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SALT LAKE CITY – Thursday, 714,049 Utahn had been vaccinated against COVID-19. But of these, only 394,004 are fully vaccinated.
This means that 320,045 Utahns have yet another injection, provided they have received one of the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech or by Moderna; both require two doses for maximum effect. A third vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson, recently approved for use, requires only one dose.
An AstraZeneca vaccine, possibly the next approved for widespread use in America, also requires two doses.
But how important is it really to get the second dose of the vaccine? After all, scientists agree that getting a dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine will create a certain degree of immunity, introducing the body to a virus it was previously unfamiliar with and starting the process of creating antibodies.
Two doctors KSL.com spoke to on Thursday urged the Utahns to complete their treatment with the vaccine, saying it was crucial for the state to develop the herd immunity it seeks before lifting all restrictions related to coronaviruses.
Efficiency “ almost 100% ”
Dr Tamara Sheffield, medical director of community health and prevention for Intermountain Healthcare, said it is not uncommon for vaccines of all kinds to require more than one dose.
“Most vaccines will have multiple doses, in a series, to stimulate the immune response,” Sheffield said. “The first year a child receives the influenza vaccine, they need two doses because they have not been exposed to the influenza vaccine in the past.” It is only after that, when patients get their annual flu shot that they only need one dose at a time, Sheffield added.
The second dose of the coronavirus vaccine creates a larger and more effective immune response and also makes it last longer. It is the “memory T” cells of humans, Sheffield said, that create long-lasting viral prevention and may require more than one exposure to activate.
Estimates vary, but the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine after a dose is estimated to be around 52%, based on its own data. After the second dose, that jumps to around 95% – an almost unprecedented level of protection for modern vaccines, doctors say.
Dr. Emily Spivak, an infectious disease physician at the University of Utah Health, said that complete vaccines are “almost 100%” effective in preventing severe cases of the disease.
“People kind of wind up in the weeds of, well, this one is 70% effective… versus 90%,” Spivak said. But they all prevent the severe effects of the disease almost entirely, and that’s the important part, she said.
“I think regardless of the numbers, the real result is that you can get COVID-19 – and I’ve seen it a number of times – between your first and second dose,” Spivak said. She encouraged the Utahns to stay alert even a week or two after receiving their second dose.
“I hesitate that people obsess over the real number – is it 70, or is it 50? – because the answer is that the two doses make it extremely effective. As never seen before effective, except can. -be for measles. “
Authorities recommend that the two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine be taken 21 days apart and that the Moderna doses be taken 28 days apart. Sheffield and Spivak have said it probably doesn’t hurt to wait a little longer than that, but recommend the Utahns to avoid getting a second dose too soon.
Mutations and asymptomatic dissemination
Sheffield said there were two other big reasons the Utahns should get their second dose.
The first concerns collective immunity. People who are only partially vaccinated and partially protected, she said, could become unwitting vectors of transmission of the virus. They could be protected from the symptoms, Sheffield said, while continuing to transmit the coronavirus to others.
“When you’re partially protected, you may still have the disease, be able to transmit it, but maybe not feel the symptoms,” she said. “So you might be more likely to be a spreader.”
Partially vaccinated individuals are also more likely to create new viral mutations, Sheffield explained, such as those from Brazil, South Africa and the UK.
Getting a single dose of a two-dose vaccine creates a “partial or weak” immune response, similar to what happens with an immunocompromised individual, Sheffield said.
“People who have this weaker immune response tend to be the ones where we’ve escaped mutations,” she said. “Viruses that mutate easily, like the coronavirus does – a partially immune individual is where these mutations are most likely to survive, because they are different and your immune system doesn’t catch them.” They therefore proliferate.
“While the regular virus you can control, the mutated virus you can’t control either.”
For these and more reasons, Spivak begged Utahns to get their second dose of the much needed vaccine. “Please, please follow the recommendations,” she said. “Take your second dose.”
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