Welcome back we're answering your questions about the coronavirus with Cone Health, Chief of HealthEquity and Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Alan Powell. Remember, you can text your questions, the number there is at the bottom of the screen. Well, this person is asking about drugs that they're taking and the covid vaccine. They say if you are taking an antibiotic or certain medicines, can you still get the vaccine? Yes, in general most medications are safe if there are specific concerns, I would suggest that you have those discussions with your physician.
If you're talking about antibiotics specifically, that shouldn't interfere with the COVID-19 vaccine. Last week there were a lot of appointments that had to be cancelled and rescheduled, and so I got several emails today of people saying my wife's and my friends, you know appointment got rescheduled. Mine has not. Can you give us any kind of update on the rescheduling process through cone? Sure, a peep cone health is in the process of contacting people right now to reschedule their appointments. You should anticipate a notification by email if that's how you scheduled your original appointment 48 hours prior to your next scheduled appointment.
Don't get reschedule, you will be contacted. Just be patient with that again. If you scheduled already by way of email, they'll contact you by email. If you scheduled by way of a telephone call, they will contact you by telephone. OK, that's good to know that they're going to contact you the way that you made the appointment, so be on the lookout for that. Alright, this person says. Is it the same as a flu shot needle? Is it a long needle that's going to hurt my arm or my muscle? I believe it is the same as the flu shot and I will tell you this that when I got my first vaccine, I didn't believe that she gave me the injection.
It was that painless. But later on the evening when I had a sore arm, I was very happy that I had a sore on because it suggested to me that the medication was working. So I will tell you that most people I've spoken to have received the vaccine have been very, very pleased how painless the injection is. That is good to know, right? This person is texting. Does something make the African American population? Or communities of color more susceptible to the covid virus. Wow, that's a deep question. I could go on a long time regarding that particular question. Let me just first and foremost say that it has nothing to do with biology. It's all around sociology. We have a term in healthcare we call social determinants of health where you're born where you live, where you work, where your age, you're racing, your ethnicity. And as I alluded to in the first segment. There is a history of systemic institutional and structural racism in America that has resulted in housing inequality, employment inequality, educational, criminal justice, wealth gap, Anna health gap.
Because of those sociological issues we have health care in equalities when there are more comorbidities. Meeting someone has diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney disease, which occurs more commonly in African Americans and other people of color. They are more susceptible. To the COVID-19 virus, and so that's the reason why there's a disparity that exists among the incidence of COVID-19 and people of color. So this person is saying that both of these ladies, she says me and my best friend both got the covid vaccine dose. Does this mean that we can now visit together without our masks on? No, I wouldn't do that. I think you should try to be vigilant and wearing your mask because both of you are probably going out in public and coming in contact with other people. There is a risk that you could both get exposed to cobit an have a underlying infection, but be relatively asymptomatic and you could pass it on to someone else and so in the process of meeting with each other you could transmit the virus and then transmit it to other people.
So I know you want to not wear the mask. I don't want to wear the mask, but I do it because it's important to keep myself safe and other people save continue to wear the mask and again until we give you the green light and say it's not necessary anymore. We need more vaccine and arms to be able to save this pandemics over. We have a long way to go and will be wearing masks for a long time. And I think without friends, right continue to wear mask, and I think that's a really big deal. Think knowing that you could not be getting covid because you have the vaccine. But you could be still passing it on to someone else, right? That's exactly right. You could transmit the vaccine and remember, you could still get cobit and get very sick because it's not 100% effective.
It's 95% effective 94% effective. So there's a one in 20 chance that you could get sick from COVID-19. Alright, we have about less than a minute. This person is asking do you have to be tested before you get a covid vaccine? No. Quick and simple. No you do not OK. Thank you so much Doctor Powell for joining us and letting us your expertise. We so appreciate that we want to thank you for sending in your text questions as well. All of this will be posted on our WFY News two.com site..
