And while Pfizer vaccines are already flowing in Britain, Canada and the United States, it’s unclear when they’ll reach other countries. Mexico, according to an announcement, could receive the first vaccines at any time in the next 12 months.
Clemens Auer, chief negotiator for the European Union, said in an email that his contract with Pfizer for 200 million doses came with a “fixed delivery schedule”, but that he kept the details of the public. “Details don’t matter much,” he said, given the large volume of promising vaccines the EU had gotten.
In Canada, the government has faced questions about its contract with Moderna. The country reached an agreement in August for 20 million doses, with an option for an additional 36 million. The United States announced a deal of up to 500 million doses shortly after, and Britain and the European Union announced their own offers last month.
The road to a coronavirus vaccine ›
Answers to your questions about the vaccine
With the distribution of a coronavirus vaccine from the United States, here are some answers to some questions you may have:
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- If I live in the United States, when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, medical workers and long-term caregiver residents are likely to be the first. If you want to understand how this decision is made, this article will help you.
- When can I return to normal life after getting vaccinated? Life will only return to normal when society as a whole gets enough protection against coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they will only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most during the first two months. The unvaccinated majority will remain vulnerable to infection. An increasing number of coronavirus vaccines show strong protection against the disease. But it is also possible that people get the virus without even knowing they are infected because they have only mild or none symptoms. Scientists do not yet know if vaccines also block coronavirus transmission. So, for now, even vaccinated people will have to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. When enough people are vaccinated, it will be very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we achieve this goal as a society, life may begin to approach something similar to normal in the fall of 2021.
- If I have been vaccinated, do I still have to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially be released this month clearly protect people from the disease with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that yielded these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. This remains a possibility. We know that people naturally infected with coronavirus can spread it as long as they do not experience coughing or other symptoms. Researchers will study this issue intensively as vaccines are developed. Meanwhile, even vaccinated people will have to think of themselves as possible propagators.
- Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as an arm shot, like other typical vaccines. The injection will not be different from the ones you got before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines and none of them have reported serious health problems. But some of them have had short-term discomfort, including aches and flu symptoms that usually last a day. People may need to plan to take a day off from work or school after the second shot. While these experiences are not pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system meeting the vaccine and providing a powerful response that will provide long-lasting immunity.
- Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to prepare the immune system. This molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oil bubble that can fuse with a cell, allowing the molecule to slip into it. The cell uses mRNA to produce coronavirus proteins, which can stimulate the immune system. At any given time, each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce to make their own proteins. Once these proteins are made, our cells will shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules that make up our cells can only survive in a matter of minutes. Vaccine mRNA is designed to support the cell’s enzymes a little more, so that cells can produce additional virus proteins and elicit a stronger immune response. But mRNA can only last a few days at most before being destroyed.
Thus, when Moderna recently said that its first 20 million would go to the United States, Canadian politicians were accused of losing their place in their country. It was not known that, as a condition of receiving American financial support, Moderna had promised the Americans their first doses.
Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader of the Canadian Parliament, introduced a motion requiring the government to publish dates for compliance with its orders, saying citizens “deserve to know when they can expect each type of vaccine.”
Doses may be promised, but production is not guaranteed
Even if other promising candidates, such as Johnson & Johnson, soon get approval and remove pressure from Pfizer and Moderna, there is no guarantee that companies will be able to meet their commitments next year.
“People think, just because we have shown in phase 3 clinical trials that we have safe and effective vaccines, that the ears are about to fully ignite,” Dr. Richard Hatchett, head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness of the global nonprofit organizations leading the Covax program with the WHO “The challenges of increasing manufacturing are significant and full.”