City Limits will address five commonly offered reasons for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 this week in a short Q&A series. Today’s question:
Does the COVID-19 vaccine weaken my immune system’s ability to fight off viruses?
Infectious disease expert Dr. Tom Hrisomalos said this claim is baseless.
“It enhances, it augments, it improves the immunity in everybody including the people who have had COVID,” Hrisomalos said.
He added that people who have had the virus and have then received the vaccine have some of the strongest immunity to COVID-19.
Listen: CDC Recommends COVID-19 Booster Shots, Mask Mandate Returns
Graham McKeen is IU’s assistant university director of public and environmental health in the Office of Environmental Health and Safety.
He agreed with Hrisomalos.
“What’s making the virus stronger and more infectious is continued spread,” McKeen said. “Viruses can’t mutate if they don’t replicate.”
McKeen said through evolution, the strongest variants will survive and become dominant.
He added that the United States is experiencing this with the delta variant.
“So anything we can do to decrease transmission, like vaccination, will further decrease the potential for more worrisome evolution mutations,” he said.
