Health experts answer community’s COVID questions

By BRIAN HEMMINGER

City editor

Area health experts were on hand Wednesday at the Upper Sandusky Community Library for an “Ask a Nurse” event to answer all questions concerning COVID-19, vaccines, boosters, variants and more.

Attendees were educated on topics how MRNA vaccines work, the differences between isolation and quarantine, how the different types of tests for COVID-19 work and the seriousness of the pandemic.

Public health nurse Beth Bower, who also works as a school nurse locally, said in 2020 when there was not a vaccine but students and teachers were taking more active measures to reduce infection like social distancing, mask wearing and some remote learning, there were 72 student infections and 70 staff infections in Wyandot County.

This year, with less measures being taken to prevent infection, but with many teachers vaccinated, there have been 65 staff members infected, but 208 cases of COVID-19 among the student population.

On the comparison between COVID-19 and the common flu, epidemiologist Mary Salimbene Merriman said from March of 2020 until Tuesday, there had been 275 hospitalizations from COVID-19 in Wyandot County.

By comparison, over a 12-year period from 2009 until Tuesday, there had been 129 hospitalizations from the flu.

“And we only had one flu hospitalization last year, because more people were wearing masks and protecting themselves,” Salimbene Merriman said. “COVID is way worse.”

Salimbene Merriman and Wyandot County Director of Nursing Jamie Crawford made themselves available for questions any attendees had about COVID-19.

Will there be a need for more boosters in the future?

Crawford: Yes. I think it will end up being a situation like with the flu vaccine where they’ll alter the vaccine a little bit to try to help combat the most dominant variants that are coming out. We haven’t been told anything official about how this could happen every year.

Salimbene Merriman: I would add that the likelihood of that happening would be greatly reduced if more people received the vaccination, and not just in the U.S., but across the world. In countries where they don’t have very high vaccination rates, that’s where you’re seeing those mutations happening faster, and then they’re introduced to the rest of the world. That’s how you get things like delta. The more people that are vaccinated, the less chance for mutation. 

Should you get 

vaccinated if you’ve already had COVID?

Crawford: With getting COVID, people are going to build up natural immunity, which is wonderful, but there’s no information that states how long that natural immunity will last. There’s a thought that natural immunity will last for around three months or so, but there’s nothing stating it will last longer than that. If you get vaccinated, it will build up that immunity even more and it will last longer. There is a chance that if you haven’t had COVID before, you don’t know how it will affect you. Just waiting to get infected with the virus isn’t a good way to play it, because you could be that person that gets infected very badly, and having the vaccine gives your immune system instructions on what it needs to fight off when it comes into contact with the virus. That way even if you get sick, there’s a good chance you won’t get as sick as if you were unvaccinated. 

S.E.: I would add that with natural immunity, you only have natural immunity to the one virus, whereas with the vaccine, it’s going to cover a wider range of viruses. Natural immunity may not be as effective against those variants. Even if you have had COVID, you should still get the vaccine. 

Why should I get 

vaccinated if you can still get COVID even if you’ve had the vaccine?

S.E.: Yes, we have seen breakthrough cases of people who have been vaccinated acquiring COVID. Those cases are significantly less severe than unvaccinated cases. They often have incredibly mild symptoms and the only reason they come in to get tested is they’ve had contact with somebody and they wanted to get tested to be on the safe side. I’ve seen people hospitalized for COVID for COVID pneumonia and on the verge of being intubated who were unvaccinated.

I’m concerned about the long-term effects of the vaccine.

Crawford: We know getting COVID has long-term effects. I know someone who was healthy with no other conditions before getting COVID, but after they had COVID and they had a pretty bad bout of it, they said their lungs were so severely scarred now, that just getting a cold or something like that could be really, really dangerous for them in the future. Just walking 10 feet from one place to another, they’re severely short of breath and have to kind of catch their breath before doing what they were doing, and they were very healthy prior to getting COVID. 

Are you just as likely to get hospitalized from getting vaccinated as from getting COVID?

S.E.: There are some individuals within our population that will have an adverse reaction to the vaccine. We’ve seen it with the flu vaccine and there are some individuals who may have an adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine, but the chances of a severe reaction are incredibly small. To my knowledge, I cover five counties in Ohio and no one that I’m aware of has been hospitalized for an adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine.

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Is it true the Pfizer vaccine was not actually FDA approved and a different medication was approved instead?

S.E.: It’s the same vaccine, it’s just when it goes for FDA approval, they have to name it something. They can’t just call it the Pfizer COVID vaccine. They have to name it. It was renamed. It’s the same vaccine. It just has another name.

