COVID-19 Vaccine Lacking For People With Compromised Immunity

Sometimes Mondays live up to their reputation.

That was the case this week when I woke up and read a new study about whether COVID-19 vaccines are effective for people with suppressed immune systems. The answer is not so much.

As a kidney transplant recipient who takes 11 pills every day to intentionally suppress my immune system and keep my kidney happy, this was not good news.

When I got my first of two vaccine shots last month, that simple act, a woman pressing down on a syringe, buoyed me with hope. Like so many others, I’ve spent the better part of the year filled with doubt about what the future would be, not just the details of what I would and would not be able to do but the simple question of would I see family, give hugs, receive hugs.

The first dose of vaccine was a shot in the arm both literally and metaphorically. So much so that I was able to briefly dispense of the nagging thought of, what if it doesn’t work?

For a few weeks, I thought of family, of hanging out with friends, of trips to Powell’s (the self-styled “City of Books” that makes Portland home). The reality that vaccines are meant to boost immune systems to help them fight things like COVID-19, and need a working immune system to be effective, was not allowed to trespass.

Then came Monday with news from Johns Hopkins University that its researchers had studied 436 people who had received an organ transplant in the past few years and had been given a dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. The preliminary result was that, after a few weeks, the vaccine had been effective in only 17 percent of those studied.

Another way of looking at that is that 83 percent of people had not developed the antibodies needed to fight the coronavirus.

“You should not assume that being vaccinated means being immune,” Dr. Dorry Segev, who is leading the research at Johns Hopkins, told Patch. “You should continue all of the safety behaviors that you were engaged in, all the protective behaviors prior to the vaccine.”

Segev says that while the news was not great for people with suppressed immune systems, it wasn’t a total surprise. That said, he stressed it’s still very early in the process.

“We just started administering vaccines in December, and we already have a lot of information, but we don't have nearly the information we would like,” he said. “I know that for patients, it’s disappointing, frustrating. But you know, we'll do everything we can to keep immunosuppressed patients safe. We will work until we’ve reached a level where the disease prevalence is so low that we don't have to worry anymore.”

When Segev tells you that his team is going to keep working, that things will be OK, it’s hard not to trust him. His path to medicine was driven by a desire to help people that was so strong it forced him from one career path to another.

“I studied computer science and music composition,” he said, relaying how he’d written parodies and other humorous pieces including one that got played by Dr. Demento on his radio show. “I wrote children's musicals that we performed around town including at the Children’s Hospital. While visiting there, I saw the relationship between the kids and their doctors and their health care providers. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

So, as a senior, he became pre-med.

He told Patch that “when Hopkins evaluated my application, they were probably like, 'Well, this guy is weird enough that either he's going to end up, you know, a leader in the field, or he's going to drop out quickly. Either way, he’s probably worth the risk.'”

Besides being a transplant surgeon who helps lead research studies, Segev still holds on to his musical past, recently writing a "Hamilton" takeoff urging people to get vaccinated.

"I wrote it hoping to encourage people to get their shot," he said. "It's the only way that we're going to get through this, people get vaccinated and take precautions like wearing a mask in the meantime."

That seems like such a simple concept — take an easy step, help save lives — yet there are still many people, including a member of the U.S. Senate, who see wearing a mask as "theater."

It's not.

Wearing a mask. Keeping your distance. Getting a vaccine. These are not political statements. They are statements that not only do you want to live, you want others to live. It says that you don’t want someone else to get sick, that you respect other people even if you don’t know them.

What gets me are the people who say that they won’t wear masks or keep their distance for religious reasons. I feel that they haven’t read the Bible very closely because, right up front, God asks Cain about Abel and Cain says basically, "Am I my brother’s keeper?" God makes it clear that the answer to that is yes.

We are all here to look after those around us.

Because the vaccine is not guaranteed to work for people with compromised immune systems, that means more than 3 million people in the United States still face a distinct possibility of getting COVID-19. The only way to bring that number down is for people to get their shots. If you're not carrying the virus, you can't give it to me.

So, please. Get your shot. Wear a mask. Socially distance yourself from others. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope.

We can do this. Together. For everyone.