Dr Jon LaPook shares his experience getting the coronavirus vaccine

Since I am a practicing physician at NYU Langone Health, today it was my turn to obtain the Pfizer vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19[female[feminine.

In addition to seeing patients in my office, I perform procedures as a gastroenterologist that can potentially expose me to the aerosolized virus.

It was me last April in COVID theaters, stunned by the devastation.

Now I’m amazed – and delighted – that the vaccines were developed in less than a year. I know some people have been put off by the term Operation Warp Speed for fear that vaccines will be developed too quickly. But the record time between the release of the SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence and the start of phase 1 safety trials has been accomplished thanks to decades of previous research developing so-called “vaccine platforms.”

On December 15, I interviewed the director of the National Institutes of Health Dr Francis Collins, and he gave me an easy to understand analogy for these platforms. Imagine that a factory makes some kind of widget. “You really understand how to make widgets, and then you can tweak the design a bit, and you can make a different widget, but really quickly, because you already have the assembly line there. That’s kind of what we’re doing with these vaccine platforms. “

Although COVID vaccines are being developed in record time, it has not been so much a sudden leap as it is a gradual decrease in the time we need to develop a vaccine.

According to the National Institutes of Health, in 2003, it took 20 months between the selection of a genetic sequence for the then circulating SARS virus and the first human injection of a vaccine. With H5N1 (avian influenza) in 2006, this period was shortened to 11 months. H1N1 (swine flu) lasted 4 months, Zika, 3.25 months. With the Modern vaccine against COVID-19, the SARS-CoV-2 sequence was released on January 10, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Moderna began work on January 11, manufacturing began on January 14 and the phase 1 trial began on March 16, 2020 – only about two months after the viral sequence was known. What a scientific tour de force!

Operation Warp Speed ​​began on May 15 and has helped speed up testing of vaccine candidates by cutting red tape, but I trust public health officials, especially Dr Anthony Fauci, assured me that no corner was cut. I examined the data presented during public meetings of the FDA Advisory Committee that reviewed emergency use authorization requests for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and I agree with the FDA’s decision that, based on Current scientific evidence available, the benefits of these vaccines far outweigh the risks. Pfizer vaccine was allowed for people 16 and over, Moderna for people 18 and over.

Researchers are studying allergic reactions that have occurred so far in about 1 in 45,000 people who have received the Pfizer vaccine, and they will be on the lookout for any other unexpected side effects in the future. It is too early to know the exact impact of these reactions. This morning, I reached out to Dr Fauci to get an overview of allergic reactions, and he texted me: “One of my divisions here at NIAID is planning a study to explore all of this – incidence, mechanisms, etc.”

For me, the benefit of being protected far outweighs the highly unlikely risk of a serious side effect.

Getting the vaccine seemed to me exactly the same as getting the flu shot. I felt a little pinch and still feel good two hours later. Not much.

What I felt the most was a mixture of emotions – everything is fine. I was shocked by surprise as I began to describe how I felt for our CBS News camera. I guess the weight of all these months – taking care of the patients, trying to protect myself, my loved ones, my friends and so many others, coupled with the strained work of reporting on the pandemic – has me caught up.

I felt a deluge of relief, although I know it will always be a challenge to get enough people vaccinated to reach collective immunity. I felt gratitude that vaccines became available less than a year after we recognized there was a new coronavirus.

And I was amazed at the scientific achievement. I logically know the decades of research that led to my immunization. I understand how a tiny piece of genetic code – messenger RNA – hidden inside a protective lipid nanoparticle creates immunity to SARS-CoV-2 by tricking the immune system into thinking it is under attack by the virus . But there is also a part of me that considers this amazing achievement to be pure magic.