Doctor warns that COVID-19 vaccine won’t guarantee return to normal for 'many months'

It will take at least until May 2021 for everyone to get access to vaccine. Even then, when you get both doses, it still will take about six weeks for the vaccine to be fully processed in your body.

News 12 Staff

Dec 15, 2020, 5:44 PM

Updated 1,395 days ago

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Doctors say life won’t exactly return to normal once the COVID-19 vaccine is made available.
It will take at least until May 2021 for everyone to get access to vaccine. Even then, when you get both doses, it still will take about six weeks for the vaccine to be fully processed in your body.
Dr. Purvi Parikh, of NYU Langone Health and member of the Allergy & Asthma Network, says "For many months, we're still going to be living in a similar situation. We're still going to be masking, washing hands, social distancing."
It's also important to keep in mind that even though the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective, this still means there's a 5% chance you could get infected and pass it on.
"Not only can you still be carrier, you can actually still get sick too," Dr. Parikh says.
As well, even if you are vaccinated, not everyone else around you will be, either because they don't have access to it yet or because they refuse to get it.
"If people don't take it, we won't reach that end point," Dr. Parikh says. "I know there's hesitancy, but the virus is far worse in my opinion than the actual vaccine or any potential pitfalls."
Dr. Anthony Fauci says kids and pregnant women will have to wait until January or February.
He says, "You go in, and you do a phase one trial to show that the vaccine is safe and that it induces the kind of response that is comparable to the response in adult, normal individuals that you know protects them."
Now that the Food and Drug Administration has granted its approval, within 28 to 48 hours 2.9 million doses will be shipped out.
Early next week, the shots will be administered to nursing home residents and staff, and high risk health care workers.