University of Georgia Athletics
Experts Break Down Vaccine For UGA Women
July 22, 2021 | Equestrian, General, Softball, Women's Basketball, Women's Golf, Gymnastics, Soccer, Women's Tennis, Volleyball, Track & Field, Swimming & Diving, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
The effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines available in the United States was summed up quite emphatically with one statistic recently by Dr. Jayne Morgan, a cardiologist and Executive Director of the Piedmont Healthcare Covid Task Force in Atlanta.
Speaking at a Dawg Chat panel discussion, Covid-19 Vaccine: What Women Need to Know, at the Georgia Center's Masters Auditorium on July 12, Morgan said that 99.2% of the people presently hospitalized with the coronavirus in the U.S. were unvaccinated.
"If that doesn't tell you that the vaccine works ...," Morgan said.
Morgan was one of four panelists that spoke and answered questions at the discussion, hosted by the UGA Athletic Association and Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center. She was joined by Dr. Stephanie Allen, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist in Athens, as well as women's basketball coach Joni Taylor and rising senior gymnast Alyssa Perez-Lugones.
About 100 female student-athletes, coaches and athletic association and university staff attended the event, which came at a time when Bulldogs have returned to campus, the entire student body will be back in a few weeks, and upticks in the number of positive cases are happening in Athens and all around the country.
The virus isn't disrupting life and causing the damage it did at this time a year ago, but it remains a danger, particularly with the Delta variant spreading. In the sports world, we've recently seen that some members of the U.S. Olympic team have tested positive and either had to be isolated, unable to train, or have lost their chance to compete in the Tokyo Games entirely.
Georgia is scheduled to return to normal, in-person classes when fall semester begins next month, which will likely mean unvaccinated students, faculty and staff will be at greater risk, and then put those unvaccinated around them at greater risk. Allen said that it appears that many of the coronavirus-related in-patient and ICU admissions at hospitals in Georgia are between 18-30 years old, and it's because they're unvaccinated.
"I do have concerns about large gatherings in the UGA community, in college communities, and vaccination rates in Georgia being lower than the national average," Allen said.
When Taylor was asked why she had decided to get vaccinated, she said it essentially came down to one thing: the at-risk people close to her. With older parents and in-laws, as well as two young daughters, the possibility of getting the virus and passing it on to them wasn't something she was going to risk, she said.
"I didn't want that on my conscience," Taylor said.
Perez-Lugones shared a similar perspective, saying that "ultimately the decision came down to the people that I was around," including her 80-year-old grandmother that she hadn't been able to see for about a year before the vaccine became available.
Georgia's gymnastics team's season was affected by the virus, missing the SEC Championship in March because of positive tests and contact tracing within the program. Going through that, Perez-Lugones said, made her see that the virus "can get really close to me." Since getting vaccinated, "I'm at peace more," she said.
From a sports perspective, Taylor, the 2020-21 SEC women's basketball coach of the year, said people need only look at what happened to the N.C. State baseball team last month at the College World Series. After being forced to play one game with a depleted roster because of COVID-19 issues within the team, the NCAA then ruled the Wolfpack out of the championship.
Teams, Taylor said, have "a small window of opportunity to do something really, really special," and when the virus hits a team, as N.C. State experienced, that window can be slammed shut.
Addressing the myth that the vaccine could have a negative impact on fertility, Allen said that all of those rumors, like so many that had spread like wildfire in certain sectors of the internet and social media, had proven to be unfounded. All of the data that has come in since the vaccine became widely available has shown that there is no increased risk of miscarriage or birth defects, she said.
"I really have no concerns" about pregnant women getting the vaccine, Allen said.
When asked about the risk of women developing blood clots due to the vaccine, Morgan said those cases have been incredibly rare, more along the lines of a one-in-a-million. She pointed out that about one in 1,000 women that take birth control develop a blood clot issue at some point,
"You're more likely to be admitted to an emergency room with a pogo stick injury than you are to a get a blood clot as a result of the vaccine," Morgan said.
