Are vaccines effective against the new strains? What role do they play in achieving herd immunity? Brut spoke to Dr Rajesh Parikh, author of The Vaccine Book, for answers...
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00:00It was found out that increasing the gap, particularly in the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine,
00:06the Covishield vaccine, as it is known in our country, confers a slightly better immunity
00:12than a shorter gap. Natural herd immunity is a rather brutal concept, but there is another
00:20level of herd immunity that gets achieved when enough people are vaccinated.
00:33So when the vaccination is given and there are different ways of doing it,
00:38the immune system starts getting prepped up and in getting prepped up, one experiences
00:45mild side effects, which are analogous to what would happen if the actual virus were there.
00:50So there will be a bit of body aches, fatigue, fever, but fortunately,
00:55this lasts just for a couple of days. On the other hand, if one doesn't get it,
01:01that's fine too. So it's just to understand that our body is now getting ready
01:06to deal with the virus as and when it comes.
01:10So what are the benefits of getting a vaccine?
01:15It's been seen that even getting a single dose of the vaccine is far, far better than getting
01:20no vaccine at all. And to an extent, it's research driven, because through a series of accidents and
01:28design, it was found out that increasing the gap, particularly in the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine,
01:35the Covishield vaccine, as it is known in our country, confers a slightly better immunity
01:42than a shorter gap. In this particular vaccine, one needs a booster dose. And even if the booster
01:49dose is delayed, the immunity conferred by the first dose is good enough to minimize the
01:56possibility of an infection, but certainly to reduce the severity. Overall, it makes sense
02:04to ensure that more people get at least one dose of the vaccine.
02:12Natural herd immunity is a rather brutal concept. But there is another level of herd immunity
02:19that gets achieved when enough people are vaccinated. So a combination of people getting
02:24vaccinated and people going through the infection and recovering contributes to this kind of herd
02:31immunity. All viruses mutate all the time. So what is a mutation? It's a naturally occurring
02:43change in the structure of a virus. This is happening all the time in all viruses. However,
02:49some mutations accidentally confer an advantage on the virus. Fortunately, so far, almost all the
02:57vaccines have been effective against all the mutant strains today, with one or two exceptions.
03:07We have conducted two of the most phenomenal vaccination campaigns in the world. And we did
03:12that when there was no COVID, the technology was just not there. And we were able to penetrate
03:19in the farthermost corners of our country, in remote areas, we just need to follow the same
03:26processes now enhanced with the use of technology. And we can do it.