Novel Coronavirus swept away many lives and businesses – proving to be a massive unprecedented disaster that mankind has ever seen.
Though, humanity united in this wake of global distress and poured in resources to deploy the largest-known vaccine drive on the planet. Almost all the nations are pushing Covid vaccination to protect their citizens, and break the spread of the pandemic forever.
Yet, like any social grapevine, the noble effort of vaccination is facing resistance because of the myths surrounding it.
We bring to you 5 myths related to COVID vaccination in India as we bust them with sound reasoning.
Let us get going!
Many people have a lingering doubt that Covid vaccines are unsafe because they’ve been developed in record time – and may not have been subject to rigorous standard safety testing for human administration.
This is far from the truth.
All the government-authorized Covid vaccines under all the legal labels are totally safe. No steps have been skipped in their research, development, clinical trials, and safety testing. Whether it is Covishield, Covaxin, ModeRNA, or any other authorized jab, you are totally safe while receiving the shot under expert medical guidance.
There is a widespread misconception that any COVID-19 vaccine comes with a serious set of side effects, and somehow often leads to blood clots, organ failure, etc.
This is another prevalent myth.
It is true that people who get their COVID vaccine shot reported expected (and normal) side effects similar to those of other vaccines – including muscle pain, chills, and headache. These signs show that the vaccine actually triggered an immune response within the body, and is working well.
However, one must note that allergic reactions, even though rare, can be triggered by the general compounds found in the vaccines. So, anyone with a history of severe allergic reactions—such as anaphylaxis—should disclose it to the doctor for safety reasons.
This is another widespread myth that the Covid-19 jab will render a person infertile. There are posts and blogs on the internet that suggest that Covid vaccines cause the destruction of placenta proteins (like syncytin-1) in women – making them infertile. Similar baseless claims have been made for men’s reproductive health also.
These are completely false claims.
No COVID vaccine alters or interferes with a person’s normal reproductive health. They are completely safe for administration in people with no immunity or allergic comorbidities (which must be disclosed by the receiver to their vaccine administering professional).
A rumor was spread soon after the vaccines became available to the people of India, that injecting the COVID vaccine alters the DNA of a person because of its mRNA (Messenger RNA) component.
The truth here is that the mRNA component of the vaccine only instructs the body’s immune system to manufacture ‘spike protein’ in some cells. Since this spike protein is an essential component of Coronavirus, our immune system’s memory helps it to recognize the spike protein, and trigger an appropriate immune response when it detects COVID in the body.
However, in this whole process of pre-priming our immune system, the mRNA component never reaches inside the cell and interacts with our DNA in any manner.
Mask, sanitization, and public distancing (social distancing) remains a critical strategy to stop the spread of the pandemic.
While getting vaccinated protects you from being infected to a high degree, you still have to wear a mask and follow all the other protocols to break the chain of infection. Reasons for this include that a person can still be a carrier of the virus and spread it to other non-vaccinated people.
Moreover, no vaccine gives you 100% immunity. So, avoid chances of even a mild infection by following all the standard pandemic protocols including the face mask.
Are You Vaccinated?
If not, get your first shot at ASIAN Hospital under the #LargestVaccinationDrive. Call us or book your vaccination slot at https://www.cowin.gov.in/
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