Is that light on the horizon the possible end of vaccinations or the virus?

Every day more than three million Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19. Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson are making doses of coronavirus vaccine as fast as possible. What happens when there are pallets of vaccine available and no one is standing in line?

Vaccine Status

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html. Most all systems are affected by supply and demand. The world of vaccinations is no different. A couple of months ago, the demand was through the roof. Millions of Americans have been vaccinated. However, the doses are continuing to be manufactured, and people are starting to ask about what happens when supply exceeds demand?

Vaccine Tracking

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations. Over 50% of Americans (over 18 years of age) have had at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. More than a third of adults have had two doses. These percentages do not include the 10% of Americans who were infected and survived the virus.

Amidst this great news of increasing daily vaccinations comes the worries about people not wanting to get vaccinated and jeopardizing the health of others because we may not reach levels needed for herd immunity. Is this real? Look at the headlines and the underlying arguments as to why we need to continue wearing face masks for the next ten years.

Well, maybe not ten years, but well after 65-70% of Americans needed to walk over that line in the sand that says herd immunity is achieved. There will always be doom-sayers. Today the doom is about the younger population who does not want the vaccine. I can see their point.

Why should someone get a vaccine against a disease that rarely kills a person under 30 years of age? The survivability rate is over 99%. Why take a chance on vaccines that were rushed into production when the worst-case scenario is that you spend two weeks at home on COVID-19 vacation.

Virus Variants

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/health/us-coronavirus-monday/index.html. The next dialogue of worrywarts predicts the catastrophic destruction of humanity because the coronavirus will mutate quicker than the vaccines can protect people. So far, the vaccines are holding up well. Maybe instead of 95% (although the actual numbers appear much higher than that), the protection level may be 75%. Is that something of concern? Yes, to a degree, but not a large one.

A vaccine with 65-85% effectiveness is better than no vaccine. Most vaccines prevent you from becoming infected. When infected, the severity level is reduced, that hospitalizations and deaths are minimized.

Perceived Risks

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html. There are anxieties over the numbers of fully vaccinated people who might become infected and transmit the virus to other healthy people. Many things alarm me about the entire pandemic situation. Fully vaccinated people infecting others is not on my list.

Do we not know how long the vaccine is effective – six months or six years? Do we not know how many people who are fully vaccinated can become infected – 5%? Fully vaccinated front-line health workers see around a 1% infection rate in the real world. They work with COVID-19 patients daily. Most of us do not.

People are waiting to take the vaccine because they do not know the side effects. We saw how the government treated the J&J vaccine when extremely rare blood clots formed in a few people. They took the vaccine off the market to investigate. Rationale? I do not think so. The benefit derived from protecting people against a 0.00X% risk of a blood clot seems overkill on a good day.

Yet, J&J’s vaccine distribution was halted, and every article I read says the vaccines are 100% safe, and no one has died from the vaccine. Yet, thousands have died, but their deaths are not vaccine or COVID-19 related. There have been many twists in reporting COVID-19 deaths for people who died from the disease or with the disease. There was no middle ground months ago when vaccines were not available.

Conclusion

We are closing in on herd immunity, but people should continue to social distance, wear face masks, and wash their hands every 20 minutes. Oh, I am sorry, it is to wash their hands for 20 seconds. Best estimates are telling us that within two months the supply for COVID-19 vaccines will outpace the demand. What does that mean? Maybe the extra vaccines will be sent overseas where demand is still great.

People want to return to normalcy. Vaccines are being hyped as the panacea against the virus. However, we must get vaccinated and still maintain pandemic controls for a few more months – or is it a few more years?

The panic mode must stop soon. Constant negative press against an enemy dwindling daily makes people more willing to take chances because they do not believe what the media is telling them. Why do some states have open lifestyle options and other states are more restricted? Who is running scared?

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

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