The mRNA Vaccine and the Paradigm Shift
Viral science will never be the same after the COVID-19 vaccines of the past year.
The world today does not know how to fully process the introduction of the vaccines that are on their way to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Several recent articles have done an admirable job of explaining how the vaccines work and the many steps in the supply chain necessary to get a vaccine from idea to reality. But the idea that vaccines are effective and widespread enough to end the pandemic still seems farfetched to some scientists. In a recent Meet the Press interview, Dr. Michael Osterholm argued that the pandemic was nowhere near over and that people should not engage in activities where they are around others at all, likening mask-wearing and other public health measures to a “fireproof suit that works 90 to 95 percent of the time.”
Breathless news headlines have focused on the danger of some variants and the need to continue following social distancing guidelines as evidence that the vaccines are not an absolute cure for the coronavirus pandemic. One popular topic for these misleading stories is the length of effectiveness. News outlets have distorted studies to suggest that the vaccines only provide six months of immunity, when in reality it is hard to know the multi-year effectiveness of a vaccine that has only existed for a year.