The data out of Israel – one of the countries that got way ahead of the vaccination drive – this week is clear.
The data indicates that 60% of COVID-19 related deaths attributed to the 17% of the population that is unvaccinated; that leaves a significant proportion of deaths associated with vaccinated people. The main conclusion is that there is a need for COVID-19 booster vaccination shots. In the US the booster shot campaign has already started with the President getting his dose already.
It is a weird time in the pandemic and the best example I can give is from my own city – Melbourne, Australia. We are currently in lockdown number six. Our “super-strict” current lockdown started about two months ago when there was one COVID-19 case recorded! Even with the strict lockdown – 5 km radius, 9 pm curfew – the delta variant has proven difficult to contain and today, a couple of months later, we are reporting almost 1000 new COVID-19 cases. This comes as talks of easing restrictions and a pathway to reopening is being discussed. For most folk this is super confusing – we get locked down when there is one case and we talk about easing restriction when we are recording 1000 cases per day.
Of course, the difference now is that ~80% of the population has received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccines and approximately ~50% of the state is fully vaccinated. This is a great achievement and since we know that vaccination protects from severe COVID-19 disease, our largely freshly vaccinated population, will mean that it is less likely that the hospital system will be overwhelmed. In a way, our delayed vaccine response can now be considered a positive – while countries like the US, Israel got ahead of the vaccination race, they now need booster shots already. Israel has a relatively low death-rate (~20 per day) but in the US deaths per day have reached 2000 (and almost 700k since the start of the pandemic).
So, we’re in a confusing period of the pandemic – vaccination rates are reaching the magical herd immunity levels in more affluent countries (of course, there is vaccine inequity which needs to be addressed separately), but cases and deaths a persisting with many countries including Australia being in the worst phase of the outbreak.
Breakthrough infections are a fact, and whilst the majority of people are well-protected by “the vaccine”, some vaccinated people are getting sick. We need to analyse waning immunity more carefully, administer booster shots as required…. and most importantly, hope that we don’t end up with some dangerous vaccine-resistant version of the virus.
For now, keep getting vaccinated and hope for the best!
Until next time …