Health Team

Vaccines explained: As others get the shot, you get a little safer

It's a long way to herd immunity, and a months-long-wait for many people, but each shot makes a difference.

Posted Updated

By
Travis Fain
, WRAL statehouse reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — It will be months before there’s enough coronavirus vaccine for everyone, but each person in your orbit who gets the shot makes you incrementally safer.

“The less contagious people walking around there are, the more safe you are," said Rachel Roper, an associate professor in East Carolina University's Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

That's the idea with vaccines: Give it to enough people, break the potential chains of transmission one at a time and don't give the virus anywhere to go.

It will take a long time to achieve that, and there's still so much that scientists don't know about this coronavirus that we don't know how long. The current thinking is at least 70 percent of people need the vaccine to achieve herd immunity, which is when enough of a population is immune to essentially shut down transmission.

“We have a long way to go," North Carolina State Health Director Betsey Tilson said, urging people to continue wearing masks and social distancing. "I do not want anybody to get their guard down.”

Also: This virus, and the forthcoming vaccines, are so new that we don't know for sure they'll block transmission, as opposed to just keeping people who get the vaccine from getting sick.

Decades of virology, though, suggest they will, Roper said. And even if people just don't get as sick, they'll be shedding less virus into the world than if they were fully infected, she said.

State and federal officials plan a tiered rollout of the vaccines under development, focusing first on health workers who spend time around COVID-positive patients and moving to people more susceptible to the virus' worst effects. This includes senior citizens and people with two or more medical conditions that tend to coincide with the worst COVID cases.

“We’re trying to maximize the benefit to people," State Health Director Betsey Tilson said.

Among other things, nurses and doctors and support staff who work with COVID patients "need to be there for you if they get sick," Tilson said.

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