Hi there - I’m way down the list of people eligible for a vaccine so it doesn’t affect me yet, but I was wondering whether the newer more contagious strain of covid impacts the effectiveness of the vaccine?
Thanks
Based on what we know currently, it’s unlikely to have a significant effect on the vaccine’s efficacy.
Thank you Jordan. Another quick one if I may - my wife recently started work in a GP surgery and was offered the vaccine but was advised (by the nurse) not to take it if she is planning on conceiving in the next 6 months. The gov.uk website recommends not taking the vaccine if you’re pregnant, at least until clinical studies have been done (COVID-19 vaccination: women who are pregnant or breastfeeding - GOV.UK) but I couldn’t see anything on there around fertility risks.
I don’t recall this coming up in the podcast but apologies if I missed it - do you have a view on this? I’d ideally like me and my wife to get vaccinated ASAP, but she is worrying about fertility risks so turned down the vaccine. Thanks.
We don’t have any indication that the vaccine has any fertility risks, but if it did, you’d expect the actual infection to have a greater risk of this side effect. Again, no data showing a fertility risk exists to my knowledge save for some potential semen changes secondary to infection that are not really unique to SARS-CoV-2.
great, thank you Jordan