Could COVID-19 Vaccination be A Magic Bullet to Stop the Ongoing Pandemic?
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the global pandemic causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona virus -2 (SARS CoV-2), has devastated the world resulting in 215,569,910 infections and 4,490,024 deaths till Late August 2021 (1). As it is normal for viruses to evolve over time through mutations, several variants of COVID-19 viruses are reported globally including the latest and more notorious Delta variant. As a result, since its onset in late 2019, the pandemic is going on in waves throughout the world. At this moment, the world is being hit with the third wave caused by the Delta variant.A herd immunity level of 60% -70% is crucial to control the spread of infections during this pandemic, and vaccine was considered to be the magic bullet (2-5). All the countries around the world started the COVID-19 vaccination campaign during late 2020 and early 2021. Though COVID-19 vaccines are said safe and effective in protecting people the diseases, a recent study on COVID-19 cases shows that people who are vaccinated (irrespective of the types of vaccine) have good immunity at first, but quickly become more vulnerable to the fast-spreading Delta variant. COVID-19 vaccines included in this study (Pfizer–BioNTech, Oxford–AstraZeneca) are effective against the highly infectious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 — but their protection drops away over time (6).Although it is evidenced that the vaccines are protective of COVID-19 virus including the new variants, the gradual waning of protective efficacy hints as this pandemic cannot be under control in the near future. As the vaccine could not be a standalone preventive measure in limiting the spread of the virus, sticking to the original preventive measures including community sensitization and mobilization, physical distancing measures, hand washing/ sanitizing, case tracing and detection are still the main stay.