(upbeat music)

- Well, the Food and Drug

Administration's Advisory Committee

is meeting today todecide whether Americans

can begin getting Pfizer's vaccine shot.

- But will it be

in time to slow the surge

and to save crippled businesses?

Charlene Aaron has more.

- Across the nation new cases are soaring

and states are imposing new restrictions

to stop the spread.

In California, the number

of hospitalizations is around 10,000.

- We're running out of space.

We're running out of supplies

and we have a shortage of providers.

- [Charlene] New stay athome orders ban indoor

and outdoor dining at restaurants

and impose restrictionson social get togethers.

Businesses are struggling to survive,

especially during the holiday season.

- This is the busiest time of the year

for restaurants generally speaking.

I would say a lot of people

would normally getting together

or having holiday parties.

So we've lost all of ourprivate party business.

We've lost all catering businesses.

- [Charlene] Tuesday, a California judge

ruled the ban on outdoordining is arbitrary,

but the three week lockdown down order

still prevents restaurants from opening.

California churches are pushing back

against prohibitions on indoor services.

Attorney Mat Staver,

the Founder of Liberty Counsel

is arguing a case

on behalf of Harvest RockChurch in Pasadena, California.

- These restrictions of no worship

that covered 99% of California

actually go as far back as July the 13th

and the no worship also includes

no worship in your home

or Bible study in your home

with anyone who doesn't live there.

- [Charlene] On the vaccine front,

the FDA now releasing itsanalysis data from Pfizer,

showing the vaccines impact in trials.

The blue line represents people

who received the vaccine.

The red line is those

who had a placebo.

Of those given a placebo,

162 people contracted the virus,

but only eight people

who got the vaccine were infected.

At his Vaccine Summit

at the White House Tuesday,

President Trump signed an Executive Order

giving Americans first priority

for US-made COVID 19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is outlining steps

he would take to control the virus

in his first 100 days.

- At east 100 million COVID vaccine shots

into the arms of the American people

in the first 100 days.

100 million shots in the first 100 days.

- He's also pledging to sign

an order requiring masks

in all federal buildings.

He's also aiming to see most schools

in the country open again.

Charlene Aaron, CBN News.

- Well, CBN medicalreporter, Lorie Johnson

joins us with more

on all things COVID related.

And, Lorie, tell us about this vaccine.

Are there any side effects to it?

- Yes, there are someside effects, Gordon,

but they're temporary

and they're relatively minor.

But what do I mean by that?

I'm talking about painat the injection site.

So your muscle mighthurt for a little while,

maybe a day to three days,

fatigue, fever, general achiness.

These ave been detected in about 10

to 15% of the people in the trials.

So not everyone will have them.

In fact, a small proportion will get them,

but again, they're temporary.

They won't last,

but a few days at the most.

And this is a very natural response.

This is a very normal good response

because it shows that your body

is mounting an immune defense.

- Well, as I understand it,

you need two shots.

So if you have the reaction,

is that going to deter you

from getting the second one?

- Well, this is why it's important

to point out that people

might be having these responses.

And so, yes, the concern

among some health professionals

is that people will get the first shot

and think, "Wow, I did not like that.

"I'm not going back for my second one."

That's very concerning

because we need both shots.

So it's important to

advise people ahead of time

that they might have these difficulties

and point out that

these side effects are only rare.

And if they do occur,

it's a lot less worse

than what you're gonna feel

if you get the Coronavirus, right?

- Yeah. Well, that's true.

I've been warned in looking

at vaccines for shingles.

Every year I get a flu vaccine

and the warning comes with that.

Are these greater than

what you can expect

from a flu vaccine

or from a shingles vaccine?

- I'm glad you pointed out

and kudos to you

for getting both the flu vaccine

and the shingles vaccine.

You and I are on the same team.

I get my flu shot every single year.

And I also got my shingles vaccines.

And actually this is a very,very similar comparison.

The COVID vaccine to the shingles vaccine,

there are two shots

and I was told ahead of time,

this is gonna probably hurt,

and it did.

I couldn't even sleep

on this side of my body

for the first three days

after I got my shingles vaccine.

And I did feel

like I was almost getting sick.

And then of course it went away

and I definitely went back

and got it.

And if you've ever known

anyone who's had shingles,

it's excruciatingly painful.

It's an attack on the nervous system.

So I was happy to have

these mild side effects

compared to ever getting shingles.

Now, as far as the flu vaccine,

that's kind of a walk in the park.

A lot of people don't even feel it.

- Well, if someone has had COVID,

do they need to get the vaccine

or are they immune to the disease?

- Well, we definitely know that people

who have recovered from COVID are immune,

but the question is for how long.

We know at a minimum

it's a number of months.

