6 Things People With Heart Conditions Must Know About the COVID-19 Vaccines

COVID-19 vaccination is ramping up across the country and is expected to continue to expand through summer. This influx is making vaccines available to more people with underlying conditions, including heart conditions that put them at a higher risk for complications if they get infected with the novel coronavirus. If you have a high-risk condition, you may have a lot of questions about how, why, and when you should get vaccinated and whether it’s safe.

Here are some expert takes on what people with a history of heart conditions should know about COVID-19 vaccines.

1. Do I Really Need to Get Vaccinated?

In short, yes. There are very few instances where a person should not receive a COVID-19 vaccine because of an underlying health conditions, and heart conditions do not fall into that category. According to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people with心脏衰竭,hypertension,coronary artery disease, orcardiomyopathyhave a high risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19, being hospitalized, and dying from the disease.

In a回顾发表在2020年10月American Journal of the Medical Sciences, researchers blamed the increased risk of COVID-19 complications in people with underlying cardiovascular disease on abnormally high amounts of a receptor that serves as a bridge for the virus to jump into the lungs and heart.

“Folks with underlying cardiovascular disease hands down have a higher risk of severe or fatal COVID-19. The only way to prevent that is to not get COVID-19, and the best way to do that is to get a COVID-19 vaccine,” saysEduardo Sanchez，MD，MPH, the chief medical officer for prevention at the American Heart Association (AHA).

Learn more about how COVID-19 impacts the heart, and what that means for people with underlying heart disease这里.

2.我听说疫苗后，人们仍然可以获得Covid-19。疫苗真的有用吗？

It’s true that so-called breakthrough cases have been reported across the United States, because none of the vaccines are 100 percent effective, but such infections are very rare.

加利福尼亚大学的初步数据，published in March 2021 in the新英格兰医学杂志，found that of the 28,184 healthcare workers who received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, 7 tested positive for COVID-19 15 days after receiving their second dose. The number was higher among those who had received only one dose or who were infected during the two-week period that vaccinated people must wait to have a full immune response and be considered fully vaccinated.

无论如何，Covid-19疫苗非常善于预防由于这种疾病引起的严重疾病和死亡。“疫苗教导你的身体更快，更有效地对抗病毒，预防严重疾病。疫苗接种尽可能多的人将防止病毒的第二波，并保护那些无法获得疫苗的人出于医疗原因获得疾病，“Antonio Abbate, MD， 一种cardiologist在弗吉尼亚英联邦大学帕卢伊心里中心在里士满。

New research has found that the two-dose vaccines are also quite good at preventing infection, and therefore transmission, of the virus.

Thelatest CDC interim report，这是在医疗保健工人和第一响应者上进行的，并表明Covid-19疫苗如何在现实世界中工作，发现双剂量辉瑞 - 比翁和现代MRNA疫苗在预防下有效COVID-19 infectionafter full vaccination, and 80 percent effective after the first dose. This means the vaccines appear to be very effective in preventing people from spreading the virus, but it’s not impossible.

“由于病毒在我们的社会中仍然猖獗，我们要求那些完全接种疫苗的人佩戴面膜以防止Covid-19在我们仍在等待让每个人接种疫苗的同时，”Abbate博士说。

Three COVID-19 vaccines are currently authorized for emergency use in the United States, and states are expected to receive larger amounts of theJohnson & Johnson vaccine, the most recently authorized and the only single-dose COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, as significantly more shots become available throughout the coming months.临床试验据表明，约翰逊疫苗近67％有效地在全球预防疾病，在各州更有效。随着众所周知的众多人民接受此疫苗，CDC将能够收集有关它预防传输的更多信息。

3.我的疫苗副作用风险较高？

According to Abbate, people with underlying cardiovascular disease are not at a higher risk for developing vaccine side effects, which commonly include temporary fatigue, headache, muscle aches, chills, fever, and nausea, according to the疾病预防控制中心. These are common signs that your body is building immunity, but they don’t appear in everyone,the CDC reports.

If you receive one of the two-dose vaccines, know that you may feel worse after your second shot,the CDC advises. Abbate explains that this is because your body has already developed a partial immune response to the virus after the first shot, which is why people who have had COVID-19 before also may be more likely to feel sick for a couple of days after getting vaccinated. In addition, none of the vaccines being administered in the United States is a live vaccine, meaningnone actually infect people with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Since there is no complete virus in the vaccine, but rather proteins that teach your immune system to recognize COVID-19 and fight it off, you cannot get infected with the disease from the vaccine.

