The CDC's new masking guidance says fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks, but does that include kidney patients? Are people who are immune comprised fully protected by the vaccine? We have collected some of our patients’ most pressing questions about the new masking guidance and have asked Dr. Joe Vassalotti, NKF Chief Medical Officer, to answer them.

We answer the following questions:

1. Is it safe to get the COVID-19 vaccine if you have kidney disease?

In this episode, you will hear from:

Joseph A. Vassalotti, MD:

Nephrologist Joseph A. Vassalotti, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer of the National Kidney Foundation and Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology, at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY. He received his medical degree with Distinction in Research from the SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine and completed an Internal Medicine Residency and Nephrology Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At NKF, his major focus is implementation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in chronic kidney disease (CKD), including the NKF’s Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI), particularly through guidance of the NKF’s primary care initiative, called CKDintercept. He has served as co-principal investigator for the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), demonstration project “CKD Health Evaluation and Risk Information Sharing” (CHERISH), which aimed to identify individuals at high risk for kidney disease in the U.S. and as an investigator for the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored clustered practice randomized trial entitled, “Evidenced-Based Primary Care for Kidney Disease.”

For more resources on COVID-19 for kidney patients, visit www.kidney.org/coronavirus