SIH Vaccination Day Celebration

I’m going to call it a shot of hope. Hope that we are able to conquer this disease.

The first round of COVID-19 vaccinations were administered to frontline healthcare workers today, December 17th, 2020. This marks a significant milestone in the battle against the pandemic and we couldn’t be more excited as the Southern Illinois region’s leading healthcare system to deliver this first round of vaccines to our courageous providers and staff.

“I’m going to call it a shot of hope. Hope that we are able to conquer this disease. And hope that we have a good immune response in our community. Hope that our lives goes back to normal again.” Gurpreet Bambra, MD

Vaccine overview:

There is a lot of information being shared about the COVID-19 vaccine and we understand it can be overwhelming and confusing. It is important to get the facts because your choice to get vaccinated once a vaccine is made publicly available can have a significant, positive impact on you, your family, and the communities throughout Southern Illinois.

The Pfizer vaccine has been tested on tens of thousands of people and has passed safety requirements in Phase I, Phase II and Phase III trials. As an additional layer of checks and balances, multiple independent groups made up of medical and research professionals review COVID-19 vaccine data. Here’s how it works for any vaccine seeking emergency use authorization:

• An independent group of experts, the Data and Safety Monitoring Board, reviews safety and efficacy data from the phase III vaccine trials.
• The FDA staff and their independent vaccine-advisory committee do their own reviews.
• The CDC’s advisory group, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, reviews the data in order to make recommendations about which populations should be first in line to receive the vaccine.

Pfizer and BioNTech also published results from their clinical trials in the New England Journal of Medicine anyone to review.

The mRNA technology used in the vaccine never enters the nucleus of the cell and does not affect, interact with, or introduce DNA into your body and cannot give you COVID-19.