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Uzone.id — Remember vaccines were one of the most powerful tools daily around 2-3 years ago during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic? The virus spread rapidly across the globe, forcing schools and work to shift online, and social distancing became the new normal.
As an important role in the fight against the pandemic, according to WHO, vaccination reduces the likelihood of new COVID-19 variants emerging. In the USA alone, in the first ten months that COVID-19 vaccines were available, they saved over 200,000 lives and prevented over 1.5 million hospitalizations.
But how did vaccines manage to pull off such a remarkable feat? Let’s discuss it.
How COVID-19 Vaccines Work
Vaccines work by teaching your immune system to recognize and fight off the virus without actually making you sick. Your immune system responds to these vaccines by producing antibodies to fight off the virus if it encounters it in the future. It’s like giving your body a “heads-up” so it’s prepared.
“They work by imitating an infection—the presence of a disease-causing organism in the body—to engage the body’s natural defenses,” quoted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools we have in controlling this virus. They help protect not just individuals but entire communities, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the leading health experts in the U.S.
In the case of COVID-19, the vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, use different methods to prepare your body to fight the virus if you’re exposed.
The mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) deliver instructions to your cells to make a harmless piece of the spike protein found on the virus’s surface. Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson uses an inactivated cold virus to carry genetic material, which prompts your cells to create a harmless piece of the “spike protein” found on the surface of COVID-19.
A single dose of vaccine provides only partial protection, that’s why the number of doses needed to achieve immunity depends on whether the antigen in a vaccine is alive or not.
The Global Impact of COVID-19 Vaccination
Vaccines were a game-changer in stopping the spread of COVID-19. Since 2021, more than 13 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally and WHO reported in 2021 alone, COVID-19 vaccines saved an estimated 14.4 million lives in 185 countries and territories.
According to a 2022 study published in The Lancet, vaccines prevented about 19.8 million deaths worldwide in their first year of rollout (December 2020 to December 2021). In countries participating in the COVAX vaccines, vaccinations are estimated to have prevented 41% of deaths.
This is a massive number and it successfully proves how crucial vaccination has been in reducing mortality from the virus.
“The COVID-19 vaccines are saving lives every day and bringing us closer to ending the pandemic,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Challenges and Successes
While the vaccines were a major success, there were also challenges along the way.
Misinformation about vaccine safety spreads fast on social media, just like COVID-19. It makes some people hesitant to get vaccinated.
According to a 2021 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, about 30% of Americans expressed doubts about vaccine safety at the height of the pandemic.
It was mostly influenced by misinformation and propaganda through social media. In TikTok, it deleted about 29,000 coronavirus-related videos that broke its rules (contain misinformation) in Europe alone since the beginning of 2020.
However, as more people received the vaccine and saw its benefits, the fear started to fade. The data about how vaccines helped millions of people gain trust in the vaccine’s effectiveness.
Vaccines and the Future
Vaccines have played a crucial role in reducing the devastation caused by COVID-19. From preventing millions of deaths to helping the world return to some level of normalcy, the story of COVID-19 vaccination is one of resilience, science, and hope.
The success of the COVID-19 vaccines has sparked innovation in other areas of medicine too. Researchers are now working on using mRNA technology for vaccines against other diseases, such as HIV and cancer.
Dr. Fauci noted, “We’ve made incredible progress with the COVID-19 vaccine, but the research it has sparked will help us develop more life-saving vaccines for other diseases in the future.”
