Medical Myths About the COVID Vaccine
Medical Myths About the COVID Vaccine
MYTH: The COVID vaccines were not rigorously tested, which is why they have only emergency authorization approval and not full Food and Drug Administration approval.
FACT: “Vaccine developers didn’t skip any testing steps but conducted some of the steps on an overlapping schedule to gather data faster.”—Johns Hopkins Medicine
MYTH: The technology used to create the COVID vaccines is too new to be safe.
FACT: The technology used, called messenger RNA, or mRNA, is not new. Research on it actually began in the early 1990s, and two diseases that are very close to COVID—SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome)—helped bring the mRNA vaccine development to present day use. – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines
MYTH: Breakthrough cases prove that even if I get the vaccine, I might still get COVID. So why bother?
FACT: As of August 2, the CDC said there had been 7,525 vaccinated people who were hospitalized or died who had also tested positive for coronavirus—out of more than 164 million fully vaccinated Americans. That equals .00003 percent. Additionally, CDC director Rochelle Walensky has said that 99.5 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 are in the unvaccinated.
MYTH: The COVID vaccines can affect a woman’s fertility.
FACT: This rumor started after a report claimed inaccurately, yet circulated on social media, that the SPIKE protein on this coronavirus was the same as another protein called syncytin-1 that is involved in the growth and attachment of the placenta during pregnancy. It was quickly debunked as false by the scientific community.
MYTH: I already had COVID, therefore I don’t need the vaccine. I’m immune.
FACT: “After people recover from infection with a virus, the immune system retains a memory of it,” the National Institutes of Health explains. While that’s good for the immune system, it also means that even after you recover from COVID, it’s still inside your body and can resurface. Studies have been unclear how long immunity lasts after having COVID—most experts believe anywhere from 90 days to six months, though it could be longer. – National Institutes of Health
MYTH: Children do not need to be vaccinated because they do not become sick from COVID-19.
FACT: “Hundreds of children in Indonesia have died from the coronavirus in recent weeks, many of them under age 5.” A five-year old boy in the state of Georgia died of coronavirus in July.
MYTH: I’m vaccinated. So I can drop all my COVID precautions, right?
FACT: Studies have shown that a person infected with the Delta variant of COVID has roughly 1,000 times more copies of the virus in their respiratory tracts than a person infected with the original strain.
MYTH: Getting the COVID vaccine actually gives you COVID.
FACT: It is not medically possible. The vaccine does not contain the virus. – Johns Hopkins Medicine
MYTH: A microchip, with the backing of Bill Gates, is being implanted with the vaccine.
FACT: This one started when Microsoft cofounder Gates said in an interview: “We will have some digital certificates” that could ultimately show who’s been tested and who’s been vaccinated. (He never mentioned microchips.)