The first shipment of Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Oklahoma Monday, December 14, 2020. This is indeed good news, as Governor Stitt stated at a press conference Monday. “This is a major step to get us back to normal,” he said. However, we are a long way from “being normal.”
Why we still need to wear masks for some time
It has been reliably demonstrated through multiple clinical trials that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is highly effective at preventing symptomatic illness. This means that the vaccine will likely keep someone from being sick enough to develop symptoms, and more importantly, becoming severely ill and being hospitalized.
Since Pfizer did not study whether the vaccine would prevent someone from being infected, we don’t know if it will stop a person from spreading COVID-19. In other words, one could receive the vaccine and still be an asymptomatic carrier.
Although a person who is vaccinated, but who is infected, may not exhibit symptoms, they may still spread the virus. Speaking, breathing, sneezing, coughing, etc., can still result in transmission to others.
It has been recently reported that the Moderna mRNA vaccine may prevent infection. Documents show that the Moderna vaccine appears to reduce the likelihood a person will become infected with the Coronavirus by about 63 percent after one dose. It should be noted that this study involves a subset of only 38 people and may not be statistically significant.
It is estimated that approximately 70 percent of the U.S. population must be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity through vaccination. Herd immunity occurs when a large portion of a community (the herd) becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. As a result, the whole community becomes protected, not just those who are immune.
So this means that 230 million must be vaccinated. Remember that both vaccines require two doses. What this means is that 460 million doses will need to be manufactured, distributed, and administered. This is a gargantuan task and conservative estimates say it will be the late spring or early summer of 2021 before that many Americans can receive the vaccine, providing there are no logistic delays, and enough people are willing to take it. Therefore, until that time, we will still need to wear masks, social distance, and practice proper hygiene protocol.
