COVID-19 Vaccine Information
The vaccine provides hope for this unprecedented pandemic and is an important step in mitigating the spread and severity of the illness. This page will be updated frequently with new information.
What to Know About the COVID-19 Vaccine
Booster Dose
At this time, Olathe Health clinics are only administering the *Pfizer brand booster dose (to eligible individuals). Based on the FDA and CDC’s guidance, anyone who initially received Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or Pfizer may get an extra dose that is different from the vaccine they received for their primary series.
Pfizer-BioNTech
Who: People 12 years and older who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for their first and second dose
When: Individuals are eligible to receive a booster (third) dose five months after their second dose of the vaccine
>>> Read the January 6, 2022, update from Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Moderna
Who: People 16 years and older who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for their first and second dose
When: Individuals are eligible to receive a booster (third) dose six months after their second dose of the vaccine
Janssen/Johnson and Johnson (J&J)
Who: Anyone 16 years and older who received the J&J vaccine for their primary dose
When: Two months after receiving a single dose of the J&J vaccine
Additional (Third) Dose
Talk with your healthcare provider about your medical condition and whether getting an additional primary shot is appropriate for you.
People 12 years and older
Who: Patients who are moderate to severely immunocompromised
When: Individuals are eligible to receive an additional dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine 28 days or more after they’re fully vaccinated
>>> CLICK HERE for the full Q&A with John Feehan, MD, Olathe Health family medicine physician and Olathe Health Physicians Medical Director.
- All persons age 65 and greater are eligible and should receive a booster dose regardless of any condition or whether they live in a long-term care facility or not.
- The “underlying medical conditions” referred to includes:
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- Cancer
- Chronic kidney disease
- Chronic lung diseases, including COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
- Asthma (moderate-to-severe)
- Interstitial lung disease
- Cystic fibrosis
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Dementia or other neurological conditions
- Diabetes (type 1 or type 2)
- Down syndrome
- Heart conditions (such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathies or hypertension)
- HIV infection
- Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system)
- Liver disease
- Overweight and obesity
- Pregnancy
- Sickle cell disease or thalassemia
- Smoking, current or former
- Solid-organ or blood stem cell transplant
- Stroke or cerebrovascular disease, which affects blood flow to the brain
- Substance use disorders
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Children 5 – 11 years old
Who: Patients who are moderate to severely immunocompromised
When: Individuals are eligible to receive an additional dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine 28 days or more after they’re fully vaccinated
- People are considered to be moderately or severely immunocompromised if they have:
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- Been receiving active cancer treatment for tumors or cancers of the blood
- Received an organ transplant and are taking medicine to suppress the immune system
- Received a stem cell transplant within the last 2 years or are taking medicine to suppress the immune system
- Moderate or severe primary immunodeficiency (such as DiGeorge syndrome, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome)
- Advanced or untreated HIV infection
- Active treatment with high-dose corticosteroids or other drugs that may suppress your immune response
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COVID-19 Vaccine Scheduling
How to Schedule a Vaccine
At this time, Olathe Health clinics are only administering the *Pfizer brand booster dose (to eligible individuals). Based on the FDA and CDC’s guidance, anyone who initially received Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or Pfizer may get an extra dose that is different from the vaccine they received for their primary series.
We’ve created a flowchart with our scheduling information to aid in this process. Click Here to View Vaccine Scheduling Flowchart.
Online:
- If you are a patient who has been seen at Olathe Health, the best way to schedule a vaccine appointment is online using the Patient Portal. (If you are a patient and do not have a portal account, contact your primary care clinic to get signed up.)
- Please note, there are weekend appointments available, but they do not automatically show up in direct book. You will need to change your filters in order to see this option. To change your filters, first select “View All Appointments” on one of the clinic locations listed. Then, click “Advanced Filters” at the top. Check the weekends you would like selected, then click “Apply.”
By Phone:
- If you are a patient with an Olathe Health primary care doctor and don’t wish to schedule online, please call your primary care clinic to schedule your vaccine.
- If you are NOT a patient, you can still schedule an appointment for the vaccine. Please call any Olathe Health primary care clinic. View a full list of clinics here.
Please note: Several of the COVID-19 vaccine brands are a series of two injections that must be given within a specific time frame. Your appointment for the second injection will be made during the check-in process for your first injection. You must receive both injections for the vaccine to be most effective. The vaccine is free, however, there is a fee to administer the injection that will be billed to your insurance.
Attestation forms will need to be completed prior to receiving a “third” or “booster” dose. The form can be accessed here.
Where to direct Patient Portal questions:
- If you are a patient and are trying to set up a new patient portal account, please call your Olathe Health primary care clinic to get signed up. If you do not have a primary care clinic, please call your Olathe Health Physicians specialty clinic to get signed up.
- If you are a patient and need help with login and password resets, or general navigation support, please call 1-877-621-8014, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- For other portal questions, please call 913-355-4217, Mon. – Fri. from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or email [email protected].
COVID-19 Vaccine FAQs
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Anyone ages 5 and older can now receive a first and second COVID-19 vaccine dose at an Olathe Health clinic. Individuals who meet the “third” and “booster” dose criteria (see above) may also get vaccinated at an Olathe Health primary care clinic
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A safe vaccine is determined through administration to a large number of people of different ages, sexes and underlying conditions. Both the Pfizer/BioN Tech and Moderna vaccines have undergone rigorous studies. For example, the Pfizer/BioN Tech study included more than 43,000 patients across demographics representative of our population. These COVID-19 vaccine studies have achieved 95 percent effectiveness.
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No. The COVID-19 vaccine does not contain a live virus.
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No. You will not be contagious and do not need to quarantine. The vaccine does not contain a live virus. It is designed to trigger an immune response in your body to help prevent you from getting the virus.
