COVID-19 SCIENCE
Is the current global reduction in cases due to the vaccine rollout?
By Dr Juergen Ude | February 21st 2021
Cases have dropped almost 30% in one month as of middle of February 2021. Several experts have already attributed that this is due to the vaccination rollout. The reason may be to obtain greater acceptance of vaccination fearing that non-acceptance will reduce immunity and result in a greater number of deaths.
Although cases are meaningless to judge success because cases are dependent on test numbers, an analysis was performed to determine if the reduction in cases can be related to vaccinations. Figure 1 below shows that global cases have been reducing since middle of January 2021. At that time, according to What to Know About the Global COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout So Far, only 50 million doses have been administrated in the month since the first vaccines have been first administrated. That is 0.6% of the world’s population.
As of February 19th 2021, 200 million doses have been administered worldwide Covid-19 Vaccine. This is equal to 2 percent of the world’s population.
Although others may disagree, we do not believe that the 30% drop is due to such a small percent of vaccinations. Cases were already coming down before the vaccine rollout.
Figure 1: Total global cases from beginning of 2020 to February 19th 2021. The red line marks the middle of January 2021.
There is also a possibility that cases are coming up again, but more time is needed to confirm this.
At this stage, the conclusion is that it is premature to conclude the vaccinations are already having an effect. There is no evidence – yet. Time is needed now to prove how effective vaccinations are.
We are all hoping that they will be effective, so that the world can get back to normal.