The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shots key to get U.S. back on track
The COVID-19 vaccines clearly have the potential to be transformative, and their development and deployment will be the turning point that will stop the pain this pandemic has inflicted on so many Americans and their families.
The end of the pandemic in the U.S. is in sight. The COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the United States have proved to be outstandingly effective at protecting recipients from coronavirus, and they are also safe.
These vaccines — and the potential of others on the way — have the power to lift us out of the depths of this pandemic and put us on the path forward to rebuilding from COVID-19’s devastating economic, social and psychological impacts.
Put simply, getting America vaccinated is our ticket to halting the death toll and significantly slowing the continued spread of the virus. It is also our best shot at getting millions back to work, to school and to a longed-for return to normalcy. The vaccines are our ticket forward — this is the message that needs to be shouted from the rooftops right now.
So far, there have been too many mixed messages about just how critical these vaccines are to defeating COVID-19. While public confidence in the vaccines, and access to them, continues to grow, many Americans — especially Black and Hispanic adults and those living in rural areas — remain hesitant about getting the shot.
In redoubling efforts to dispel fears about COVID19 vaccines, the message that needs to be conveyed across the board by public health and elected officials, community and faith leaders, and the media is that these breakthroughs will not only stamp out the virus but also end much of the growing collateral damage due to the pandemic.
We know that these are very safe vaccines. Out of the first 1.9 million Pfizer vaccine recipients, only 21 people experienced severe reactions. That’s 0.00001%.
We also know that the vaccines have demonstrated successful results. In a Moderna trial of 30,000 volunteers, half received the vaccine and the other half a placebo. In the placebo group, 185 came down with COVID19, whereas in the vaccinated group, only 11 did, and all those cases were mild. That translates into an efficacy rate of 94.1%.
Even more importantly, the data shows that the Moderna vaccine is 100% effective in preventing severe COVID19 infections. The data from Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson is remarkably similar.
The creation of these COVID-19 vaccines was the result of many years of research developing new platforms like the mRNA technology and studying coronaviruses since the SARS outbreak of 2003.
The COVID-19 vaccines clearly have the potential to be transformative, and their development and deployment will be the turning point that will stop the pain this pandemic has inflicted on so many Americans and their families.
Skeptics say the vaccines were developed too quickly to be effective, that they’ll cause worse side effects than the coronavirus itself, or that they won’t prevent person-to-person spread.
The medical community knows that the first two of those statements are wrong, and the third, while very unlikely, has also been proved wrong in clinical trials where, even when the virus was contracted, the cases were notably mild.
Underselling the vaccine and fostering skepticism, unfortunately, have very real consequences. It will lengthen this already seemingly endless pandemic, and it will do so with tragic results — especially for the vulnerable communities who have already been most hard-hit.
Even before COVID-19, our health care system was fraught with millions across America living with one or more chronic health conditions. People with chronic illnesses like lung disease, heart disease and diabetes are six times more likely to be hospitalized and 12 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people with no chronic conditions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
We also know that this pandemic disproportionately impacts persons of color, who are both more likely to live with a chronic disease and more likely to contract COVID-19 due to other factors such as health care access and utilization, housing and occupation environments, and income gaps.
According to the CDC, these factors are all compounded once the virus is contracted, and data shows that Black and Hispanic people are about four times more likely to be hospitalized and almost three times more likely to die from COVID19 than whites.
With awareness of these impacts must also come awareness of the path forward that the available vaccines provide us.
This awareness is simple: Get vaccinated as soon as you are eligible.
These vaccines are the quickest way to put COVID-19 behind us and prevent any more unnecessary suffering.
Carlos del Rio, M.D., is a professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, professor of global health and epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University and the executive associate dean of Emory at Grady Health System. Dr. del Rio also serves on the board of directors for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.