Family Letter regarding the COVID – 19 Vaccination
Dear Loved Ones of our Residents:
Thank you for everything you do to protect yourself and our residents from getting COVID – 19. As many of you know, residents of long-term care facilities are among those now being offered COVID – 19 vaccinations. Making sure residents received COVID – 19 vaccinations early will help save their lives. Because many residents have underlying health condition and live in group settings, they are at a higher risk of infection and severe illness from COVID – 19. Our residents matter to us and getting vaccinated is an important step to prevent them from getting sick with COVID – 19 disease.
To offer convenient access to the vaccine, we have partnered with our pharmacy and other local pharmacies to provide on-site COVID – 19 vaccinations for resident and staff free of charge. When a resident agrees to get vaccinated, or persons appointed to make medical decisions agrees to have a resident vaccinated, it will be documented in the resident’s medical chart. We will work directly with you and the resident to ensure the resident received a fact sheet before vaccination. Explaining the risks and benefits of the COVID – 19 vaccine. This is called an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Fact Sheet. We will require a written, email or verbal consent from residents/authorized decision makers before they are vaccinated.
We understand you may have questions about the vaccine. Residents may have some side effects, which are normal signs that their bodies are building protection. The most common side effects are pain at the injection site, fever, and chills. These side effects tend to be mild to moderate and go away on their own within 1 – 2 days. We will work with residents and families to report any health problems that occur after vaccination to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), even if we are unsure that the vaccine caused the health problem. We call these types of health problems possible side effects or adverse events. Healthcare professionals are required by law to report certain adverse events after receiving the COVID – 19 vaccine. In addition, we are encouraging residents who have a smart phone to enroll in V – Safe, a tool that can be used to tell the CDC if someone has any side effects after getting a COVID – 19 vaccine.
COVID – 19 vaccines are in important tool to help stop the pandemic. However, even after vaccination, everyone in the facility will continue following all the current guidance to protect themselves and others, including wearing a mask, staying at least 6 feet away from others, following facility guidance on visitation and infection control, and frequently performing proper hand hygiene.
Thank you again for all you are doing to keep yourself and your family members safe. We will continue to update you on any new information about the COVID – 19 vaccination. Please contact us with any further questions.
Thank you,
Vaccination Information
Prior to COVID – 19 we followed the infection prevention process with immunizations by offering Flu and Pneumonia vaccinations. Currently we are and will continue to offer the COVID – 19 vaccination to our residents and staff as an effort to minimize the risk of the spread of this infection.
COVID – 19 are effective at protecting you from getting sick even after you have had COVID – 19. Vaccination is an important tool to help us get ack to normal.
How the Vaccine Works
When germs, such as the virus that causes COVID – 19, invade our bodies, they attack and multiply. This invasion, called an infection, is what causes illness. Our immune system uses several tools to fight infection. Blood contains red cells, which carry oxygen to tissues and organs, and white or immune cells, which fight infection. Different types of white blood cells fight infection in different ways.
Different types of vaccines work in different ways to offer protection. But with all types of vaccines, the body is left with a supply or “memory” T- lymphocytes and well as B-lymphocytes that will remember how to fight that virus in the future.
Vaccine Effectiveness
- All COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the United States are effective at preventing COVID-19 as seen in clinical trial settings.
- Research provides growing evidence that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines offer similar protection in real world conditions.
- COVID-19 vaccination is an important tool to help stop the COVID-19 pandemic.
- COVID-19 vaccination helps protect people from getting sick or severely ill with COVID-19 and might also help protect people around them.
- To receive the most protection, people should receive all recommended doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
- Some people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will still get sick because no vaccine is 100% effective. Experts continue to monitor and evaluate how often this occurs, how severe their illness is, and how likely a vaccinated person is to spread COVID-19 to others.
- CDC recommends you get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as one is available to you.
- Millions of People Have Safely Received a COVID-19 Vaccine
- Over 351 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States from December 14, 2020, through August 9, 2021.
- COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. COVID-19 vaccines were evaluated in tens of thousands of participants in clinical trials. The vaccines met the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality needed to support emergency use authorization (EUA). Learn more about EUAs in this videoexternal icon.
- Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines since they were authorized for emergency use by FDA. These vaccines have undergone and will continue to undergo the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. This monitoring includes using both established and new safety monitoring systems pdf icon[PDF – 83 KB] to make sure that COVID-19 vaccines are safe.
It typically takes a few weeks after vaccination for the body to produce these “memory” cells. Therefore, it is possible that a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID- 19 just before or just after vaccination and then get sick because the vaccine did not have enough time to provide protection.
Sometime after vaccination, the process of building immunity can cause symptoms, such as fever. These symptoms are normal and are signs that the body is building immunity.
When getting your vaccination regardless of one dose vaccination or two dose vaccination it will take up to 2 weeks after the final dose to be considered “Fully Immunized” Please continue to protect yourself and others by wearing a mask.
Fact Sheets (EUS) for the following vaccinations
Please click on the blue hyperlink to review and print for your keeping. You will need to review this prior to your loved one getting the vaccination and each fact sheet is specific to the individual vaccination.
Pfizer – BioNTech (EUA)
https://www.fda.gov/media/144414/download
Moderna Fact Sheet (EUA)
https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download
Johnson and Johnson Fact Sheet (EUA)
https://www.fda.gov/media/146305/download
Side Effects
Common side effects include:
- Swelling, Redness, and pain at injection site
- Fever
- Headache
- Tiredness
- Muscle Pain
- Chills
- Nausea
Delta Variant
- The Delta variant is more contagious: The Delta variant is highly contagious, more than 2x as contagious as previous variants.
- Some data suggest the Delta variant might cause more severe illness than previous strains in unvaccinated persons. In two different studies from Canada and Scotland, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus strains.
- Unvaccinated people remain the greatest concern: Although breakthrough infections happen much less often than infections in unvaccinated people, individuals infected with the Delta variant, including fully vaccinated people with symptomatic breakthrough infections, can transmit it to others. CDC is continuing to assess data on whether fully vaccinated people with asymptomatic breakthrough infections can transmit. However, the greatest risk of transmission is among unvaccinated people who are much more likely to contract, and therefore transmit the virus.
Fully vaccinated people with Delta variant breakthrough infections can spread the virus to others. However, vaccinated people appear to be infectious for a shorter period: Previous variants typically produced less virus in the body of infected fully vaccinated people (breakthrough infections) than in unvaccinated people. In contrast, the Delta variant seems to produce the same high amount of virus in both unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people. However, like other variants, the amount of virus produced by Delta breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people also goes down faster than infections in unvaccinated people. This means fully vaccinated people are likely infectious for less time than unvaccinated people.
Vaccination Resources
Information on Key things to know about the COVID – 19 Vaccination:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/keythingstoknow.html?s_cid=11438:vaccine%20for%20covid:sem.ga:p:RG:GM:gen:PTN:FY21
How to talk to friends and families about the COVID Vaccination
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/talk-about-vaccines.html
Knowledge quiz on COVID Vaccines
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/quiz-how-much-do-you-know.html
Benefit of getting the Vaccination
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/vaccine-benefits.html
How Vaccines get to you
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/distributing.html
Developing the Vaccination Information
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/distributing/steps-ensure-safety.html
Interim Guidance on Ending Isolation and Precautions for Adults with COVID-19
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isolation.html
Pfizer – BioNTech Fact Sheet (EUA)
https://www.fda.gov/media/144414/download
Moderna Fact Sheet (EUA)
https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download
Johnson and Johnson Fact Sheet (EUA)
https://www.fda.gov/media/146305/download
Should someone who has had COVID – 19 get the vaccination?
https://www.ahcancal.org/News-and-Communications/Documents/GetVaccinated/GETVAX-Recovered-Individuals-handout.pdf
Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)
https://vaers.hhs.gov/
V-safe Information
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/vsafe.html
Guidance for People Fully Vaccinated
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
If you haven’t been vaccinated yet (find a vaccine
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/How-Do-I-Get-a-COVID-19-Vaccine.html
Delta Variant
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html