Some employers have required their employees to be vaccinated, or undergo regular testing, for COVID-19. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said that employers aren’t prevented from having a mandatory vaccination policy for COVID-19 for employees who are physically in the workplace, as long as employers comply with federal laws stipulating that reasonable accommodations should be made for workers who cannot be immunized because of a disability or religious reason.
President Joe Biden also signed executive orders in September 2021 to require all federal workers and contractors who do business with the federal government to be vaccinated.
Archives: SciCheck Digests
How can I report a potential vaccine safety issue?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have multiple surveillance systems for ensuring vaccine safety. If a health issue occurs after vaccination, people are encouraged to submit information to one of these systems, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Experts do analysis and comb through the submissions to identify and follow-up on adverse reactions that might be due to vaccines.
How much does a COVID-19 vaccine cost?
The COVID-19 vaccines are no longer provided by the federal government for free, but private insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid, and some Centers for Disease Control and Prevention programs will cover them.
The CDC’s Bridge Access Program provides free vaccines to adults without health insurance and those whose insurance doesn’t pick up all of the cost, through local health centers, health care providers and certain retail pharmacies. The Vaccines for Children Program provides free vaccines for kids who are either Medicaid-eligible,
Why were the COVID-19 vaccines authorized on an emergency basis, and how is that different from full approval?
The Food and Drug Administration expedited review of the vaccines because of the public health risks of the ongoing pandemic. All three vaccines in use in the U.S. were rolled out under an emergency use authorization, or EUA, which is typically less stringent than the full licensure, which is called a biologics license application, or BLA. However, the FDA added more rigorous requirements for a COVID-19 vaccine EUA.
Under a standard EUA, regulators must determine that the product “may be effective” and the “known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks.” For these EUAs,
How were safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines developed so rapidly?
The unprecedented speed of the COVID-19 vaccines was due to multiple factors.
Candidates for an mRNA vaccine — the technology used for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines — can be quickly designed once scientists know the genetic sequence of the virus and which protein to target. Researchers already knew from past experience with SARS and MERS, which are other diseases caused by coronaviruses, that the spike protein the virus uses to enter cells was likely the right one.
If I get vaccinated, can I return to my normal activities without precautions?
Editor’s note: This story has been archived and will no longer be updated.
Not entirely, at least not yet. In guidance for the fully vaccinated, updated July 27, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fully vaccinated people should wear a mask “in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission.”
The CDC’s COVID Data Tracker shows whether a county has low, moderate, substantial or high transmission.
The updated guidance was due to new data on the delta variant of the coronavirus,