About a year into the global pandemic, with the death toll worldwide exceeding 2.3 million – nearly half a million in the United States alone – hope has arrived in the form of multiple vaccines. was created in a higher time than has been extremely successful in inhibiting COVID -19.
“All vaccines have been highly resistant to disease, hospitalization and death,” said William Moss, executive director of the International Center for Vaccination at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That, he says, is the most important success story of COVID-19 vaccines and will help bring this brutal pandemic under control.
With the number of vaccinated people growing every day, many wonder: What activities were previously dangerous, such as meeting indoors with friends or going out to buy without mask on, now safer with vaccine? This is what the experts say about how to count the risks of some common activities after you have been vaccinated.
How long after vaccination does ‘full’ immunity begin?
The two mRNA vaccines currently approved for use in the U.S., Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, consist of two doses cycled three to four weeks apart. It will take a week or two after the second sight to get the highest level of protection from COVID-19. In clinical trials, these vaccines are approximately 95 percent effective in preventing cases of COVID-19.
At this stage, it is not known how long immunity lasts after a person is fully vaccinated, and only the time will tell. The COVID-19 vaccine could become a one – year – old, flu – like shot; its benefits may last for a shorter period of time, or longer.
Can people who have been vaccinated and still have the symptoms spread the virus to the unvaccinated?
This question is crucial, but it has not yet been thoroughly studied. Available data to date indicate that the vaccine significantly increases the incidence of infections in people who do not show symptoms. In a Moderna phase 3 clinical trial, a diagnostic trial prior to the second dose of the vaccine showed that 89.6 percent of asymptomatic and symptomatic cases were prevented by the first dose.
Preliminary results from phase 3 trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed a 67 percent reduction in positive swab tests after a single vaccination.
That result is “very encouraging,” says John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. “That makes me feel, as a responsible person, that I can be safer around other people.”
How safe is it for vaccinated people to come together?
The decision to collect vaccines involves “mental calculus”, says Swartzberg, which should take into account the likelihood of anyone being exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, vaccinated or not, because there is even a small chance that a vaccinated person could get the disease.
As time goes on, as more people get vaccinated and the number of people with the disease continues to fall, Moss says a rally among vaccinated people will be “safe” and will continue to become safer. .
“Being on the safe side,” says Cynthia Leifer, associate professor of immunology at Cornell University, “we should still use distance measures as much as we can in the short term so that we can spread more widely. of the vaccine. ” She recommends that people follow the instructions for avoiding large groups, wearing masks and staying at least six feet apart.
The effectiveness of the vaccines against new undetected changes is also known.
“The more COVID is circulating at the moment, the greater the potential for variability to arise,” says Leifer. “We cannot predict when a new variant that is not covered by the vaccine may emerge.”
The Novavax vaccine, which is not approved for use, showed a significant reduction in efficacy – from 89.3 per cent to 49.4 per cent – against a variant that originated in South Africa, but has been widely distributed. -international since then. Pfizer and Moderna are still testing how well their vaccines work against a more infectious variant first discovered in the UK
Should vaccinated people wear masks in public places?
Experts agree that everyone should wear masks, at least for the time being. In addition to not knowing who is vaccinated and who is not, which can lead to difficult and upsetting situations, everyone may have a different immune response to vaccination.
“So you vaccinate 100 people, they all have different response rates to that vaccine; some may not be good enough for defense, ”says Leifer. There is no way of knowing what kind of reaction your own body has made to the vaccine, so wearing a mask adds an extra layer of protection. There is still an open question about who gets vaccinated against the virus.
“I look at the vaccine as a big child, but there are other parts that we can do to protect ourselves,” Swartzberg says. “The vaccine is probably the biggest. “Another such thing is a mask, and he doesn’t think you should stop using it.
Is it safe to travel after receiving the vaccine?
For many, it has been months or years since being able to meet family and friends face – to – face, but vaccination does not automatically mean that it is completely safe to travel the world.
“I think it depends on how comfortable people are with them, but they need to be aware that at this stage we cannot predict when new changes will come, where they will take place, and where they will be. be protected, ”says Leifer. “It’s not like when you get the vaccine, all of a sudden you are surrounded by the shield of Captain America. ”
Swartzberg says that while he may soon feel safe in small groups with other people who have been vaccinated, air travel is a different story: “I’m not going to find out who is at the airport, who is on the plane … so it will be a lot longer before I am confident that there will not be many people without vaccines on that plane or at that airport . “
How long will it take for people to get enough vaccines to get back to normal? ‘
The easy world of 2019 may now be a distant memory, but with the release of the vaccine going on, there is a cautious sense of normalcy – eating at a restaurant, going to school, a karaoke night with friends – apparently.
To date, more than 107 million people worldwide have been vaccinated. In the United States, about 3 percent of the population has received a full vaccine. Estimates suggest that 70 percent of the U.S. population will receive some vaccination at least by mid-September at the current rate; researchers say between 75 and 80 percent of the population must get the vaccine before the country reaches herd immunity.
On the road to herd protection, there will be signs of a return to normalcy. Swartzberg says it will feel better as the number of new cases decreases, reducing the chance of being exposed to the virus.
“The way I see this play out is that it’s going to be kind of a stage move back to pre-release times,” Moss said. The first step is to reduce cases, hospitals and deaths through vaccination so that deep contact detection can be implemented effectively. “While we talked about discovery, what happened was that the numbers of cases were so high across the United States that it overturned that system,” he says.
Leifer hopes to be able to accelerate the spread of the vaccine with creative and manufacturing circulation plans. “My vision is to get there before the end of the summer, so that students can get back to school,” she says.
Vaccination is not a golden ticket, but it gives people a way to reduce the risk and get back to loved ones faster.
“I haven’t caught my grandchildren and children, going on for 10 months now,” Swartzberg says, “At some point I have to do that.”