India appears to have reached the top of the surge and numbers are starting to fall.

Some vaccines are effective with a single dose and last for years before needing a booster shot. Others, like anthrax, require multiple doses to establish baseline effectiveness against disease. I received three of the five doses of anthrax vaccine before I left the military. I was told that I had a protection level of around 85-90% with just three shots.

India has been getting a lot of media attention with the significant surge in new cases and deaths from COVID-19. The variant of India’s coronavirus is different than the virus found typically in other parts of the world. What is going on today in our world?

Quick COVID-19 Update – Worldwide

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Worldwide new cases of COVID-19 peaked just after the beginning of 2021 with the seven-day rolling average in the 650,000-750,000 range. The last week of February was almost half of that six to seven weeks earlier. The last week of April has seen a new surge averaging around 825,000 for that week.

The same trends are seen for daily deaths. The seven-day rolling average was just over 14,000 for the last week of January. The average direction for daily deaths from COVID-19 dipped to around 8,000 in mid-March and climbed again to over 13,000 during the first week of May. Both new cases and daily deaths from COVID-19 are trending downward.

Quick India Statistics

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/. India had a shallow rise in new cases of COVID-19 (average around 95,000) in the middle of September 2020. From late December 2020 through the first week of March, the trend stayed below 20,000 new cases. The end of the first week of May saw new daily cases jump above 400,000. It is trending downward now.

Daily deaths saw similar trends. The middle of September 2020 had daily deaths from COVID-19 just over a thousand for several weeks. By mid-February, the seven-day running average for daily deaths was just a tiny bit above 100. This past week has seen daily deaths from COVID-19 average just over 4,000 and has a hint of beginning to drop.

Quick United Kingdom Statistics

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/. The United Kingdom had a massive number of new cases averaging over 50,000 a day for around ten days at the beginning of 2021. Since the first of April, the daily numbers average less than 3,000. The trend line is stable and still falling slightly each day.

Daily COVID-19 deaths average over a thousand for three weeks starting in mid-January. For the past two months, the daily deaths have been averaging below 100, with single digits reported most recently.

I started this article with the topic of multiple doses of a vaccine for protection. The Indian and English variants of coronavirus are slightly different.

Two Doses Required

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/covid-stats-india-variant/2021/05/22/id/1022375/. India’s viral variant is labeled B.1.617.2. The Pfizer vaccine (both doses) is 88% effective against symptomatic cases of COVID-19. The same vaccine is 93% effective against the Kent strain (B.1.1.7) in England. AstraZeneca showed similar results – 60% effective against the India variant and 66% effective with the Kent version.

What if you decided that one shot was enough? Would you be protected? Probably. The vaccine protects against hospitalization and death, not totally against contracting the disease. The first dose is a warm-up for the body to build up our immune defenses. The Reserves are sent in with the second dose.

The first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine offers 33% effectiveness when combatting India’s variant and 50% against England’s viral strain.

Conclusion

When you decide to get vaccinated, ensure you get the complete series, whether it be the double dose offered by several companies or the single J&J dose. Obviously, the worst-case scenario is to catch the virus and die. Maybe, it could be considered a worst-case situation if you were incapacitated and required round-the-clock attention due to the aftereffects of the virus.

We all want to avoid hospitals. If we became infected and had minor symptoms, we could hibernate for two weeks and live an everyday life again. Many times, the virus enjoys the company of your body without showing any signs at all. You are contagious and can pass it on to others, but you are not sick from the disease.

I saw an interesting post recently on social media – something to the effect of, what do vaccinated people have to fear from unvaccinated people? Are we afraid of someone who is not vaccinated doing something to jeopardize our health? After all, why did you get the vaccine?

Live Longer & Enjoy Life! – Red O’Laughlin – RedOLaughlin.com

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