Benefits of the COVID-19 Vaccine

The COVID-19 pandemic has been shocking the humanity for almost 1,5 years and has already caused significant economic damage to global economy and public health. In 2020, in order to stop this pandemic as soon as possible, the prior task for medical scientists all over the world was to create safe and effective vaccine against SARS-CoV2 virus. Despite the obvious necessity of population vaccination, many issues concerning the effectiveness of different vaccines and their safety for human health still arise. The intensiveness of vaccination with available vaccines potentially can lead to the appearance of new, highly-resistant viral strains (Bartsch et al., 2021). Furthermore, many people remain skeptical of vaccination, being afraid of probable side effects, and some of them even refuse to vaccinate because of religious or ethical prejudices. The goal of this paper is to show significant benefits of vaccination against COVID-19 for an individual, public health and global economy.

At the moment, several companies (Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca/Oxford, Indian CoviShield, Chinese Sinovac and Russian Sputnik V) developed a number of vaccines against COVID-19 causative agent that are widely used for vaccination of population. The first and the most important reason of mass vaccination is to prevent further rapid spreading of the disease and, therefore, to stop this pandemic in nearest future. Although preventive measures (wearing of PPE, social distancing, disinfection of hands and surfaces) are still obligatory, they only can slow down virus distribution. On the other hand, vaccines help immune system to fight the causative agent in case of its exposure to human body (Koplon, 2021). That is why it is critically important to vaccinate global population as soon as possible according to CDC recommendations (Geiger, 2021). 

Another important benefit is the improbability of currently existing vaccines to cause allergic reactions. Moreover, the risk of complications because of side effects is much lover than many people think. Although people with medical conditions have certain concerns, the possibility of vaccination prevents severe complications which are highly potential in infected individuals (Geiger, 2021; Koplon, 2021). According to Geiger (2021), polyethylene glycol (PEG), one of vaccines ingredients, is similar but not the same substance which causes allergic reactions. Besides, vaccination is preferable for patients with cancer since they are more vulnerable to suffer from severe form of COVID-19 (Geiger, 2021). Also, it should be noted that currently available COVID-19 vaccines do not interact with human DNA in body cells. They are also known as mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines, giving our cells a message and instructions to create safe copy of spike protein, originally located on viral surface (Koplon, 2021). This spike protein, positioned on the surface of cells, is recognized by host immune system, causing antibodies production. 

Economic benefits of vaccination are also valuable. According to Bartsch et al. (2021), in most of situations, waiting for new, more effective vaccine instead of using already existing lead to higher loading of hospitals and, therefore, additional treatment expenses. 

As it was mentioned above, vaccination has obvious benefits for public health and economy. Firstly, vaccination is the only effective way to stop the pandemic, halt economic downfall and cease social inconveniences. Secondly, available vaccine has fewer side effects and the risk of fatal consequences is much lower than in case of viral COVID-19 infection. Finally, rapid vaccination can help to address additional costs for treatment and hospitalization of severely ill patients. 

References

• Bartsch, S. M., O’Shea, K. J., Wedlock, P. T., Strych, U., Ferguson, M., Bottazzi, M. E., Randall, S. L., Siegmund, S. S., Cox, S. N., Hotez, P. J., & Lee, B. Y. (2021). The benefits of vaccinating with the first available COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2021.01.001
• Geiger, D. (2021, January 14). Weigh the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine against the risk for infection. Duke health. https://www.dukehealth.org/blog/weigh-benefits-of-covid-19-vaccine-against-risk-infection
• Koplon, S. (2021, January 15). Why it’s safe and important to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The University of Alabama at Birmingham. https://www.uab.edu/news/youcanuse/item/11797-why-it-s-safe-and-important-to-get-the-covid-19-vaccine