Coronavirus Update With Dr. Dennis Norem

Dr. Norem joins us every Monday morning to give us the latest on the coronavirus, COVID-19, and the vaccine rollout. 

There's a new player in the coronavirus vaccine arena. Johnson and Johnson announced that they would begin distributing their vaccine immediately.

CNN - "Starting tonight, 3.9 million doses of J&J will be distributed across all channels, states, tribes, territories and pharmacies and community health centers," one senior administration official said in a Sunday night briefing call. "Those J&J doses will be delivered as early as this Tuesday morning."

This new vaccine comes with a bunch of questions that Dr. Norem answered to the best of his ability. The new vaccine has a lower effectiveness rate compared to the Moderna and Pfizer alternatives, especially when it comes to contracting mild cases of COVID-19, but it has benefits that the other two lack. For one, it does not have to be kept at quite as cold a temperature and it only requires one dose. This means that it could be available to segments of the population that couldn't get one of the original two vaccines. It could be rural areas where refrigeration access is limited or it could be given to the homeless where scheduling a second dose could be hard to do.

More people are getting vaccinate so we have more data for answers about vaccines. There still isn't a definite rule of thumb as to how people will react to the vaccine but early results show that the elderly population is experiencing far fewer reactions to the vaccine than younger people. Dr. Norem thinks that it might just be the fact that older people have received a lot more vaccines during their life so their body is used to it. It's still a mystery and it seems to be hit or miss but that is the trend we're seeing early.

We thank Dr. Norem for his time this morning. You can listen to him every Monday morning at 7:05 on 1440 WROK.