In the initial clinical trials conducted on the three vaccines in the United States — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — which included more than 100,000 participants, no pregnant women were included in the studies. Morgan said 44 women became pregnant during the trial, and of those 44, 43 had normal pregnancies and delivered healthy babies. One pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage, Morgan said, but it was later determined that the woman was in the placebo group and had not received the vaccine.
The vaccine not only protects you, and limits your chances of both getting the virus and getting seriously ill if you do test positive, it also makes it much less likely that you're going to pass the virus along to others, Morgan said.
For those with chronic medical conditions, which Morgan described as anyone taking prescription medication of any kind, then getting COVID-19 puts you at serious risk of significant. Someone with a cardiac issue that gets the virus, she said, is "six times more likely to be admitted to the hospital than someone else with COVID-19 that does not have a heart issue."
"All patients with chronic medical conditions should move forward with getting this vaccine to protect themselves because you are at greater risk of more complications and more hospitalizations," Morgan said.
One of the messages that came out of the panel discussion was to talk, another was to listen. Talk to your family, talk to your doctors, especially if you have preexisting medical issues. Every vaccine, like every type of medication, can have side effects. Some are common and some are rare; some are negligible and some can be significant. Talk to and learn from reputable sources, learn what you need to learn to make an informed decision.
Discuss the vaccine with those around you, and listen to their reasons for getting or not getting it. It's a big decision, an important decision, that affects, ultimately, everyone.
In recent weeks, the Southeastern Conference and the University of Georgia have on social media been actively encouraging unvaccinated people to learn about the vaccine and make informed decisions. For more information, visit UGA's coronavirus page, coronavirus.uga.edu, or go to GetVaccineAnswers.Org.
Staff Writer
The effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines available in the United States was summed up quite emphatically with one statistic recently by Dr. Jayne Morgan, a cardiologist and Executive Director of the Piedmont Healthcare Covid Task Force in Atlanta.
Speaking at a Dawg Chat panel discussion, Covid-19 Vaccine: What Women Need to Know, at the Georgia Center's Masters Auditorium on July 12, Morgan said that 99.2% of the people presently hospitalized with the coronavirus in the U.S. were unvaccinated.
"If that doesn't tell you that the vaccine works ...," Morgan said.
Morgan was one of four panelists that spoke and answered questions at the discussion, hosted by the UGA Athletic Association and Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center. She was joined by Dr. Stephanie Allen, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist in Athens, as well as women's basketball coach Joni Taylor and rising senior gymnast Alyssa Perez-Lugones.
About 100 female student-athletes, coaches and athletic association and university staff attended the event, which came at a time when Bulldogs have returned to campus, the entire student body will be back in a few weeks, and upticks in the number of positive cases are happening in Athens and all around the country.
The virus isn't disrupting life and causing the damage it did at this time a year ago, but it remains a danger, particularly with the Delta variant spreading. In the sports world, we've recently seen that some members of the U.S. Olympic team have tested positive and either had to be isolated, unable to train, or have lost their chance to compete in the Tokyo Games entirely.
Georgia is scheduled to return to normal, in-person classes when fall semester begins next month, which will likely mean unvaccinated students, faculty and staff will be at greater risk, and then put those unvaccinated around them at greater risk. Allen said that it appears that many of the coronavirus-related in-patient and ICU admissions at hospitals in Georgia are between 18-30 years old, and it's because they're unvaccinated.
"I do have concerns about large gatherings in the UGA community, in college communities, and vaccination rates in Georgia being lower than the national average," Allen said.
When Taylor was asked why she had decided to get vaccinated, she said it essentially came down to one thing: the at-risk people close to her. With older parents and in-laws, as well as two young daughters, the possibility of getting the virus and passing it on to them wasn't something she was going to risk, she said.
