'COVID-19 Vaccines + Kids Town Hall' Answers Your Questions On CBSN New York
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Now that children as young as five years old can get vaccinated against COVID-19, we know some parents and guardians may have questions.
CBS2 put together a panel of doctors and infectious disease experts to answer them. All questions were submitted to CBS2 by viewers.
The town hall was not sponsored by any drug maker, and the medical professionals on the panel do not serve on any board of any of the vaccine makers.
Watch the full special --
One viewer asked, "If you have had COVID and have a natural immunity, why do they need a shot?"
"There's been a lot of evaluation of what happens after people have COVID and how long that protection lasts if they're not vaccinated, and what we see is that after about 90 days, that that protection that you get from being infected starts to wear off. And there's some people who have that protection lasting for eight months, but that's very unpredictable and people are at risk for getting COVID a second time," said Dr. Kevin Slavin, of Hackensack Meridian Children's Health.
Another viewer asked, "What are the ingredients of the COVID-19 vaccine?"
"It's a really simple vaccine, so we like to say there's basically some sugar, some salt, the protein and the fat layer that kind of helps slip it into the cell. It really is a very, very simple and uncomplicated vaccine," said Dr. Melissa Stockwell, with New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University.
"And is that one of the reasons why they were able to kind of fast track it?" Wragge asked.
"Yeah, the technology had been in play for several years, so it wasn't that this just happened. They had been actually using this technology in terms of for vaccines against Ebola and other other types of SARS, so MERS was the other one. And this, so the technology was there, it was just applying it to COVID. So this is why it actually sped up the production of the vaccine," said Dr. Suzette Oyeku, with Montefiore Children's Hospital.
