Your Take: Experts take questions on Covid vaccines, like if shots will be annual routine
FOX 2 - We call it Your Take and it is a chance for the audience to ask questions to a pair of premiere medical experts about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Joining us is Dr. Julie Swann from North Carolina State University, a faculty member who specializes in medical supply chains, and Dr. Robert Frank from the Center for Vaccine Research and Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
The first question was from viewer Jennifer Chambers asking if she got vaccinated this spring, when would she have to think about a vaccine for next season and how will she know if she needs it.
"We are still learning a lot about this virus and how quickly it will mutate and how long the immunity will last from a given vaccine," Swann said. "Right now, we are not sure when we might need either a booster or another variant of the vaccine. For seasonal flu we do see it once a year, based on how quickly it mutates and changes in the population. It could be that frequent or it could be less than that, it could be once every two or three years. We don't know yet.
"You will know because the CDC and your state will talk about it, the news and the doctors will talk about it."
The next question was why should kids get the vaccine when they don't even know they have COVID-19 or have very mild symptoms. "Should we really expect kids to risk-averse reactions for the greater good?"
"I think it is really important for people to realize that kids need to be vaccinated for two reasons," Dr. Frenck said. "While kids are less likely to get severely ill, it's not zero. We've had over 300 children in the United States die from Covid, we've had over 12,000 children hospitalized for Covid, and last I checked there were over three million children who have been infected with the virus. So there is really that direct effect.
"The other thing is the indirect effect where we try to prevent transmission and we're starting to see data that shows the vaccines may be able to prevent transmission. I've been doing pediatrics for 40 years, kids are great at passing respiratory viruses and Covid is a respiratory virus. I think kids are big passers.
"If you look at our CDC data now, the highest rate of transmission, so the number of cases per 100,000, are in adolescents and young adults. But kids are right behind it."
If you would like to hear more from our experts as they talk about possible vaccine passports or differences between the vaccines, watch our second segment.