Crawford: The Johnson and Johnson vaccine has not been FDA approved yet, but the name of the vaccine is actually Janson, but everyone just calls it the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. There are times we’ll put it on someone’s vaccination card or a form, and they’ll say, ‘That’s not the Johnson and Johnson vaccine,’ so we’ll have to give them a little education on that too. 

Can you get other vaccines with the COVID vaccine?

Crawford: There was a little bit of talk when the COVID vaccines first came out, saying ‘Wait two weeks before or after getting the COVID vaccines to get other shots,’ but the CDC has since come out and said it’s safe to have any vaccine with the COVID vaccine, even the flu shot. They said it was safe. 

Are vaccines causing the mutations/variants?

S.E.: No. Variants are caused by the unvaccinated. A good way to put this is what we’re seeing in general. We’re seeing mutations come out of areas with incredibly low vaccination rates. We’re not seeing those mutations come out of areas with high vaccination and that is because the vaccine is helping prevent those mutations from occurring because less people are getting sick. The delta variant came from India and omicron came from South Africa, which both had lower rates of vaccination.

What are your early thoughts on the omicron variant?

S.E.: It looks to be pretty infectious. It appears not as severe, but we don’t know. As of Saturday and up to today, we only have had two cases in Ohio that we’re aware of, so we don’t have enough information.

What’s the situation like locally with hospitals and available beds?

S.E.: In central Ohio in general, not great. We have a lot of hospitals diverting because they do not have capacity to take care of patients in the hospital. Additionally, if they have more severe individuals in the hospital that needs transferred out, they’re having issues finding beds at other hospitals that have more equipment and more staffing to help take care of the more severe cases. In general, for the past several weeks, central Ohio has been hurting. 

What’s the safest way for people to celebrate the upcoming holidays?

Crawford: The most important thing is don’t go to a gathering if you’re sick or in quarantine. We also are holding a Merry Testmas at the Wyandot County Fairgrounds from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We are going to have a bunch of at-home test kits at the fairgrounds and anybody is welcome to pick them up. We just ask that before going to a gathering, take a proctored exam, test themselves and make sure everything looks good with the negative result before going. It’s not a bad idea for people to test themselves even if they are vaccinated. You can still acquire the virus if you are vaccinated, but you may not have symptoms. Make sure you are healthy before your visits with family. This is the way to catch people that may not have symptoms before they go and potentially infect the rest of their family. The CDC has put out information that if you’re gathering with a bunch of people, it is a good idea to still wear a face covering. I know that’s not popular, but it’s a good idea to try to keep people safe. It’s a little too late now to have a full vaccination series before Christmas, but it’s still a good idea to get that first dose to give yourself a little bit of coverage prior to that gathering. 

Why should people wear masks when in larger gatherings, even if they’ve been vaccinated or recovered from COVID?

S.E.: Because we are in high transmission, so it is wise to wear the mask. Vaccination doesn’t 100% protect you from acquiring the virus, but it does help prevent severe illness, hospitalization and death. With the mask, the liquid particles COVID transfers in are bigger, so it prevents those from being spread to others if you’re asymptomatic. You also should change or wash masks every day.

Do almost all people who die of COVID had underlying conditions?

S.E.: Yes, there’s a likelihood that the individuals who die of COVID had other underlying conditions, but I can guarantee everyone in this room probably has an underlying medical condition, even if it’s arthritis. We would say, ‘Yes, that person had an underlying medical condition.’ My co-workers and I analyze the death data. We analyze all of the data for the county and the other counties that we cover. We are incredibly strict with the way COVID deaths are counted in Ohio. They have to go to the national level and be classified as a COVID death before we can count them as a COVID death in the state of Ohio and in Wyandot County. That is the way that they’re all being counted in the U.S. right now. We may get a death certificate that comes in and be pretty sure it’s a COVID death, but we will not count it as a COVID death until it comes back from the national level and it is confirmed.

Crawford: Every now and then we’ll get a question on our social media posts, ‘I know so-and-so and they just passed away and they were a COVID death but your numbers haven’t gone up,’ but we can’t respond and confirm that because of HIPPA and we also have to wait to update the death totals in the county until we get that confirmation. It can lead to some confusion. Sometimes it can take a couple weeks or even a month to confirm.

Why aren’t people taking COVID more seriously?

S.E.: This is speculation, but there are still a lot of individuals who think it’s not worse than the common cold or the flu. We also see certain age groups that kind of think they’re invincible. There’s a couple different aspects as to why individuals don’t get vaccinated. The best thing we can do is provide the data that we have and educate and hope people listen.

Crawford: There are a lot of people who change their minds about things once a family member has been affected, but I also think that’s very sad, because sometimes it’s too late for that family member. We’re trying to find ways to get people vaccinated and take better precautions before that happens.