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After COVID-19 vaccination, you may have some side effects. This is a normal sign that your body is building protection. The side effects may include symptoms like soreness at injection site, muscle aches and fatigue. If you do experience symptoms, please report them on the V-Safe app created by the CDC. V-Safe is a smartphone-based tool that checks in on you after your vaccine, and sends reminders about your second dose. To register, go to https://vsafe.cdc.gov/
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Yes.
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The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both messenger RNA (mRNA). COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA work with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop protection to disease without us having to get the illness. The mRNA instructs our body to make a certain protein. That protein is identical to the spike protein on the coronavirus. It needs that spike protein to attach to our cells and be able to cause infection. When we make that spike protein, our body recognizes it is foreign, and we build up an immunity against it. When we then get exposed to the actual virus, our body recognizes it and can have a more rapid immune response to fight off that infection. Receiving an mRNA vaccine will not alter your DNA. The mRNA never enters the nucleus of the cell, which is where our DNA are kept. This means the mRNA does not affect or interact with our DNA in any way.
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If you have ever had a severe allergic reaction to any ingredient in a COVID-19 vaccine, CDC recommends that you should not get that specific vaccine. View list of ingredients for the Pfizer vaccine here and view a list of ingredients for the Moderna vaccine here. If you have had a severe allergic reaction to other vaccines or injectable therapies, you should ask your doctor if you should get a COVID-19 vaccine. Your doctor will help you decide if it is safe for you to get vaccinated. CDC recommends that people with a history of severe allergic reactions not related to vaccines or injectable medications—such as allergies to food, pet, venom, environmental, or latex—may still get vaccinated. People with a history of allergies to oral medications or a family history of severe allergic reactions, or who might have a milder allergy to vaccines (no anaphylaxis)—may also still get vaccinated. For more information, please visit: cdc.gov/coronavirus.
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Yes. It will be crucial to continue to observe the current safety measures. While experts learn more about the protection that COVID-19 vaccines provide under real-life conditions, it will be important for everyone to continue using all the tools available to help stop this pandemic, like covering your mouth and nose with a mask, washing hands often, and staying at least 6 feet away from others. Full vaccine protection takes several weeks. While the vaccine will protect you from getting sick, you theoretically could still carry the virus infecting others who have not been immunized.
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Please talk with your OB about getting the vaccine if you are pregnant or lactating. For information regarding receiving the vaccine while pregnant or lactating, please refer to the CDC and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology links below.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/pregnancy.html
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Partial protection is seen 7-10 days after the initial dose. However, full immunity isn’t achieved until 14 days after receiving the second dose, which is approximately 26-30 days after the first dose is given, depending on which vaccine brand you are given.
That means it takes several weeks for your body to develop immunity to COVID-19. It is recommended to continue practicing all other protective measures during this time, including social distancing, washing your hands and wearing your mask over your mouth and nose.
While the vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective in preventing illness from COVID-19, it is not yet known whether or not individuals could be asymptomatic spreaders of infection to non-vaccinated individuals. Until we have this data, continued mask wearing may still be optimal even after full immunity is achieved. -
In the vaccine clinical trial, there were no cases of COVID-19 in the 1,100 children who received the Pfizer vaccine and 16 cases in the 1,100 children in the placebo group, according to the FDA. The trial also found that vaccinated adolescents had high levels of antibodies in their blood — a signal they had developed strong protective immunity.
“The vaccine was 100% effective in preventing COVID-19,” the FDA announced Monday. “At this time, data are not available to determine how long the vaccine will provide protection.”
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Children and adolescents can get sick from infection with the coronavirus, and they can infect others. And while, in general, their cases tend to be less severe, some children have developed serious complications. In the United States alone, tens of thousands of kids have been hospitalized with COVID-19 — including more than 3,000 who have developed a rare but dangerous inflammatory syndrome nicknamed MIS-C. During the pandemic, COVID-19 has been one of the leading causes of death among children, Sean O’Leary, MD, of the American Academy of Pediatrics tells NPR — some 300 to 600 children have died. There are also increasing concerns about persistent, long-term effects of the viral infection — such as fatigue, respiratory issues and stomach problems — for some children who get COVID-19.
And while most children who catch the coronavirus develop few or no symptoms, they can still, inadvertently, transmit the virus to others. “Vaccinating young teens could be a big game changer,” O’Leary notes, “because we’ve known all along that adolescents tend to be both more likely to get infected and to spread the infection, relative to the younger kids. So getting that population vaccinated is also going to make a difference in these dynamics.”
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According to the CDC, the most commonly reported side effects in the adolescent clinical trial participants, which typically lasted 1-3 days, were pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, chills, muscle pain, fever and joint pain. It is important for vaccination providers and recipients to expect that there may be some side effects after either dose, but even more so after the second dose. The side effects in adolescents were consistent with those reported in clinical trial participants 16 years of age and older.
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Yes, you should absolutely take advantage of both. There is no longer a concern that one vaccine will interfere with another vaccine’s effectiveness, or increase risk for side effects. If you have not already gotten a COVID-19 vaccine, it is encouraged to get one now to keep you safe and healthy. Then, this fall, get your annual flu shot. We are likely to see more flu presence in the community this next season, as the social distancing and masking guidelines are relaxed. For individuals who qualify for the “third” and “booster” dose, it is possible to get both the COVID-19 booster and flu shot at the same time.
COVID-19 Vaccine Information and Resources
Healthcare providers/workers information from KDHE and JCDHE
If you are a healthcare-associated worker and your employer has not provided a date for you to be vaccinated, please have someone from your office contact the local health department (links located to the right).
Healthcare providers who want to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to their patients or staff can email a request to KDHE at [email protected]. KDHE will send the healthcare provider an enrollment form and instructions on how to order, store and administer the vaccine.