Clarifying COVID: Did Staying Home During The Pandemic Impact Our Immune Systems?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Each week we're asking experts questions about COVID-19. This week, we're looking into booster shots, side effects, and the long-term impact the virus had on our immune systems.
Dr. George Morris, who is the Physician Vice President for Performance Excellence at CentraCare, joins us for another episode of Clarifying COVID. Since January of last year, he's been serving as the physician incident commander for CentraCare's COVID-19 response.
Watch the video above or read Morris' answers below:
Will a third vaccine dose or a booster shot be necessary in the future?
As this pandemic has lasted now, for 15 months, we've only had the vaccine since December. And if it can last, in essence through this year. So a nice year of protection, then I think we'd already have to worry about it in 2022, getting another booster shot.
You know, we've seen now that we can tailor or tweak the vaccine to whatever variant or whatever virus is coming out there.
What are the benefits of mobile units?
It's a great opportunity to, we call it bring the vaccine closer to where the people are, you know, we've known that the mass vaccination centers, the large scale operations … has been the main way to get it done in bulk. What we're doing now with buses, cars, or on-site vaccination clinics -- we've done quite a few of those throughout central, western, and even the metro and southern Minnesota -- is to find where the people are, and bring the vaccine to them. Whether that's a workplace gathering place, a place of worship, and I think that's what these mobile units are now able to do.
Did staying home during the pandemic impact our immune systems? Will we be more susceptible to illnesses in the future?
Now that we are starting to interact a little bit more … we are starting to see more of these viral or respiratory illnesses kind of come around. And I think that tells me a couple things. One is next season, we may see our typical viral illness rates, whether that's influenza, RSV, or other ones. At this point, that doesn't seem like not getting exposed this season is going to be a huge risk factor, though it's still a little early to tell. And I know that a lot of times our immunity, our memory cells from one flu season to the other do carry forward.
But knowing that even if the cases may go up, I think there's two benefits. One is we know what to do. We know that masking works, we know that washing your hands work, we know washing surfaces works. Staying home if you're sick … is effective. So, even if we start to see the cases going up, I think we know the treatment strategy for it.
The other one I wanted to keep in mind is that as we see COVID run through many people now ... what is influenza going to do to their lungs next year. So that's why I know to think for when we really need to focus on a good influenza vaccine rate next fall or this upcoming fall.
What do you say to people who are hesitant to get vaccinated because of the side effects?
I know the side effects are annoying, but I would probably view them as: am I better off getting an annoying side effect, perhaps missing work, or the risk of getting COVID and the life-altering change that does to you?