"I didn't want that on my conscience," Taylor said.
Perez-Lugones shared a similar perspective, saying that "ultimately the decision came down to the people that I was around," including her 80-year-old grandmother that she hadn't been able to see for about a year before the vaccine became available.
Georgia's gymnastics team's season was affected by the virus, missing the SEC Championship in March because of positive tests and contact tracing within the program. Going through that, Perez-Lugones said, made her see that the virus "can get really close to me." Since getting vaccinated, "I'm at peace more," she said.
From a sports perspective, Taylor, the 2020-21 SEC women's basketball coach of the year, said people need only look at what happened to the N.C. State baseball team last month at the College World Series. After being forced to play one game with a depleted roster because of COVID-19 issues within the team, the NCAA then ruled the Wolfpack out of the championship.
Teams, Taylor said, have "a small window of opportunity to do something really, really special," and when the virus hits a team, as N.C. State experienced, that window can be slammed shut.
Addressing the myth that the vaccine could have a negative impact on fertility, Allen said that all of those rumors, like so many that had spread like wildfire in certain sectors of the internet and social media, had proven to be unfounded. All of the data that has come in since the vaccine became widely available has shown that there is no increased risk of miscarriage or birth defects, she said.
"I really have no concerns" about pregnant women getting the vaccine, Allen said.
When asked about the risk of women developing blood clots due to the vaccine, Morgan said those cases have been incredibly rare, more along the lines of a one-in-a-million. She pointed out that about one in 1,000 women that take birth control develop a blood clot issue at some point,
"You're more likely to be admitted to an emergency room with a pogo stick injury than you are to a get a blood clot as a result of the vaccine," Morgan said.
In the initial clinical trials conducted on the three vaccines in the United States — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — which included more than 100,000 participants, no pregnant women were included in the studies. Morgan said 44 women became pregnant during the trial, and of those 44, 43 had normal pregnancies and delivered healthy babies. One pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage, Morgan said, but it was later determined that the woman was in the placebo group and had not received the vaccine.
The vaccine not only protects you, and limits your chances of both getting the virus and getting seriously ill if you do test positive, it also makes it much less likely that you're going to pass the virus along to others, Morgan said.
For those with chronic medical conditions, which Morgan described as anyone taking prescription medication of any kind, then getting COVID-19 puts you at serious risk of significant. Someone with a cardiac issue that gets the virus, she said, is "six times more likely to be admitted to the hospital than someone else with COVID-19 that does not have a heart issue."
"All patients with chronic medical conditions should move forward with getting this vaccine to protect themselves because you are at greater risk of more complications and more hospitalizations," Morgan said.
One of the messages that came out of the panel discussion was to talk, another was to listen. Talk to your family, talk to your doctors, especially if you have preexisting medical issues. Every vaccine, like every type of medication, can have side effects. Some are common and some are rare; some are negligible and some can be significant. Talk to and learn from reputable sources, learn what you need to learn to make an informed decision.
Discuss the vaccine with those around you, and listen to their reasons for getting or not getting it. It's a big decision, an important decision, that affects, ultimately, everyone.
In recent weeks, the Southeastern Conference and the University of Georgia have on social media been actively encouraging unvaccinated people to learn about the vaccine and make informed decisions. For more information, visit UGA's coronavirus page, coronavirus.uga.edu, or go to GetVaccineAnswers.Org.
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
Players Mentioned
FX, BB
/ GymnasticsGeorgia Women's Basketball vs. Oklahoma Postgame Press Conference - Coach Abe
Thursday, February 19
Georgia Women's Basketball - TV Highlights vs. Vanderbilt
Sunday, February 15
Georgia Women's Basketball vs. Vanderbilt Postgame Press Conference - Coach Abe
Sunday, February 15
Georgia Women's Basketball vs. Vanderbilt Postgame Press Conference - Mia Woolfolk and Dani Carnegie
Sunday, February 15