RELATED: This Is What It Means If You Have No Vaccine Side Effects, Doctors Say. The most recent Economist/YouGov poll, published on June 22, found that 75 percent of people in the U.S. experienced no side effects after receiving the COVID vaccine. Whether or not you have side effects following vaccination is dependent on a handful of things, including your age, which shot you received, if you had COVID before, and other unknown variables. According to the survey, those who got the Moderna vaccine were the most likely to experience side effects, with 28 percent saying they had a reaction of some kind. Meanwhile, only 19 percent and 16 percent of people who got the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, respectively, reported side effects. The survey also found that people aged 30 to 44 were most likely to report side effects, while people over the age of 65 were least likely. It was previously reported that about half of people didn’t have vaccine side effects in the clinical trials, but it appears in the real world, the fraction is even larger. “When you actually look at the statistics from the trials, most people didn’t have side effects,” Thaddeus Stappenbeck, MD, Chairman of the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, explained on the Cleveland Clinic website. “A little over 50 percent didn’t experience any side effects at all.” RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter. ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb The CDC reports that common side effects of the COVID vaccines include fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever, and nausea, as well as pain, redness, and swelling at the site of the injection. While some may find it a relief to not feel uncomfortable after their COVID vaccination, others worry that the absence of side effects means the vaccine isn’t doing its job. However, experts say that isn’t necessarily the case. “If you get this vaccine and you don’t experience any side effects, it doesn’t mean that it’s not initiating a strong immune response,” Wendell Hoffman, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Sanford Health, said in an article for the health care company’s website. Other professionals have echoed that notion. “People respond differently to vaccines. Some experience side effects—this is normal and is a sign that the body is generating an immune response that will help to fight COVID-19 if exposed in the future,” Leana Wen, MD, a practicing physician and op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, wrote for the paper. “Some others don’t have side effects. That’s normal too, and there’s no reason to believe that the vaccine is less effective for them.” RELATED: This Is Why Half of People Have Stronger Vaccine Side Effects, CDC Says.
