The U.S. is pinning its hopes on a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine, but will a vaccine alone be enough to stop the pandemic and allow life to return to normal?
The answer depends on how “good” the vaccine ends up being.
In a study published July 15 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, my colleagues and I used a computer simulation of every person in the country to show how effective a vaccine would have to be and how many people would have to get vaccinated to end the pandemic. We found that a coronavirus vaccine’s effectiveness may have to be higher than 70 percent or even 80 percent before Americans can safely stop relying social distancing. By comparison, the measles vaccine has an efficacy of 95-98 percent, and the flu vaccine is 20-60 percent.
That doesn’t mean a vaccine that offers less protection would be useless, but it would mean social distancing in some form may still be necessary.
