When oh when will we get a vaccine? How can we be safe until then?
There is a recurring rumor floating around that masks are as effective as vaccines. Is this so, or just something to keep us quiet until a vaccine arrives? Let’s see.
There are some heavyweights speaking up in favor of masks. Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said that wearing face masks may be more effective at protecting against COVID-19 than a vaccine. It depends on the vaccine, of course. "The best defense we currently have against this virus are the important mitigation efforts of wearing a mask, washing your hands, social distancing and being careful about crowds," Redfield said.
George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and director of the Prevention and Public Health Group at UC San Francisco, said the CDC director is "completely right. The good thing about a vaccine is you don't need to remember to put it on every day but the bad thing is, it's probably not going to work nearly as well as masks.”
How effective are vaccines? Pfizer and Moderna have each reported vaccines that were 95 percent effective in clinical trials. The AstraZeneca trial was 70 percent effective overall, with up to 90 percent efficacy in a smaller group that got a lower dosage. Different trial designs make direct comparison complicated, but even with somewhat lower protection, the AstraZeneca vaccine may be a more realistic option for much of the world, as it is likely to be less expensive and does not need to be stored at subzero temperatures.
The FDA has said it would approve a vaccine that was 50% effective. According to the CDC, the flu vaccine runs about 50% effective. The measles vaccine is about 96% effective. The mumps vaccine has high dependability, about 90%, but it only lasts about 10 years.
Masks, on the other hand, are quite effective.
A dual-layered cloth mask is enough to protect most people in public settings. You may increase the effectiveness by combining cotton with a different material in a “sandwich” fashion, such as cotton-silk-cotton. Materials chosen for the non-cotton layers were thought likely to provide good electrostatic filtering, a process that traps particles through the same kind of “cling” effect created by static electricity. Not only did the hybrid masks outperform all other two- or three-layer masks made of a single material, they were superior to N95 masks for particles smaller than 300 nanometers and only slightly inferior for larger particles.
Pretty impressive, huh?
What about viral mutations? We may say that nothing is sure in this life except death, taxes, and mutating viruses.
Put simply, a mutation is a change in the virus's set of genetic instructions the virus needs to function. When the virus makes contact with a host and starts to multiply, this set of instructions is copied, but mistakes can happen during this process. Depending on where the errors happen, they can have a negative or positive impact on the virus's ability to survive and replicate. Or they may have no impact at all.
Viruses that insert their genes into the host RNA, such as SARS-CoV-2, HIV and influenza, tend to pick up mutations quickly as they are copied inside their hosts, because enzymes that copy RNA are prone to making errors.
Mutations have been detected all over. Some mink were first discovered to have Covid-19 in Denmark. Seven countries are now reporting mink-related Sars-CoV-2 mutations in humans. Denmark, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the Faroe Islands, Russia and the US have all reported cases of mink-related mutations.
Mutations in the coronavirus have cropped up in Siberia, the head of Russia’s consumer health watchdog said. Mutations would not influence the vaccine’s effectiveness, officials claim.
The University of Texas did a study of more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients and found that the virus is accumulating genetic mutations, one of which may have made it more contagious. This mirrors a study published in July that found that around the world, viral strains with the same genetic mutation quickly outcompeted other strains. This show that the current strain of the coronavirus might be replaced with something new.
What does this mean for us? Will the vaccines be rendered useless because of mutations? I don’t know. Maybe. Will masks be rendered useless because of mutations? No. (Score another one for masks.)
More evidence for the effectiveness of masks can be found in the US Senate. Who is getting sick, the masked-up Democrats or the bare-faced Republicans?
Don’t fret while waiting for a vaccine. You’ve got this, with masks and spacing and small groups of people.
