Re:Oxford vaccine shows sustained protection of 76% in 3-mon...
by dragontamer on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @07:45AM
(#26013137)
> As for whether 1 dose prevents spreading: for many countries, in particular UK, the current bottleneck is hospital occupancy, and that is overwhelmingly people over 70 - something like 60% IIRC.
Preventing the spread of COVID19 has an exponential effect on all stats.
If 1-dose only reduces the symptoms (but continues the exponential spread), then 20% vaccination rate means that you have 20% fewer hospitalizations after a month.
-----------
In contrast, if 2-dose prevents the spread, then 10% vaccination means 10% fewer spread *PER GENERATION* of COVID19.
That's 90% of the hospitalizations in one generation (~1-week period). After 2-weeks, you have ~81% hospitalizations. After 3-weeks, down to 73%. After 4 weeks, only 65%.
Controlling the spread is the #1 health priority that has exponential effects. I'd take 1/2 the vaccination rate if we have a better chance at tackling the exponential-spread issue.
If 1 dose, followed by a 2nd some time, can cut that number down a lot (some people won't get Covid, and few will get a bad one), hospitals can be freed and start returning to their usual work - cancer treatments etc. That's a big win. I think it's still the case that more people die of cancer than of Covid.
But that said, I also worry whether the vaccines will work with the longer spacing - I hope results like this show us they would.