The best COVID-19 vaccine for you is the vaccine you can get in your arm the soonest.
There are three vaccines approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration and some people are tempted to shop around. Some people may want the convenience of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose shot and its low rate of side effects. Others may be interested in the extremely high efficacy of the Pfizer and Moderna two-shot mRNA vaccines.
Bottom line: You should get the vaccine that’s available soonest. All three vaccines approved for emergency use have been shown to be safe and effective against severe complications of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In clinical trials, all three vaccines prevented hospitalizations and death, the worst outcomes of the virus. While these were not the primary outcomes measured (symptomatic infections were), this effectiveness continues to play out in post-vaccination studies. Very few people who have been fully vaccinated are getting sick and even fewer are hospitalized.
All three vaccines produce side effects in patients — but not all patients. Although, there are slight differences in side effects. People who get the J&J vaccine tend to experience fewer of them, but each vaccine produces side effects, mostly mild, in some patients. These side effects are short-lived.
The most common side effect is pain, redness or swelling at the injection site. Other people experienced tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever or nausea. But most of these side effects were mild to moderate and went away quickly.
Remember, these side effects are a sign that your body is reacting to the vaccine and building immunity to the virus (if you don’t have side effects, that doesn’t mean the vaccine isn’t working), according to Dr. Andrea Klemes, the Chief Medical Officer of MDVIP. They’re a small price to pay to get that protection. They’re also rarer in the general population than they were in clinical trials participants with a higher frequency after the second dose. About 372 out of every million administered doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines lead to a non-serious reaction report, according to the journal Nature. The most frequently reported side effects are headache (22.4%), fatigue (16.5%) and dizziness (16.5%), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The bottom line: You’ve waited this long for the vaccine; you shouldn’t shop around when the opportunity to get the vaccine presents itself. The faster everyone gets vaccinated, the faster we will be able to return to normal.
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