Do Vaccines Protect us ?

Vaccination against Covid-19 in India has been 6 month old by now. There is a plethora of covid positive cases among those who are fully vaccinated everywhere now. This has led to a wide spread doubt among the masses : “Do vaccines protect ?”

I have taken 2 charts of Covid-19 in UK from the Worldometer to illustrate my opinion. All data are available in public domain.

Chart 1 records the 7-day average of Daily New Covid-19 cases in UK from the very beginning.

We shall focus only on May 2021 and August 2021.

• By the end of May 2021, the alpha surge has subsided in UK and daily new case numbers have come down to 2500.

Three events happened here.

1. Delta appeared on the British shores.
2. Vaccination crossed 50% adult UK citizens. Today it is 70%+.
3. UK declared Freedom day on 20 July and removed all Covid-19 restrictions. Unprecedented.

• With the Delta surge, Daily new cases in UK peaked up to 50,000. It came down briefly to 25,000/day in August.
• But unlike the alpha surge in April, it never touched the earlier base line of 2500/day. Instead it has now settled down at a high normal of 30,000/day.
• It seems UK has to live with a daily case of 30,000/day.

Chart 2 records the 7-day average of Daily Death Numbers from UK. 

In Chart 3, I have superimposed both the chart to compare the daily number of death / thousand new cases before vaccination and after vaccination. 

In January 2021, when the number of daily new cases of UK was 30,000, number of death was 1250.

In August 2021, when the daily cases touched 30,000, death has been curtailed to 150.

90% of these deaths are in the elderly group who had poor immunity and more medical conditions. This rate of death is almost normal for this age group when pneumonia occurs in the extreme age groups.

Here is my summary:

Vaccines do prevent infection but more important they reduce our chance of getting seriously ill or die as below.

• Two doses reduce the chance of Covid infection by 50%
• Vaccine prevents serious illness and hospitalisation by 80%
• Vaccine prevents Death by 100%.
• Our pre existing medical conditions and debility due to old age matters.
• All immunity wanes over time and age.

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