COLUMBUS, Ohio — Following 10TV’s special coverage on the COVID-19 vaccines, we continue to receive many questions from our viewers.
We reached out to Dr. Joseph Gastaldo, an infectious disease expert at OhioHealth, to answer more of your questions that we could not get to Thursday night.
Does something in the shot attach to your DNA forever?
“Absolutely not. When you get injected with an mRNA vaccine, the mRNA teaches your cells to make this protein to make an immune response. But when you get injected with the MRNA it’s taken up by cells, the mRNA is degraded within hours.”
Can a group that’s been vaccinated and they all wear masks get together comfortably? Say eight to 10 people?
"Well, we really don’t know yet. We still have to study in more detail what impact vaccinations will have on asymptomatic infection."
I got my first dose but no appointment for the second dose. Should I be worried?
“Best practices for scheduling your appointment are as follows: when you make your appointment for your first dose when you go in before you leave – you should have an appointment made for your second dose.”
Do you have less of a chance of getting the virus if you’ve already had it?
“Great question. When people get infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, most people do get a level of immunity. How long that immunity lasts after having an infection? We really don’t know.”
If I’m pregnant how can I be confident that the vaccine is safe with studies currently underway?
"So it is true that pregnant women were not put in the studies for Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson. What one thinks about COVID-19, you always want to make a decision what are the risks versus the benefit of getting a vaccine? We know that pregnancy is a risk factor for having a bad outcome from COVID-19."
Watch the full interview with Dr. Gastaldo below where he also answers our questions about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. On Thursday, the governor said if it is approved it would bring 90,000 more vaccines to the state next week.
