Coronavirus: Here's why you may still have to wear a mask even after getting vaccinated?

Selected senior citizens and healthcare workers across the world are now amongst the first ones to have received jabs of Pfizer’s experimental vaccine, BNT-162. Priority groups across Russia have been administered shots in the past weeks too. Similar plans are being drawn up across the world, including India to vaccinate billions of people against the deadly virus. It’s also a good start in our fight in defeating COVID-19 and resuming life as we knew it before the pandemic began.

(Image courtesy: Reuters)

But, as opposed to what many think, the arrival of a vaccine doesn’t really mean the end of the battle. Like experts point out, people would still have to follow safety precautions for a foreseeable future before we term COVID a thing of the past. Many, including those who have been vaccinated, will still need to wear a mask. We explain why.

A COVID-19 vaccine would solve our problems and prevent infections, but a lot of answers are still unknown to us.

A vaccine would teach our body to develop antibodies and recognize the virulent strain but doesn’t eliminate the virus altogether. How much immunity it would really deliver, or cut down transmission risk are still some lingering questions.

Secondly, the effectiveness of COVID vaccines is still to be considered. Even though there are numerous vaccines under offing, we still don't know which are how many vaccine shots will be effective and garner the most protection. The range of vaccine efficacy also varies from clinical testing and real-world settings. Hence, a vaccine may not show the same exact results as it did in the clinical settings.

Therefore, it would be wrong to fully pin our hopes on a vaccine and conclude the pandemic has drawn to an end, at least right now.

Masks work better than any other form of health measure to suffice protection from disease. There’s also a good reason mask-wearing has been adopted by many countries prone to chronic respiratory outbreaks- they can cut down the risk of infection spread by upto 70% when used correctly. It could also prevent transmission when a sick, infected person wears it in a crowd and additionally, protect the spread of any other viable germs and infestations which can spread through contact.

We are only in the first weeks of immunization. With the population and the logistical challenges we have in front of us today (from shipping, storage, mass vaccination drives, growing hesitancy and raising awareness), it can take at least 3 years before the majority of the population will be immunized- and marked safe against the virus. Only when vaccination rates soar so high successfully, we would be able to consider nearing the end of the pandemic.

It's nearly impossible to have everyone inoculated against the virus-which means that there still will be an extent to which we would be exposing ourselves to the virus since we wouldn't know who has been or hasn't been vaccinated yet. Some COVID vaccines also require the use of adjuvants and booster shots to provide ample protection. In such a scenario, when we don't know who is contagious and who is not, using a mask, and practising other safe sanitary measures will help keep us safe. This will continue to happen for the next year or so, or until, sizeable population and at-risk people get vaccinated.

Vaccination of billions of people isn’t an easy job. With growing vaccine hesitancy, it will become difficult to convince everyone to get a jab of an experimental vaccine, or educate them about the benefits, especially when strange side-effects are being discovered and there are some unpleasant effects doctors are trying to warn us about.

There are also the ones who cannot be vaccinated, due to their medical prognosis and ailments, which would mean that they still are vulnerable, and could transmit the virus onto others.

Viruses are known to mutate and evolve over time, and so is SARS-COV-2.

Even with a vaccine, scientists haven't been able to decide how long, how much protection would we really have right now. COVID reinfection remains a real possibility right now, especially if vaccine shots are also missed out on, or the vaccine isn't administered in the right manner.

There's no one safe answer as to when would it be ideal to ditch the masks and roam around freely. A lot of it depends on factors like community spread, your vulnerability, comorbidities, the effectiveness of vaccines, how well-informed and aware people are of health guidelines and lastly, the kind of activity you will be doing.

Till the time we have real data on the effectiveness of vaccines in stopping or slowing down the spread of novel coronavirus, it won't be a wise decision to skip using the masks, or indulge in risky activities.