A virologist at the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research (KCCR), Dr Michael Owusu, has revealed that there is the tendency for vaccinated persons to become channels for spreading the COVID-19 virus.

According to him, it’s imperative for vaccinated persons to adhere to safety protocols as they are equally likely to contract the virus. This, he explained, is as a result of the large unvaccinated population within the country.

“The people having the mindset that they’ll take the vaccine and because of that they’ll take off the masks… is not very safe for us. Population-wise, we are looking at 30 million people and we have only about 100,000 doses. We’ve done close to a million and it’s woefully inadequate. We have large number of people who are still susceptible and those who have vaccinated can still become reservoirs for the many susceptible population that are around if they don’t mask up.

“These can contribute to several waves that will come. So, until you hit your 70% herd immunity… you cannot advise that people should take vaccines and just do what they’re doing”.
Dr Michael Owusu

J&J expedites decrease in hospitalization rate

Dr Owusu further noted that the Johnson and Johnson vaccines do not prevent individuals from contracting the COVID-19 virus.

That notwithstanding, he explained that the vaccine does minimize the drastic symptoms and hospitalization rate infected persons experience.

Additionally, the KCCR virologist further cautioned vaccinated persons to mask up because they can “transmit to somebody who hasn’t taken the vaccine in the first place”.

“What they have stated in their drug insert is that, the efficacy after fourteen days is 76.7% and then after twenty-eight days it’s 85.4%. So, what it means is that, this is against hospitalization and severe disease or critical illness. For things like asymptomatic, it’s about just 66.9%. It is possible that when you take the vaccine, like for Astrazeneca, you’ll not develop severe illness and you’re not likely to die. But you can be infected [and] you can transmit as well. Because transmission and infection is something that most vaccines are not strong at doing.

“So, the key outcome that has been measured and found to work well is against hospitalization, critical illness and deaths. This is what we all want. The vaccines are working well when we talk about hospitalization and deaths”.
Dr Michael Owusu

Efficacy of Johnson and Johnson vaccines

Commending government and GHS for the mass inoculation, Dr Owusu further extolled the “efficacy” of the J & J vaccines against the virus.

“The other good thing is that this vaccine has also some good efficacy rates, looking at numbers close to ninety percent efficacy against hospitalization and critical deaths. Then also, after taking the vaccines we expect that after fourteen days you should also have mounted the highest antibody level.

“So, it’s also one advantage… if we are able to give these to many people as possible. That, we’ll be able to reduce the impact of the third wave we’re having. Which means that in two weeks’ time, many people are more likely to attain the highest antibody and therefore, in a month’s time we can already predict that we are likely to have a reduction in cases for some hotspots”.
Dr Michael Owusu