The delta variant now makes up about 83% of new COVID-19 cases in the country, and the uptick is seen everywhere.
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Sacramento County is up roughly five new cases from exactly one week ago at 14.2 new cases per 100,000 people, and vaccination numbers are still low. Specifically, in the North Highlands area with 95660 zip code, where 41% of residents have received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and only 35% are fully vaccinated.
The reasons for vaccine hesitancy vary. On the ground, we heard fear, misinformation and a lack of access to information among some unvaccinated residents like Aurora, who had a vaccination appointment last week and backed out once she heard someone got sick from COVID-19 after receiving their shot.
But the CDC says that this isn’t possible, since the vaccines don’t actually contain the live virus.
“It only includes instructions to make one part of the virus and that’s the spike protein and once you make that spike protein, then your body forms an immune response to that,” said Dr. Dean Blumberg, a professor and chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.
“I also wanted to see how it was going to play out with everybody because people are having different reactions,” said another North Highlands resident who chose not to be identified.
Can I get long-term side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine?
“The FDA required a long-term [two-month] follow-up following vaccinations, to make sure that these vaccines were safe and found no long-term side effects,” Blumberg added.
The CDC and the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists haven’t found evidence that suggests that vaccines have any impact on fertility.
And if you’re still hoping to be protected from a previous COVID-19 infection, you might want to think that one over.
“The immune response following vaccination is stronger than the immune response following natural infection, so the vaccines protect better against reinfection compared to getting naturally infected,” Blumberg said.
KCRA 3 reached out to the offices of Sacramento County Supervisors Phil Serna and Rich Desmond, to find out how they’re engaging and educating residents so that residents can access accurate information and resources; as of the publishing of this article, neither have responded.
Should I get the COVID-19 vaccine if I’m healthy?
“At this point in the pandemic you have two choices: you can either get vaccinated or you can get COVID,” Blumberg said.
“More than 97% of cases in the U.S. that are being hospitalized are in unvaccinated individuals, more than 97% of deaths that occur with COVID-19 are unvaccinated individuals. So, if you want to decrease your chance of ending up in the hospital, if you want to decrease your chance of dying, then the clear choice is to get vaccinated,” he added.
Can receiving a COVID-19 vaccine cause you to be magnetic?
COVID-19 vaccines do not contain ingredients that can produce an electromagnetic field at the site of your injection. All COVID-19 vaccines are free from metals.
“There is no microchip in the vaccine. There is no metal in the vaccine. You can’t get magnetized by getting vaccinated. That’s just false. Those are all lies,” adds Blumberg.
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