He knows, however, that many have questions about the vaccine and there is a lot of misinformation among the answers to those questions, so he took time out of his day to answer some of them as a professional who has done his research.
Dr. Eric France is like everyone and can’t wait for this pandemic to be over.
“I’m super excited that we are beginning this journey,” he says.
Dr. France is the Chief Medical Officer at Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and he is overseeing the rollout of the new COVID-19 vaccine. He says it is a good thing for Colorado.
“It’s amazing how effective his vaccine is and how safe it is,” Dr. France says.
First, many people may worry that this vaccine was rushed. Before this, the fastest vaccine to be developed was the mumps vaccine and that took four years. So how can this vaccine be ready so quickly?
Dr. France says, it’s all about the march of time and progress.
“It really points to the wonderful science advances that we’ve had over the last decade,” he says.
Others may worry about side effects. They don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease. Dr. France has thoroughly reviewed the research and data provided by Pfizer and says not to worry, there don’t seem to be any serious long-term side effects. Just the same symptoms you may get when you get any vaccine.
“You have a local reaction when you get it you have swelling a redness and some pain in the arm. The majority of people will experience that,” he says. “There will be also folks who feel more systemic signs like fever, muscle aches, headaches, generally unwell, onset within a day or two of being vaccinated.”
He said the side effects only tend to last for about a day.
Some may wonder about those folks in the U.K. who had bad reactions to the vaccine. Dr. France says that probably won’t happen to most people, but if you have allergies to medicines, you should talk to your doctor.
“Vaccines will very rarely cause an allergic reaction in persons who have severe allergies to medicines or previous vaccines,” he says.
So if this is all good news, then when can we ditch our masks and get back to life as we knew it? With a phased rollout plan beginning in the next few weeks, and lasting into the summer, Dr. France says we may need to have some patience.
“We’ve had a progression from April to November on how restrictive things are and we will have a progression from January to July on how things become more open,” says Dr. France.
Believe it or not, he is anxious for normal life just like we are, and that’s why he’s excited to get the ball rolling. He says, the quicker more of us get the vaccine the quicker we can all get back to normal.
“I look forward to my summer activities again and return to my normal life,” Dr. France says.
