Since the kick start of the second phase of India’s vaccination drive, around 30 million people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus. Though the government is going beyond everything to scale up vaccination drive, the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccine is still on people’s minds. Well, concerns are legit. However, you will be better off if vaccinated, whether you have contacted the virus or not. Let’s find out how efficient the Covid-19 vaccine is.
1. What 95% Effectiveness Of Vaccine Means?
A vaccine works by improving the body’s natural immune response. Deborah Fuller, a microbiologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, explains that getting vaccinated doesn’t mean that you can’t be infected. However, it reduces chances of becoming seriously ill to almost zero. Further, she adds that 95% efficacy implies that 95% of the people vaccinated may become wholly protected from infection. However, some may get infected but remain asymptomatic because of the improved immune response due to the Covid-19 vaccine. On the other hand, the remaining 5% may get sick but not need hospitalization.
2. Covid-19 Vaccine And Virus Transmission
Vaccination shortens the time of shedding the virus. Hence, if a vaccinated individual gets sick, there will be less transmission of viral particles to an uninfected person. Moreover, because the vaccine reduces the disease’s severity, it will reduce the overall amount of virus being shed.
3. Clinical Trials And Efficacy Statistics
Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, explains how vaccine manufacturers come up with the efficacy rate. She explains that clinical trials take a large group of people and randomly give placebo and Covid-19 vaccine shots. After that, they wait to find out how many people get ill from both categories. However, she warns that this efficacy rate is specific to the clinical trial. Experts have also raised concerns over the efficiency of the vaccine against emerging variants of coronavirus.
As Piero Olliaro, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Oxford, says, ‘it is a risk relative to the risk one would have without vaccine in the conditions of that trial’. In all, the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine will become more evident as more people will receive the vaccine. For now, India needs to pace up immunization to break the transmission cycle.