Dr. Dave Hnida: You Don't Need A Reaction To Have Immunity From COVID Vaccine

DENVER (CBS4) - CBS4 Medical Editor Dr. Dave Hnida has joined the nearly 1 million Coloradans who have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. He said on CBSN Denver his arm was a little sore but not bad.

He addressed the question Do you need to have a reaction to get immunity? during his weekly question and answer session.

"About two-thirds of people do get some reaction," he explained. "They will wind up getting a sore arm, a little bit of fever, shakiness, headache -- but about a third don't."

He said is important to understand the level of your reaction doesn't reflect how strong your immune response is.

"I wound up getting a sore arm so I know my immune system is kicking in. I also know by looking at the studies they did in research trials on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that many people did not have any sort of sore arm, fever, chills or aches but those people still got the same level of immunity as the people who did wind up having some sort of a reaction."

"Those folks were 95% protected against coronavirus and 100% protected from going into the hospital and protected from death from COVID."

Hnida also had a word of caution about what some people are doing after getting the vaccinations, as people are getting COVID antibody tests to see if the vaccine was effective.

"Those tests are not really valuable in terms of assessing your COVID vaccine response. They are tests that check for different antibodies," Hnida said.

"When you get the vaccine, you will be considered protected."