As the novel Coronavirus vaccine would be approved in the US by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before the end of 2020, the University of Virginia researcher said that the vaccine would not be effective at all if a certain number of people don't get the shot.
The US, the most affected country in the world due to the Coronavirus pandemic, is currently focusing on the development of an effective vaccine as soon as possible. But surveys suggested that even if one vaccine gets the approval from FDA, it would not be accepted by the entire US population.
The Center for Public Policy at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University had conducted a poll in September. The results showed that 40 percent of the Virginians would not get the COVID-19 vaccine if it was approved by the federal government right now, while 66 percent said that they do not support a vaccine mandate.
There was another poll by Gallup, which is an American analytics and advisory company, that showed that 35 percent of Americans would not get a free, FDA-approved vaccine if ready today. But as per the University of Virginia researchers, this thought process of people could sabotage the ultimate effectiveness of a vaccine.
Vaccine Efforts Would Be a Complete Waste
Dr. Steven Zeichner who is working on a Coronavirus vaccine project at the University of Virginia that is designed to be cost-effective to increase access in poor countries, said, "You probably need more than 60 percent of people to get it to blunt the course of the pandemic."
Another researcher at the university Dr. Bill Petri is working on a different vaccine project to use the antibodies to specific spike glycoprotein in the virus that would prevent the SARS-CoV-2 from entering into the healthy cells. He said vaccination is highly important as "we are going to protect not only ourselves but then we are going to reduce the risk of transmission to others."
The major concern for Virginians is the safety of a Coronavirus vaccine—the development of which has been fast-forwarded to meet the public health crisis. As per Zeichner, to ensure the standards of vaccine, now they are articulated a little more regularly and rigorously than they had been in the past. While pointing out the temporary shutdown of Oxford- AstraZeneca trial after a volunteer fell sick, Petri said that this was a good example of precautions that researchers are following.
However, both researchers from the university also advised people to get their flu shot as soon as possible at the time when Coronavirus is still dominating the world.
