COVID-19 Vaccines: Vagaries and Vacillations

ABSTRACT

All healthcare workers, including dental professionals are foot soldiers in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, in the USA, dental practitioners and dental students are now recruited to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the general population to expedite vaccine uptake, and rapidly suppress the pandemic. There are many unknowns in the evolving COVID-19 vaccine story, although we now see the true situation in a better light, with the rapid emergence of data from numerous countries, including UK, where the vaccine has currently been administered to millions. The situation is further compounded by the reported vagaries of the increasing number of brand-name vaccines, manufactured on both the new and old vaccine platforms, the purported or real, vaccine adverse effects, the emergence of possible vaccine-resistant viral variants, and the resultant low vaccine uptake due to vacillating public opinion. In this COVID-19 Commentary, we provide an update on the efficacy of the vaccines and the prevalence of adverse effects, as well as a summary of useful information for dental care workers on vaccine protocols appertaining to special situations, as promulgated both by the UK Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, and the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). © 2021 George Warman Publications. All rights reserved.