You are much less likely to spread Covid-19 if you get the vaccine, real data suggests

Real-world data offers hope that mRNA vaccines are highly effective in limiting infection and possibly transmission of coronavirus, in addition to their already known ability to prevent symptoms of covid-19. The results, based on research in Israel and elsewhere, are good news for containing the pandemic as soon as possible.

A study published in the Lancet last week, health workers at the Israeli Sheba Medical Center were examined. The study compared the rates of covid-19 – with or without symptoms – among workers who received the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine or not. As other research has shown, people were much less likely to contract covid-19 after receiving the first of two scheduled doses.

Within two to three weeks after the first dose, the risk of having symptomatic covid-19 was reduced by 85%. Above all, the risk of covid-19 in general, including asymptomatic infection, in which a person has the virus but does not feel sick, has also been reduced by 75% over the same period, based on regular PCR testing. This is crucial, because even people with silent infections can still pass the virus on to another person. But while a vaccine largely prevents people from getting sick and carrying enough virus to test positive also means reducing the risk of passing the virus from one vaccinated person to others.

The results of another recent study, not yet published, appear to show an even greater benefit for fully vaccinated people in Israel. Based on data analyzed by Israel’s Ministry of Health, Reuters reported Last Thursday, the risk of infection was reduced by 89% in people who received two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.

In the United States, a preliminary study published Last week, researchers at the Mayo Clinic point to similar benefits for the Moderna vaccine. They looked at workers at the Mayo Clinic and associated healthcare centers who had received the first dose of an mRNA vaccine at least 36 days previously. Compared to their unvaccinated colleagues, workers were 89% less likely to test positive for covid-19 after receiving both doses.

Many experts have been cautious in claiming that covid-19 vaccines will reduce transmission, arguing that the data is simply not yet available to be sure. But other experts have argued that it would be very unusual for a vaccine effective to prevent the disease to have no effect in reducing transmission and not to be useful to leave people worried about an unlikely outcome. In any case, the evidence for these other studies should be reassuring to everyone.

Further research will continue to understand how effective mRNA vaccines are in preventing transmission. Other vaccines are based on different technologies, and some are less effective than mRNA vaccines at preventing disease, so they will also need to be studied closely. And the spread of new coronavirus variants can complicate matters, as at least some vaccines have been shown to be less effective against some variants.

That said, this is definitely good news if you hope to end the pandemic as quickly as possible. Vaccines that prevent disease and the transmission of covid-19 will only make the spread of the coronavirus more difficult as more of the population is vaccinated, and they are expected to speed up the time it will take life to recover. a semblance of normality.