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What you need to know about the AstraZeneca vaccine

The AstraZeneca vaccine is showing to be 79 percent effective at preventing symptomatic coronavirus infections and 100 percent effective against severe disease. That's according to a press release from AstraZeneca published Monday. Read the full release here: https://bit.ly/3rd6lc1

They tested their vaccine on 32,449 participants in the U.S. This vaccine is now heading to the United States Food and Drug Administration for emergency approval. The vaccine is already being used in other countries around the world.

“The AstraZeneca vaccine is the vaccine that’s been used most widely worldwide, been used throughout Europe and is going to be the mainstay vaccine of a very large percentage of the population of the world," Chief Medical Officer at Eisenhower Health, Dr. Alan Williamson told News Channel 3 on Monday.

This is because the two-dose vaccine can be stored in normal refrigeration temperatures for up to six months and still have full efficacy.

Dr. Williamson said the AstraZeneca vaccine uses a weakened coronavirus that comes from chimpanzees to introduce the material into the human cells.

“My understanding is they have 20 to 30 million doses basically ready to go shortly after approval so we could see them online by potentially mid-April almost certainly by the first of May,” Williamson said.

He also explain that it's unclear how long a person will have to wait in between the first and second dose of the vaccine.

“In the trials originally they started with a four-week gap between the two shots but they’ve moved to as many as eight or 12 weeks between the vaccinations and have actually seen what seems to be improved efficacy if they delay the second shot longer," he said.

According to Pfizer, their vaccine is 95 percent effective. Moderna said theirs is 94.1 percent effective. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is 85 percent effective. All vaccines have much higher efficacy rates than many flu vaccines.

“It is really critical that people understand at this point any vaccine you can get your hands on is equally safe as far as all of the studies have shown, very close in terms of effectiveness and clearly all of them are far superior to no vaccine whatsoever," Williamson said.

We also spoke with local congressman Dr. Raul Ruiz about the AstraZeneca vaccine while he helped vaccinate people at a clinic on Monday in Coachella.

“The more vaccines that we can get developed and produced in massive quantities and distributed around our country the better," Dr. Ruiz said.

We also spoke to Riverside County Public Health spokesperson Jose Arballo on his thoughts of a potential fourth vaccine.

“We’re really happy of the idea that we could have another option," Arballo said. “In the end, that will allow us to move through the phases quicker," he added.

As far as our current vaccination rollout, Arballo said appointments are available and the supply of vaccine is steady. He said right now we have about the same amount of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

“We have another batch of Johnson and Johnson coming soon probably early next month," Arballo said.

According to the Riverside County Public Health website (last updated March 22) we've received 679,330 vaccines and have administered 820,986 vaccines. Arballo explained that more vaccines have been administered than received in Riverside County because when someone from Riverside County gets vaccinated somewhere outside of our county, that still counts as a Riverside County administered vaccine.

Visit https://www.rivcoph.org/COVID-19-Vaccine for more information.

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Caitlin Thropay

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