With a spike in the number of cases again, it comes down to a root cause i.e., the problem is the rise in concern about the coronavirus is driven pretty much exclusively by the unvaccinated.
In July, 44% of vaccinated adults indicated they were extremely or very concerned about the virus. This was up from 36% in late June. Among the unvaccinated, concern was stable at 23%. The opposite, in theory, should be the case. The unvaccinated should be the most scared.
Which could also be stated as the lack of fear about the virus is probably part of the reason that the unvaccinated haven’t gotten a shot. It would also explain why it’s difficult to reach much of the unvaccinated through messages about how dangerous the virus is.
Claims raising doubts about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines began circulating on social media ever since the onset of the vaccination drive world-wide. For instance, a meme published on Instagram in late July 2021 claimed that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people were at risk of getting infected by SARS-CoV-2, transmitting the disease or dying from it and that vaccinated people were additionally exposed to the risk of dying from the vaccine.
By only listing detrimental outcomes without explaining how likely these outcomes are for either group, this misleading post tricked the reader into believing that both the vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are equally at risk. Overall, the message is that remaining unvaccinated is safer than getting vaccinated.
However, on the contrary to what this claim suggests, vaccines don’t need to have a 100% efficiency to be effective at fighting the pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collected the data from 37 clinical trials and real-world monitoring of vaccination campaigns. All these studies found significant effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic COVID-19, and death, ranging from 64% to 99%. In fact, the majority of those studies reported an effectiveness of above 90%. Effectiveness is determined by comparing the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalization, or deaths in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Thus, a 90% effectiveness indicates that vaccination reduces by 90% the number of people getting infected, sick, or dying from the disease.
Even in the rare event where vaccinated people get infected, results indicate that they are much less contagious than unvaccinated individuals in general. Part of the reason why vaccinated people are less susceptible to severe forms of COVID-19 and less likely to infect others is that the COVID-19 vaccines significantly reduce the viral load among the few individuals who would get infected.
Thus, summarizing the above, as per the claims, casting doubt over the usefulness of COVID-19 vaccines are misleading when they fail to inform the audience that vaccinated people are much less likely to get sick than unvaccinated individuals. Epidemiological studies indicate that vaccination significantly reduces the odds of getting infected, developing a severe form of the disease, and dying from COVID-19.
There is no vaccine that is 100% effective therefore, it is normal to observe some breakthrough infections among vaccinated people. But these are rare compared to cases in unvaccinated people. Furthermore, even in breakthrough infections, the viral load tends to be lower than in unvaccinated patients, thus limiting the risks of transmission and hospitalization.
