We can end the coronavirus pandemic this year if we do these things

Notice of Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Journalist: Bernard Okoe-Boye

03/10/2021

Today, March 9, 2021, it is exactly one week that the Ghanaian government began vaccinating its citizens against the COVID-19 disease. As a consulting physician at Lekma hospital, I joined the queue on the first day of the national vaccine deployment exercise. I belong to the first group of citizens eligible to receive the vaccine due to my status as a health worker. Other kinds of citizens like the elderly (60+) and those with underlying illnesses joined the queue on day one. After a week of vaccination, around 210,000 Ghanaians seized the opportunity to be vaccinated.

Sadly, there are still those who keep asking the question: Should I wait awhile to see what happens to those who go for the vaccines or just the vaccine now?

The AstraZeneca vaccine has undergone the necessary three clinical trials which must be conducted before it is given to people in any country. Tens of thousands of participants took part in phase three trials that were conducted to determine how effective vaccines are in protecting the population against COVID-19 infection as well as serious illness and death from COVID 19. AstraZeneca is approximately 70% efficient.

This effectiveness speaks only of the protection offered by the vaccine against the contraction of COVID-19. That is, if 100 people get vaccinated, 70 of them will not get COVID-19 at all. The rest of the 30 can get COVID-19. Simply ending here with the efficacy information overlooks two key benefits that the vaccine offers; two benefits that have been established in clinical trials in different countries and have actually been confirmed in countries like the UK where over 21 million people have been vaccinated.

Taking the vaccine protects you against serious and critical illness if you are in the minority who can get COVID-19 despite vaccination. This means you are saved from hospitalization and, more importantly, COVID-19-related deaths thanks to the vaccine. AstraZeneca vaccines could have an average effectiveness of 70% against COVID-19, but their protection against serious illnesses of COVID-19 is over 85%, with protection against death close to 99%.

The Pfizer vaccine produced in the United States may have a similar 94% effectiveness to the Moderna vaccine, but the good news is that both give you virtually the same result of AstraZeneca in preventing serious illness and death. .

The Johnson and Johnson Johnson vaccine which recently obtained emergency use authorization has an average efficacy of 70% like the AstraZeneca vaccine. Phase three clinical trials in South Africa with this vaccine Johnson and Johnson showed that the hospitalization rate dropped drastically in those who received the vaccine compared to those who did not receive the vaccine. No deaths were recorded among those who received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

This information from the Johnson and Johnson vaccine studies validates one truth – WHAT IS – IT IS SMART TO GET THE VACCINE, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHAT BRAND, WHEN AVAILABLE THAN WAIT. I know that in Ghana, 85 out of a hundred people who contract COVID-19 will only have mild to moderate illness and these statistics have undoubtedly encouraged some people to say ‘just let me wait and watch’, in thinking that if virus, they will be part of the 85% who do not suffer from serious illness.

A relative of mine contracted COVID-19 and suffered from a serious illness that could have killed him. He got it from a family member who only experienced mild symptoms when she had them. The lesson is that if you avoid the vaccine thinking that you will be fine even if you are infected, you can serve as a carrier who passes the virus on to other friends and family members who could become seriously ill and die.

So getting the vaccine doesn’t just protect you, it also protects those you associate with by breaking the chain of transmission. I am vaccinated now, so if I meet a COVID positive person who puts the virus in contact with me, two things can happen; either my acquired immunity from the vaccine is preventing the virus from infecting me or entering my system, but is unable to overwhelm me and get me to the hospital. Since more than 70 out of 100 people who receive the vaccine are protected against COVID infection, these people serve as barriers that break the chain of transmission. When a virus hits them, it stops there and is not passed on to the next.

Thus, vaccination helps reduce transmission rates, infection rates, hospitalization rates, death rates and will ultimately end the pandemic. The deployment of VACCINES marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic. What will make this final step shorter and less fatal is maintaining compliance with the protocols for wearing a mask and washing hands since these protocols serve as an extranet to capture the few viral strains that escape the protective wall provided. by vaccines.

The Ghanaian government aims to complete this final stage of the pandemic by December 2021. Hopefully by then more than 20 million Ghanaians will have been vaccinated and the COVID 19 transmission rate will be close to zero.

I know that the deployment of the vaccine will prevent us from many more deaths at this final stage but if we want to have very low mortality or better yet avoid any deaths, the protocols for wearing a mask must be respected so that this last episode of the pandemic is shortened and less lethal.

It doesn’t take AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Moderna in particular to achieve a world without the COVID pandemic. All approved vaccines will protect you from the pandemic, keep you away from intensive care, prevent death, and significantly slow infection rates until elimination of the disease is achieved nationwide.

I predict this pandemic will end with this calendar year, 2021. This prediction can only be true if you take the vaccine and wear the mask. Let’s help make the prediction true because we can’t afford to shut down our theaters and bring our hospitality industry to its knees in 2022. We can’t afford not to kiss our loved ones in 2022.

I guess the answer to waiting a while or not before getting the vaccine is now obvious. It is not a wise decision to wait, it can turn out to be suicidal.

By: Dr. Okoe Boye

A former Deputy Minister of Health.