You masked for it: precautions needed despite vaccinations.
Precautions still needed even after vaccinations
SYDNEY – If you’re one of the lucky ones to get an early COVID-19 vaccine shot, don’t take that face mask off just yet.
While many might expect their worries about catching the deadly virus will disappear once they receive those all important vaccination shots, infectious diseases doctor and researcher for Nova Scotia Health Dr. Lisa Barrett says caution will still be needed for several reasons.
“We’re not checking to see if people have been exposed or are early in an infection with COVID when we give them the vaccine right now,” Barrett said in a phone interview Wednesday from Halifax.
“So that’s number one. If you get a COVID infection within a couple of weeks after your vaccine, it doesn’t mean the vaccine didn’t work. You could have been brewing an infection from before. That sometimes happens. But the other possibility and probability is that if you’re within a couple of weeks, about 14 days from the vaccine, you aren’t expected to have any protection from a vaccine of any kind, COVID or otherwise, because it takes your body a while to get educated, if you will, about what it’s suppose to do if it runs into COVID.
"And so any vaccine in the world, we don’t expect it to work within the first couple of weeks. Ideally it’s between three and six weeks before we expect a significant amount of protection per se.”
Depending on the vaccine you receive, you only receive partial immunity with the first shot and full immunity three to six weeks after the second shot. If you receive the first shot Feb. 1 and the second shot March 1, full immunity won’t kick in until the end of March to mid-April.
If you live in an area where there is more time between the first and second shots, it will take longer for that immunity to be achieved.
In addition, the type of immunity being offered by the vaccines is, at this point, protective immunity and not sterilizing immunity.
In protective immunity, your body realizes it needs to respond so it can control an infection to prevent a serious disease. In sterilizing immunity, the vaccine provides complete protection from getting infected at all.
“So the virus comes into the body, the body responds, shuts down infection immediately and you don’t even get a mild or no symptom infection. And these vaccines are at this point known to provide at least for some duration of time protective immunity but we haven’t proven fully sterilizing immunity with this vaccine,” says Barrett.
“That’s not a reason not to get it. It’s still very important and it’s likely if you get protective immunity you’re probably less infectious but it doesn’t protect against you being completely noninfectious, which … is the underlying science reason why even with vaccination at this point we’re not recommending people abandon all of the other things that keep you protected from infection.”
Barrett wants people to realize that even without full sterilizing immunity, they still need to get the vaccine shots when they are eligible.
“I always follow it up with a statement when people say, ‘what is the point of all this if it’s only protective and it’s not sterilizing,’ it’s like number one, preventing death – it’s kind of important. I think that’s worthwhile. And No. 2, the number of people that you would infect, even if you had a mild infection, is far lower than if you didn’t have any immunity at all.
"So it still protects you and the people around you but it’s not completely sterilizing. Until we prove that, we’re going to need to stick with the previous plan. So it’s not a waste of time to get vaccinated. Until we get everyone vaccinated we really, really need to keep up with those other precautions.”
Those precautions include wearing face masks in public places, social distancing, proper hand washing and adhering to gathering limits.
Barrett says the available vaccines are more effective than many other vaccines that are in use but caution is still needed in everyday habits to get the best outcome.
“We just have to be mindful that right now, we’re all tired and want to be done with all this but that is not the day that you get your first and second vaccines for sure,” she says, adding the regular routine testing must also continue.
“Keep going on the testing intermittently because that’s going to help keep the virus levels back especially the chances of having infections with no symptoms go up with vaccines as you might expect so if you got a really, really mild infection your chances of being infectious and wandering around and not knowing it are actually higher if you have vaccines so keep getting tested. That’s a key core part along with vaccination. It goes hand in hand.
“We will get there. We’re coming along.”
As of Jan. 22, 10,575 doses had been given in Nova Scotia with 2,705 already receiving their second dose, according to Nova Scotia Health.
Most so far have gone to front-line health care workers involved in the COVID-19 response, those residing in longterm care, staff of longterm care homes and designated support people who are allowed to provide support to patients in longterm care in certain situations.
Others to be included in the Phase 1 rollout of the vaccine to run until April are residents and staff of residential care facilities, adult residential centres and regional rehabilitation centres, seniors living in the community who are 80 and older and then seniors in the community who are 7579, other healthcare workers, paramedics and homecare workers.
Phase 2 will include remaining healthcare workers and essential workers and everyone else can get the shot during Phase 3, which is expected to start during the summer months.