Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell died on Monday of Covid-19 complications. His family announced that he was fully vaccinated. He was 84 years old and had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.
Health officials worry that anti-vaccine activists will seize upon Powell’s death to make the claim that vaccines don’t work. If you can still die after being vaccinated for Covid-19, what’s the point of getting the vaccine?
What’s the answer to that question? I discussed it with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also author of a new book, “Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.”
That means that if you are vaccinated, you are six times less likely to get Covid-19 than someone who’s unvaccinated. And you are 11 times less likely to die from Covid-19 compared to an unvaccinated person. That’s really excellent.
However, the Covid-19 vaccines do not protect you 100%. No vaccine does, just likely virtually no medical treatment is 100% effective. That doesn’t mean the vaccine doesn’t work, or that you shouldn’t take it.
Back in August, federal health officials recommended that people with moderate or severe immunocompromise, who had the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, receive a third dose of the vaccine. They warned that even with the additional dose, immunocompromised individuals should take additional precautions. That’s because this is a category of people who are particularly susceptible to severe outcomes.
If you are around a lot of viruses, that increases your chance of getting infected. The problem isn’t the vaccine — it’s that there is too much virus around you.
That’s why the key is to get as many people vaccinated as possible. That reduces the overall rate of infection and ends up protecting everyone. And, if you are in an area with a lot of viruses, wearing a mask in indoor crowded spaces adds an additional level of protection.
And let’s not forget that we also get vaccinated to protect the most vulnerable among us, who are at the highest risk for severe outcomes.
A study of 13 states over six months showed that fully vaccinated individuals made up only 4% of all hospitalizations from Covid-19.
Unvaccinated people are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized for coronavirus than fully vaccinated adults, according to that CDC study. Those who end up with breakthrough cases resulting in hospitalization are more likely to be older and to have multiple underlying medical conditions, as we discussed.
Or let’s use an example of prevention. Let’s say that someone who eats a healthy diet and exercises a lot still ends up with high blood pressure and diabetes. That doesn’t mean diet and exercise aren’t good to do. It just means that you can take all the right steps to prevent a disease, but sometimes you still could get the disease.
One of the main conundrums in public health is that the work we do is about prevention. While you see the end result if and when prevention fails, you don’t see all the lives saved because of prevention.
A modeling study supported by the National Institutes of Health found that the Covid-19 vaccines prevented more than 139,000 deaths in the first five months they were available. By May 9, around 570,000 Covid-19 deaths had occurred in the United States. Without vaccines, 709,000 deaths could have happened.
The bottom line is that vaccines work. They reduce the likelihood of contracting the disease and of getting severely ill and dying. They are not 100% because nothing is.
Ultimately, the key to reducing everyone’s risk from Covid-19 — and to ending the pandemic — is for all of us to get vaccinated. This protects us, and those around us.
