Into August, while marking the 18 months of World Health Organization’s official declaration of Covid-19 Pandemic and feeling frustrated with another surge in the new cases now at ~70,000 per day because of Delta variant, members of the Greater Princeton branch of AYLUS (GPA) continued making posters to urge Americans to get vaccinated, so our normal life could come back as early as it can be, when the herd immunization reaches in the United States.
Delta variant’s symptoms are the same as the symptoms of other Covid-19 strains: fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, temporary loss of taste or smell, flulike respiratory and digestive problems, muscle aches and fatigue.
There are now three Covid-19 vaccines that have received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Moderna’s and Pfizer’s two-dose vaccines and Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine. Americans shall get vaccinated as there is currently no shortage.
So there are studies now from countries where there is a predominance of Delta variant to show that people who’ve been vaccinated are much less likely to end up in hospital. And you need the full course of vaccination in order to give you that full immunity to protect you against the Delta variant. So the important thing is if you have access to a vaccine that’s approved by WHO, please do take it and take the full course so that you can be protected both against the Delta and other variants of COVID.
So the main goal of these vaccines is really to prevent severe disease, because what we want is for people, even if they get the infection, is for them to recover from it and not become seriously ill. So that’s something that all of these vaccines do really well. Of course, there are different levels. You read about the efficacy trials. They may range from 70 to 90%. But in terms of just looking at the prevention of severe disease and hospitalization, they’re all very good, over 90% effective.
Again, they vary in the protection against getting infection. Ideally, you know, you’d like a vaccine which completely prevents you from getting infected therefore, you can’t get ill. But none of the vaccines that we have currently are 100% protective. So this is why even if you’re vaccinated, you can get the infection, but the chances are you’ll get a very mild symptoms or no symptoms at all and that the chances of getting seriously ill are really, really low.
GPA Poster Designers: Emma Sun (8/2, 1 hr), Ella Sun (8/2, 1 hr), and more.
