6 Real Examples That Prove The COVID-19 Vaccines Are Working

When scentists set out to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, they hoped to create a shot that was at least 50% effective. That efficacy would be enough to get some control over the pandemic and work our way out of it.

As the clinical trials advanced, scientists were stunned to see the vaccines not only hit that 50% benchmark, but were far surpassing it. And when the shots started rolling out in the real world, the data held up.

The vaccines aren’t perfect — no vaccine is. But the COVID shots come pretty close. So much so that we’re already seeing some clear signs that the vaccines have the power to defang the coronavirus, allowing us to go out and safely resume living our lives again.

Here’s how we know the vaccines are working:

Infections are free-falling as vaccinations increase

We are now seeing the lowest number of COVID cases since June 2020. On May 26, the United States reported a seven-day average of 23,162 cases — that’s a huge drop (that’s still falling) from early January, when the seven-day average was 259,614.

Cases in the U.S. started declining when about 40% of the population was vaccinated with at least one dose, which happened around April 14, said Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. Infectious diseases experts call this moment the inflection point — when there was enough immunity in the population to change the tide of the pandemic.

Hospitalizations and deaths are down

As soon as we started vaccinating the most vulnerable people in our population — the elderly and people with chronic health conditions — hospitalization and death rates plummeted. ...

Cases among kids are declining as more adults get vaccinated

Over the past four weeks, there’s been a 50% reduction in children’s cases in the U.S., which can be linked to an increase in adult (and young adult) vaccinations. This played out in Israel, too.

Vaccines decrease transmission and reduce the viral burden within communities. This is the concept of herd immunity — when there’s enough immunity in a population, through previous infection and vaccination, there are fewer opportunities for a disease to spread. ...

Vaccinated people directly exposed to COVID-19 aren’t getting sick

We often hear about rare breakthrough infections in people who are fully immunized, but we rarely talk about all the times vaccinated people didn’t get sick after they were directly exposed to someone infected with COVID.

Vaccines were rolled out in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, when infections were actively spreading. That’s never been done before. Because of that dynamic, a good portion of vaccinated people have likely been exposed to COVID-19. ...