Dr. Nelson, Chief Medical Officer, at HMS, Shares Important COVID Vaccine Information.

This is Dr. Darrick Nelson, Hidalgo Medical Services Chief Medical Officer with a message about the COVID-19 vaccination.

A recent report out of Los Alamos National Laboratory indicated that in New Mexico, the effect of vaccination is lowering the daily incidence of COVID-19 by more than 60 percent. Currently, there are three COVID-19 vaccinations available in the United States. The Pfizer vaccine, which is 95 percent effective and given in a two-shot series, the Moderna vaccine which is 94 percent effective and given in a two-shot series, and finally the J & J, or Johnson & Johnson vaccine which was found to be 66 percent effective. All three COVID vaccines are safe.

Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines, and these vaccinations have undergone the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. COVID-19 vaccines do not change or interact with your DNA in any way. The COVID-19 vaccine cannot give you COVID-19, although you may experience some vaccine side effects. The most common side effects were pain, redness, and swelling in the arm you got the shot, and throughout the body some of the common side effects were tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever, and nausea. Please consider getting the COVID-19 vaccine to help protect yourself and those you love.

You can register for the vaccine at cvvaccine.nmhealth.org.