Editorial: Vaccine success depends on keeping track of second-dosers
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In boxing, a simple balled-up fist, delivered quick and hard, is the basic blow. But the sport depends on a strategic combination of attacks. The most basic is the one-two punch.
It starts with a jab — a quick, straight punch delivered hard and fast like a bullet. That is followed up with a right cross — powerful and unexpected, it hits sideways to finish the job.
This also was the design behind two of the three coronavirus vaccines in use in the United States.
While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is just a single shot, the Pfizer and Moderna injections have, from the beginning, relied on the power of the one-two punch.
Like in boxing, this combo also starts with a jab. The initial shot jump starts the immune system, with measured effectiveness against covid-19 of about 65%. A few weeks later, however, the second shot delivers the right cross, pushing immunity as high as 95%. For those in the 5% who do contract the virus, the vaccines are almost 99% effective in preventing hospitalization or death.
But those numbers depend on the two-shot design. Show up for just one, and the math is thrown off.
That is an important distinction as national and statewide goals are for 70% full vaccination, not the halfway mark. The problem is UPMC and Allegheny Health Network are seeing 5% to 10% of those who get their first shot not showing up for their second.
The bigger problem is the lack of tracking by the state. While both hospital networks say they believe a portion of those who haven’t come back to them for a second dose have gotten that shot elsewhere, the state Department of Health isn’t following up to find out.
If the state and federal government believe the one-two punch of the shot protocol is as important as it is deemed, this seems like a blatant failure on Pennsylvania’s part. How do you know you have hit the 70% mark if you aren’t tracking all the second doses?
That effective combination works for more than just the science of the shot itself. It’s also part of the mechanism of organization that has to carry through the process.
Pushing Pennsylvanians to get the shot is just the first jab. The right cross is the follow-through — the state’s responsibility to keep the tally that shows the difference between where we are and where we need to be.