According to Paul Goepfert, M.D., director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, he has never seen vaccines that work as effectively as Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccines.
He says there are many reasons backing up the long term safety of these vaccines.
Vaccines aren’t like medicine that have negative or long term damaging side effects, and there is now data supporting their success from billions of people who have had the shots.
Gallup surveys show that the biggest concern for those who have not received it is safety and wanting to see how others react to it.
There are three things for people to understand about vaccines.
First, vaccine side effects are going to show up within weeks if they do at all.
Second, when the vaccines were approved for emergency use, many of the short term side effects were already known from efficacy studies.
Third, when weighing the odds between COVID infections and possible negative vaccine side effects, the benefits and greatly outweigh the odds and data and studies on the billions of doses given back that up.
Following the attempts at convincing the public they should be getting the vaccine, we now have the task of convincing everyone the importance of getting a booster shot.
To sum it up, the vaccine efficacy significantly drops when presented with the Delta variant.
Studies are showing that while the efficacy has dropped, the Delta variant still struggles to go around the antibodies produced from vaccines.
The reason efficacy may be lowered can be attributed to one of two possibilities: either Delta is just incredibly transmissible which greatly increases odds of infection, or vaccines are waning.
It’s even possible that changes in behavior from the start of the pandemic until now, like masks and social distancing, can be contributing to the breakthrough cases.
Many find the idea of booster shots controversial due to the shortage of vaccines to begin with in other countries, and the fact that studies show Americans are still protected from the first doses.
As for evidence on whether a boost works or not, there isn’t a lot yet. Studies for those with organ transplants or weakened immune systems show that a third dose seemed to be more effective than just two.
According to the CDC, studies done in LA show that residents were 29 times more likely to end up in the hospital if they were unvaccinated due to COVID compared to vaccinated people.
Another reason experts urge people old enough to get vaccinated is to protect children who cannot.
In a Tweet posted by the CDC, it states “Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a rare but serious condition that may develop in some young people who have had COVID-19. Since May 2020, 4,404 cases of MIS-C have been reported to CDC, and 37 young people have died.”
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a rare but serious condition that may develop in some young people who have had #COVID19. Since May 2020, 4,404 cases of MIS-C have been reported to CDC, and 37 young people have died. See the data: https://t.co/zQVbarcueO. pic.twitter.com/tUisvMgcR4
— CDC (@CDCgov) August 24, 2021
Children are still in danger of contracting COVID and becoming ill, but the side effects they suffer can be prevented by widespread vaccination in the long run.
FingerLakes1.com is the region’s leading all-digital news publication. The company was founded in 1998 and has been keeping residents informed for more than two decades. Have a lead? Send it to [email protected].