“一些患者对不想感到厌恶的患者表示关切，并说他们担心发烧或炎症反应可能会让他们生病。我向他们解释的方式是，如果你担心疫苗中的蛋白质会让你感到生病了几天，想象一下全吹的病毒会做什么，“亚军说。

他还建议人们去医疗保健约会，而不是害怕获得Covid-19;跟上药物;努力维持健康的血压水平和重量;当疫苗接种机会来临时，经常锻炼身体健康。

Allergic reactionsto the COVID-19 vaccines are both very rare and easy to treat. According to Abbate, allergic reactions are related to some components in the vaccine and have nothing to do with the viral proteins themselves.

“如果发生反应，那么通常在对其他疫苗或易患过敏反应的人对其他疫苗过敏反应的人中。在疫苗施用疫苗后，它们也会发生很快，在约15分钟内，这就是为什么每个疫苗接种位点都配备以治疗过敏反应。“

4. Are COVID-19 Vaccines Free for People With Heart Disease?

Yes.According to the CDC，无论移民或健康保险状况如何，Covid-19疫苗都是完全免费的。疫苗提供者不能为您的疫苗收取疫苗，用于诸如办公室访问的行政费用，例如，办公室访问的费用。如果您被保险，您的疫苗提供商可以将您的保险单票据，但提供商不能为您的账单上的任何余额收取您的费用。如果您没有保险，提供商可能会从健康资源和服务管理局的Covid-19未保险的计划中申请报销，但不能向您提供任何资金的Covid-19疫苗。

5. When Can I Get Vaccinated?

Each state is in charge of its own vaccine rollout, so who is currently eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine differs by state and even by county.Federal guidelinesrecommend that adults with “underlying medical conditions which increase the risk of serious, life-threatening complications from COVID-19” be prioritized for vaccination. This includes cardiovascular disease, but the guidance doesn’t further define whether or not some types of cardiovascular disease should be prioritized over others. States have all created their own guidelines as to which heart diseases qualify a person for early vaccination, and whether or not people must have multiple underlying conditions to fall into a priority vaccine group.

“Having cardiovascular disease is not one-size-fits-all, so what we have done locally is look at whether patients have more than one high risk condition, whether they have been recently hospitalized, or are older, because age seems to be an important risk factor as well. If you combine these factors you can come up with a score that can tell you which patients are more high-risk,” says Abbate, who is based in Virginia.

If you have a well-controlled heart condition that has not led to hospitalization in years, and don’t have any comorbidities such as糖尿病, “you’re not super low risk, but certainly aren’t very high risk,” says Abbate.

Currently at least 12 states —Arizona,Colorado,Connecticut,堪萨斯州，路易斯安那州,Minnesota,Montana,North Dakota,Ohio,Oklahoma,South Carolina， 和Texas— have opened vaccines to all adults, and the list of states is growing. While demand still far outpaces vaccine availability, people with underlying conditions may still be able to get priority placement when vaccination slots become available. Your individual state health department will be your best resource for determining which vaccination phase your county is in and when you may be eligible. Pharmacies, healthcare systems, and community vaccination sites in a state may also be at different stages in vaccine rollout, so it's not always obvious where you can go.

Check yourstate health department websiteor call your state’s COVID-19 hotline for more information about how you can get in line for a vaccine. You can also contact your primary care physician or cardiologist’s office to ask if they are a vaccination site and if so, how you can get your name on the list.

我仍然不确定。我在哪里可以获得更多信息？

Dr. Sanchez says that he understands people's concerns and urges everyone to make sure they are getting information from credible sources and to question what they read on social media.

“There is so much misinformation, and it’s critically important for people to ask themselves where this information is coming from and is there any way to verify that information,” says Sanchez, who notes the importance of speaking with an expert, such as a healthcare worker, whom you trust and who makes you feel comfortable. You can also find answers to common questions onGetVaccineAnswers.org.

“If you have been vaccinated, share your story with friends who you think may be fearful, and that may encourage them. If you think someone is particularly hesitant, offer to go with them,” says Abbate. “People might need special encouragement, so try to understand what their barrier is. Vaccination is the way out of this pandemic.”