Part of a continuing series.
As the pandemic wears on, we’re continuing to find answers to readers’ virus-related questions. Have a question? Ask it in the form at the bottom of this article.
I’ve had COVID-19 before. Will I still be able to get vaccinated?
Yes. Health officials such as the state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, say that the vaccine may provide a more “robust” immune response than getting the illness itself. And they’re not asking anyone to get an antibody test before receiving the vaccine.
Immunity to COVID-19 can wane, Zink said. So, even if someone did test positive for COVID-19, a vaccine is still important. They’re just asking that people who are actively sick wait to get the vaccine.
Can people without symptoms transmit COVID-19?
Yes, they can. The fact that people can have the virus and not even know it, or feel sick, is one of the challenges of controlling the spread of COVID-19. But it’s not clear just how infectious people without symptoms are, compared with COVID-positive patients who have symptoms or develop them later. A study published in October in the Official Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada showed a 42% lower relative risk of people without symptoms transmitting the virus compared to people with symptoms. Public health officials in Alaska and around the country say asymptomatic COVID-19 patients make up an important group for public health decisions. It’s estimated that about one in five people who test positive for the virus don’t have symptoms.
[Coronavirus vaccines can have side effects - that typically means they’re working]
Are hospitals in Seattle turning away patients from Alaska?
Not as a rule, but it may be happening in isolated cases, said Dr. Steve Mitchell, medical director of the emergency department at Harborview Medical Center who also works with the Washington Medical Coordination Center. Seattle hospitals “have been very strained and it could be that people have called and they have said no as they struggle with patients,” Mitchell said Dec. 7. Out-of-state hospitals requesting patient transfers are now being asked if they have tried to move patients to hospitals within their own states first, Mitchell said.
Administrators at Anchorage’s largest hospitals — Providence Alaska Medical Center, Alaska Native Medical Center and Alaska Regional Hospital — said this week they weren’t aware of situations where patient transfers to Seattle have been rejected. State health officials during a briefing this week described intermittent reports that Seattle hospitals have been unable to accept patients but said that was a “case by case, moment by moment” situation.
Does the vaccine cause reproductive issues for women?
There is a lot of misinformation going around when it comes to the vaccine, said Dr. Liz Ohlsen, a staff physician with the state health department, during a video call with the public recently. The department has been fielding frequent questions over whether the vaccine might cause reproductive problems for young women.
“There’s no basis for that,” Ohlsen said. “There’s no data that says that this happens.”
In fact, Ohlsen said, despite consistently asking participants in one vaccine trial to use birth control and checking them for pregnancies during each visit, 12 women who got the vaccine still got pregnant in the study.
“We’re not seeing any infertility with these vaccines,” Ohlsen said.
Will the vaccine keep me from spreading the disease, or keep me from getting it?
Getting the vaccine protects the person who receives it, Ohlsen said. It should protect them from a really serious infection and hopefully from any infection at all. But there’s still a chance that someone might get COVID-19 and be contagious, even after getting the vaccine.
COVID-19 vaccine trials involved enrolling many different people, half of whom received the vaccine while the other half received a placebo, Ohlsen said. The studies tracked whether people tested positive and what their symptoms were.
Though some people who received the vaccine still tested positive, Ohlsen said the vaccine is still incredibly effective — roughly 95%. Health experts had hoped for something that was 70% or more effective.
“So once you get the vaccine, it’s not guaranteed that you can’t pass COVID to other people,” Ohlsen said. “But it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t protect you from getting COVID. It mostly protects you from getting COVID.”
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