Posted on June 25, 2021 by abyssum
The Health Sciences Institute
 

 COVID: The Vaccine Numbers ProblemThe race is on… and it’s all we seem to hear about these days. 

There’s a massive effort to vaccinate billions of people around the world against this deadly coronavirus. 

Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg and the New York Times all have global vaccination trackers so we can follow the rest of the world’s progress. 

But are these global vaccine numbers as reliable as they seem? Do they really mean what we think they mean?

If you ask me, our global vaccination figures are deeply flawed… and far too rosy. 

And there’s a very simple reason why. 

Warning Shots
Hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens have been injected with China’s vaccines, such as the Sinopharm and CoronaVac jabs. 

And these shots have been distributed throughout the developing world and are being used heavily in countries like Turkey and Brazil. 

The problem is that there are lots of questions about how well these vaccines work, and how long the protection lasts. In one of CoronaVac’s trials, it was only about 50% effective. 

That’s better than nothing, sure. But you can see the problem… many of the people we’re counting as vaccinated may not have the protection we think. 

All the way back in April, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention admitted that the Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates.” 

And he seems to be right. The African nation of Seychelles saw a spike in coronavirus cases even after vaccinating most of its residents, and the nation had to go back into a lockdown. 

The primary vaccine they were using was the Chinese Sinopharm jab. 

Now, talking about coronavirus vaccines always stirs up a lot of emotions in people. Some people believe they’re a gift to modern medicine, and some wouldn’t touch them with a 10-foot pole. 

But facts are facts. And the fact is, the United States has access to much better vaccines than much of the rest of the world.

And that’s not something we need to apologize for, by the way. America had arguably the worst coronavirus outbreak on Earth, and American taxpayers helped fund the rapid development of vaccines. 

But this does leave us with a problem…

I think you can argue that the number of people we’re claiming as vaccinated worldwide is inflated. The real number of people who have true, legitimate protection could be much lower, due to inferior vaccines. 

And that’s troubling for a couple of reasons. We know that the more this coronavirus spreads, the more opportunities it has to mutate. 

But there are also serious logistical problems. There’s plenty of talk about wealthy nations, including the United States, donating higher quality vaccines around the world. 

That will help with people who haven’t been vaccinated… but what do you do about people who may have inferior shots in their arms already?

Can you really convince them to roll up their sleeves again… and is it even medically sound and safe to give them another vaccine?

There are no easy answers here. 

We’ve seen lots of good progress in our fight against coronavirus in America. But we need the rest of the world to succeed, too, or their problems could become our problems. 

And right now, I think we have to admit that we don’t know if many countries are successfully protecting themselves from the virus or not. We’re going to have to keep focusing on the metrics that really matter, like hospitalizations and deaths. 

Because these countries’ vaccination numbers may say one thing… but the reality on the ground could prove very different. 

To Your Health,
Sarah Regan
Health Sciences Institute

About abyssum

I am a retired Roman Catholic Bishop, Bishop Emeritus of Corpus Christi, Texas
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