Dr. Jeff Pothof is hoping this will be the last of our State Street Doctor series. In the first segment we did back in March, Pothof answered any questions people had about COVID-19. In our second segment in July, doctors were learning more about the virus, so we did another.
In this third segment, Pothof stood out on State Street answering any questions people had about the vaccine before it becomes widely available. Here are some of the questions and answers:
When will the vaccine become available to the general population?
Pothof said it will start becoming more widely available by the end of February or the end of March.
What is in the vaccine?
“The active ingredient in this vaccine is messenger RNA. So it’s basically genetic material that they engineer in a lab that is the recipe that teaches your cells to make the spike protein only of COVID 19. The virus isn’t part of the vaccine. A fat molecule gets it in into your cells. The rest of it are the different preservatives that are in most vaccines.”
Is the vaccine going to be effective for the new strain of virus?
“The good news is probably, yes. They’re testing it now. But the changes we’ve seen in the strain that’s in the UK and South Africa right now are not so great that it would make the vaccine ineffective. But if we see coronavirus continuing to mutate and mutate in big ways, not these tiny ways we are seeing right now, it could mean we would need a different vaccine somewhere down the road. Right now, it’s not as big of a concern.”
Does it negatively impact those who have heart issues?
“As far as we know, no. The trials we’ve seen so far have not had adverse effects in people with underlying heart disease so that’s good news.”
How effective is it?
“It beat all of our expectations on effectiveness. It’s really effective. One of the most effective vaccines that’s ever been created.”
How do doctors know if it’s effective if the vaccine became available so quickly?
“There was decades of research on the technology that was used in the vaccine. When you combine a ridiculous amount of resources, money and then you get all of the world’s vaccine scientists working on one thing, all of a sudden, you’ve got this vaccine. It’s not that we’ve had this novel coronavirus for the last 10 years. MRNA is not unique to the coronavirus. MRNA is a genetic material that is common to all viruses, all living things. So the idea of using MRNA to tell our bodies to make something that we would then react to is not a new concept, it just hasn’t had the opportunity to be used to the level that coronavirus elevated it to.”
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