So if you recovered from COVID-19

within the last few months,

it might be a nice idea

to the back of the line

when it comes time to get a vaccine

so that someone elsecan have their chance.

However, if you gotCOVID way back in March,

you might seriously think

about getting vaccinated now

because Gordon, we just don't know

how long immunity lasts.

There's every reason to believe

that it might last for a year or two,

because of the good news

is that the COVID-19 virus

does not seem to mutate that much,

which is what we see

with the flu virus.

- Well, that was the concern

and certainly a concern

I had at the start of this,

that it was related to rhinoviruses,

the cold virus

and therefore was mutating

all over the place.

And there would neverbe an effective vaccine.

Are you saying that

we need to line up

for our COVID vaccine,

just like we do

the flu vaccine every single year?

- No, as a matter of fact,

the health experts don't know this yet,

but right now the early indications

are that this COVID-19 vaccine

might be effective fora long period of time,

perhaps even longer than a year,

but it's a little bit too soon to say,

but there's every reason to hope.

- Okay, we've got some viewer questions.

This one comes in from David on Facebook.

What is in it?

And is it healthy for us?

- Great questions, David,

there are two of them.

What's in it?

And is it healthy?

Is it healthy?

Well, it's going to prevent deaths.

So I think that qualifiesas being healthy.

What's in it?

So remember we're talking about

not just one COVID vaccine,

probably next year we're going to see

six COVID vaccines that are approved

and they're all different,

which means there aredifferent ingredients

in each of them.

So let's talk about the one

that's probably going to be approved today

and maybe given to people

in America next week,

which is the Pfizer vaccine.

It's an Messenger RNA vaccine,

which means it containssynthetic genetic material

that causes our own bodies

to produce that spike protein

that you see on the COVID virus

and then our body mounts

an immune response to that.

It produces antibodiesto fight against it.

That's what's in it.

Now, here's what's not in it,

nothing that's alive

or has ever been alive.

So no live virus,

no virus that was alive,

and has been deactivated,

and no protein from a virus

that has been deactivated,

and also no material

that has ever beenassociated with an abortion.

- Well, here's anotherquestion from Instagram.

Is it dangerous for people

with low immune systems?

- Actually quite the opposite.

It's very highly recommended

for people who don't

have a very strong immune response,

because if you have astrong immune response,

like people who are young and healthy,

they can fight off the virus

on their own in many cases,

but you need this extrahelp from the vaccine

to help you with your immune response.

Now, having said that,

people who have extremelylow immune systems,

weak immune systemsmay still get COVID-19,

but here's the great news, Gordon,

this vaccine is 100% effective

against severe COVID-19,

which means you might still get COVID-19,

but you won't die from it.

You won't have a severe reaction to it.

And this is what we see

with the flu vaccine too,

that a lot of times people

get a flu vaccine

and then they get the flu,

but they have a less severe case of it.

So what that means

is your body is still mounting

an immune response to it,

but not producing enoughof those antibodies

to actually keep you from getting it,

but enough to keep you

from dying from it, that's important.

- Okay, we had a poll,

it was on Instagram.

So by definition it's not scientific.

And we asked people,

would they take the COVID vaccine?

And as you can see here,

80% said, "No way."

Most viewers said they were concerned

with how quickly the vaccine was made,

and there hasn't been enough testing.

What do you say to that?

- Well, so 20% of those people

said they do trust the vaccine.

Let's focus on the positive,

more reliable polls.

I'm glad you pointed that out.

Like a Gallup poll said

about 60% of people trust the vaccine.

I've done my own polling, Gordon.

It's also not very scientific.

I ask doctors all the time.

I talked to doctors

and healthcare professionals all the time.

And every time I do,

I ask them what they think of the vaccine.

And I can tell you 100% of the people

I've talked to trust it.

And so I would say

to all of the viewers watching right now,

if you have concerns about the vaccine,

talk to somebody with a medical degree,

somebody who knows themost about the vaccine,

who is best able to talk about

the facts of the vaccine.

So call your general practitioner,

your primary care physician,

and talk to them about

your concerns about it.

Also, Gordon, you mayremember one week ago today,

I was part of a webinar

or a seminar that was online

that was headlined by Dr. Francis Collins,

who is a strong Christian

and also the head of the NIH

and Russell Moore who's

with the Southern Baptist Convention.

And that entire seminar

was about the vaccine

and it is on our website, CBNNEWS.com.

And they do address

the fact that some people

are concerned about the rapidity,

how fast it was manufactured.

No safety corners were cut,

but other corners were cut

as far as taking risks financially.

They made the vaccine in huge quantities

before they even finished testing it

so that when it received approval,

then it would be ready to ship out.

Things like that made it fast.

- All right. Well, Lorie,

thanks for being with us.

You can always get the latest update

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