Vaccine hope
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We’re well into the season of hope and the announced 95 percent efficacy of these candidate SARS-Cov-2 vaccines is cause to be hopeful.
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I am hopeful about these two vaccines but, at the same time, I don’t know how I feel as yet about trying to be first in line to get myself vaccinated.
We ’ ve been waiting and praying for months for a vaccine and it appears there will be several choices available in the, hopefully, not too distant future.
For now there are two which may be available in the country mid-2021 if the respective companies are able to secure emergency use authorization from regulatory agencies.
I am hopeful about these two vaccines but, at the same time, I don’t know how I feel as yet about trying to be first in line to get myself vaccinated. In a video call conversation with a good friend, she expressed an even greater unease and apprehension at getting herself inoculated in the early stages of vaccine distribution.
She was concerned about the possible side effects and whether it will be effective. We reassured ourselves with the thought that vaccine developers, researchers, career scientists, health experts, regulators, governments and the private sector are working double time to ensure that a safe, authorized and effective vaccine is made available at the soonest possible time while ensuring that the highest of safety standards are met. Moderna say s its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5 percent effective. Pfizer and BioNTech claim that interim results from its ongoing trials show a 95 percent effectivity. They say its vaccine was over 94 percent effective in seniors over the age of 65. That’s certainly positive news as seniors, frontline healthcare workers, those with comorbidities or considered at high risk for COVID- 19 are among the first sectors to be given the vaccine as soon as it’s available.
My parents made sure I was up- to- date with immunizations growing up and decades later, I am making sure my children are up to the minute with theirs. The effectivity of these coronavirus vaccines vis- a- vis those I and my children have been administered with through the years looks promising. For instance, two doses of the MMR or measles, mumps, rubella vaccine records a 97 percent effectivity against measles, 88 percent against mumps and rubella while the influenza or flu vaccine has a 40-60 percent efficacy.
The waiting continues and we will have to extend that much stretched out collective patience this 2020 all the way to 2021. Kapit
lang, as we say in Filipino. We’re well into the season of hope and the announced 95 percent efficacy of these candidate SARS- Cov- 2 vaccines is cause to be hopeful.