7 lessons learned about vaccines during the pandemic

4. Protection may be imperfect, but nonetheless vital.

Most vaccines are not an all-or-nothing proposition. Just because you are vaccinated doesn’t mean you won’t get sick. However, the vaccine significantly reduces your risk to have a serious case.

“If you get a disease, it will be a milder disease,” says Clare Rock, MD, infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “The risk of having serious illness and needing hospitalization is much, much lower.”

Many Americans seem to have a better understanding of vaccine effectiveness from COVID-19 vaccines. This is important, says Tan, because the numbers can be confusing. For example, if the seasonal flu vaccine is 40 percent effective a year, that does not mean that 60 out of every 100 people vaccinated will get the flu. What this actually means, he explains, is that people who have been vaccinated are 40% less likely to get the flu compared to people who haven’t received the vaccine.

In their clinical trials, the two mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 have shown efficacy rates of around 95%, far exceeding scientists’ expectations. Data shows that the actual percentage of vaccinated people who contracted COVID-19 in these two trials was only 0.4%, and none died from the disease.

The vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing infection has likely waned in recent months, with the delta variant fueling groundbreaking cases across the country. But vaccines are still very effective when it comes to what is most important: preventing death.