Will We Be Able to Gather Safely by Next Thanksgiving?
by John Lawrence, November 26, 2020
A vaccine is on the way, but what about the time frame? Will we be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with large family multigenerational gatherings next year? Probably not safely. It won't be until spring when most Americans can start to get vaccinated. So what if half the family has been vaccinated by next Thanksgiving and half hasn't? Will it be safe to gather? Perhaps not. A person who has been vaccinated can still be contagious even if they are asymptomatic. So they can give COVID to the half of family members who haven't been vaccinated yet. It will take everyone at the Thanksgiving table to be vaccinated before we can gather safely for Thanksgiving dinner in 2021. To make matters worse, the vaccines will undoubtedly be released without the normal approval protocol. The vaccine makers will apply for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and probably get it. This means that the normal follow-up study which typically takes 6 months will not be undertaken. Instead the EUA lets pharmaceutical companies monitor trial participants for only 2 months. The follow-up is to make sure that the vaccines are safe and don't lead to serious side effects. We already know that there are "long haulers" that experience severe symptoms months after they have tested negative for COVID.
The mRNA technology used by Moderna and Pfizer allows fast development, but it hasn't ever been used before in the development of a vaccine. The vaccines are said to be 95% effective. What that means is that 5 people out of 100 actually came down with COVID even after they were vaccinated. If you are older or have underlying conditions, you need to bear in mind that being vaccinated will not guarantee that you will not get COVID or even die from it although the chances are that the vaccine will protect you. However, because the COVID virus will still be out there floating around, safety precautions should still be undertaken long after everyone has been vaccinated. Until everyone has been vaccinated and the number of new positive cases is down to zero, people shouldn't let down their guards.
Another thing about the Pfizer and Moderna studies is that not everyone that either got the vaccine or the placebo was tested. Only those were tested that displayed symptoms. That means that there could have been far more positive cases both in those who got the vaccine and those that got the placebo. The studies did not test everyone to see how many people in the vaccinated group got infected compared to the placebo group. The bottom line is that the vaccine will likely prevent you from getting seriously sick. However, it won't prevent you from getting infected and passing it along to others. That's why it is important that public health measures like mask wearing and social distancing stay in effect until not only when everyone is vaccinated but until the hospitalization rate comes down to zero. Depending on how much testing will be in effect next year it is also a consideration that the number of positive cases come down to almost zero. Especially if you're older or have underlying conditions, don't jump the gun and let down your guard prematurely. Another thing we don't know is what happened to the ones that did get sick both in the vaccinated group and in the unvaccinated group. Did any of them die or were intubated? What kind of treatment did they get and how effective was the treatment? Did they get monoclonal antibody therapy/ If so and it prevented them from becoming seriously ill, why isn't that treatment (similar to what President Trump got) more readily available to the average person?
Because there is so little testing in the US, there are a lot of asymptomatic cases out there who have never been tested. That means that there is a lot more COVID that can be transmitted to those who are vulnerable. The problem right now is that the testing of vaccines so far has not shown whether the vaccine protects you from the disease or does it also protect you from being infected? That is unknown at this time. So public health measures must stay in place long after everyone has been vaccinated. The only reliable measure is the number of hospitalizations. When that number comes down to zero, then it will be safe to return to normal. Until then, we are all guinea pigs. The vaccine is no panacea.
Happy Thanksgiving.
