On Episode 117 of No Spin Live, board certified plastic surgeons, Dr. Bruce Van Natta of Indianapolis, Indiana, Dr. Jason Pozner of Boca Raton, Florida, Dr. Brad Calobrace of Louisville, Kentucky, and Dr. William P. Adams Jr. of Dallas discuss the recent release of the Covid-19 vaccines and if they really are the next step toward normalcy.
A recent serologic study from Israel, gave an interesting update on the COVID-19 vaccine. There’s been a lot of discussion on the COVID-19 vaccine, people have been raising questions whether you really need to get the two doses or if they should split. The findings in this study has several key findings:
- Recipients after two doses had extremely high antibody levels, higher than those who had actually been infected by COVID-19.
- After people received the second dose, had 6 to 20x higher of antibody levels than they had just after one dose.
- Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay who is the director of the ID, Infectious Disease Epidemiology in at Sheba Medical Center in Israel, concludes the study by saying that due to the level of antibodies that they found in these studies that it would be extremely unlikely for somebody that got two doses to pass on the virus.
Post Vaccine transmission been a big discussion many have talked about….can you still pass the virus on? According to Dr. Regev-Yochay, that is highly unlikely. It is also notable that this data from this study shows that transmission is unlikely after vaccination; however, there are many people most of whom are not physicians or scientists that are spreading misinformation about this topic. This is been an unfortunate motif of the whole COVID pandemic and Dr. Adams commented further after the show on the issue, stating:
“it’s unfortunate that many individuals who do not have any medical or scientific background but have a big AGENDA continue to muddy the water on subjects like this. The good thing now is that we actually know a lot about COVID and we no longer have to develop strategies based on speculation. WHAT PEOPLE NEED TO DO NOW IS JUST FOLLOW THE SCIENCE. If you follow the science many of the myths get debunked and the message is clear that were on our way back to life as we remember it.”
In further support of this another recent study out of Israel largest Testing Laboratory supports that vaccinated individuals will spread the virus less.
With the recommendation of 2 doses and a current shortage of vaccines available, this adds another obstacle to an already challenging situation; However, this is not to say receiving one vaccine does not have benefits. Dr. Van Natta points out that the idea of spread being minimized after 2 vaccines, is interesting and hopes this continues to pan out. Dr. Pozner adds on that individuals who received their first vaccine and then tested positive for COVID-19, had minimal symptoms in comparison to those who did not receive a vaccine and tested positive. Dr. Calobrace shares his experience with individuals who have received the vaccine and how their reactions differed based on whether they had COVID-19 and tested negative for the antibodies. The veteran surgeons dig deeper into this discussion and share personal experience receiving the vaccine and recommendations for those individuals who are still in line to receive theirs.