Marines, I'm Rear Admiral Jim Hancock.
I'm the medical officer of the Marine Ccorps and I’m here today to try to answer
your questions about the COVID-19 vaccine After careful and thorough testing.
the FDA has approved through an Emergency Use Authorization
the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Drugs and vaccines have to be approved by the FDA
to ensure that only safe and effective products are available to the American public during public
health emergencies like this COVID-19 pandemic when there is good scientific data
showing that a product is both safe and effective at treating or preventing
disease. The FDA may authorize its use through an EUA before having a year or more
worth of data to fully license the product. They are voluntary because it was licensed
under an EUA. In the civilian sector, employers can require these vaccines right now, but in
the DOD, for now, COVID vaccine is voluntary. However, all Marine Corps personnel and
beneficiaries are strongly encouraged to receive the vaccine when they become eligible.
These vaccines are safe. We expect them to be very effective at protecting Marines
their families and our communities. Department of Defense does not independently
have the authority to mandate a EUA vaccine to service members. However,
the president may make this mandatory when one or more COVID vaccine is issued
FDA licensure or if the president waives the options for members of the Armed Forces
to decline the vaccine, it will or may become mandatory for military personnel similar to
an annual influenza vaccine and many others. The DOD and the Marine Corps are confident
in the FDA stringent vaccine evaluation and oversight process and the assessment of the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, known as the CDC. Manufacturers are required to
submit all their trial data for the FDA to review, and then an independent FDA review board
must recommend the vaccines for approval. The CDC, then, conducts a separate evaluation
after the FDA before they recommend its use. Vaccine safety immune response and effectiveness
are all evaluated in tens of thousands of people before the FDA or the CDC will evaluate a
vaccine and authorize it for use or distribution. If you have recently had COVID-19, you should
not be vaccinated until you have recovered from any symptoms and have been cleared from
home isolation. However, once you are cleared, everyone is encouraged to receive the
vaccine when it is available to them because the duration of immunity following
COVID-19 virus infection is unknown. At this time, the vaccine may provide longer immunity
than the natural COVID-19 infection. The simple answer is yes. The vaccine is only
95 percent effective, so we still have Marines and families at risk. The vaccine works by
building an immunity within your body. This takes one to two weeks so please continue all
precautions even after you've been vaccinated. No, it is not possible to get COVID-19
from our current two vaccinations. These vaccines use a cell's natural coding process
to temporarily show the body's immune system a small portion of the COVID-19 virus. This causes
the immune system to recognize the full virus and attack it if it enters the body. These
vaccines do not contain live COVID virus, cannot cause you to develop COVID-19
disease, and do not cause you to test positive for COVID-19 with any
of our current diagnostic tests. The COVID-19 vaccines do not change or affect DNA. There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines
affect fertility. Additionally, experts believe that these vaccines are unlikely to pose a
risk to pregnant persons developing fetuses, breastfeeding women, or children because
the vaccines contain no live COVID-19 virus. Current theories show that between
65 and 95 percent of people being vaccinated will achieve herd immunity. Marines, what you need to know is the vaccine is safe
and we should do our part to keep America safe.
