Dear Editor,

I JOIN the call by Dr. Leslie Ramsammy imploring Guyanese to take the vaccination ‘jab’; it helps with protection against the deadly coronavirus. My personal experience and that of family members and others who took the ‘jab’ and from my examination of data of the Greater Richmond Hill area in Queens affirm that the vaccine boosts protection. The infection rate has been going down in Richmond Hill, which recently had the highest rate of COVID in the U.S., if not globally. People who took the vaccine are ‘very (though not absolutely) protected’ against the virus.

As my investigation reveals, there are individuals who have been vaccinated but still got the virus. However, they have not been hospitalised and not died and their symptoms have been very mild, while experiencing rapid recovery. There are also Guyanese and others who have been vaccinated and were not infected when repeatedly exposed to COVID victims, including some who died. I am one of them as are many of my siblings. Hardly anyone who was fully vaccinated has died from COVID. So the vaccine works, please take it now!

Vaccines have an efficacy or intended success rate against the virus. The Moderna is 94 per cent; Pfizer 95 per cent; Sputnik 95 per cent; Covishield 82 per cent; Covaxine 72 per cent; Johnson and Johnson 72 per cent; Covishield (Serum Institute of India) and Covaxine (Bio Tech) are Indian vaccines and are being used in Guyana. Two doses of Covishield raise the efficacy level to 93 per cent, although no one has reportedly died from COVID who was vaccinated. Ditto Covaxine.

Efficacy figures suggest that even if vaccinated, one is not absolutely protected from the virus. One can still get infected, but the effects would not be severe and one will not die.
To understand efficacy, an 82 per cent efficacy rate means that out of 100 people who are vaccinated, any 18 could potentially get the virus. So far, no one has died from the vaccine itself in India or in Guyana. No vaccinated person has died in Guyana

The CDC reported that 5,800 out of 75 million fully vaccinated people in the U.S. were infected with COVID-19. Of these, 396 were hospitalised and 74 people died; very low rate (of .0075% or less than a fraction of one per cent) of infection and death. That’s impressively high. Similarly, in India, out of 145M vaccinated, only a few hundred (less than .0001 per cent) have side effects. With regard to Guyana, some 105K people have been vaccinated. With an efficacy rate of 82 per cent from AstraZeneca, then 18 per cent or 18K are at risk of getting the virus. But so far, no vaccinated person has been infected, suggesting an efficacy rate of 100 per cent. Covishield has been working in India with an efficacy rate similar to Guyana’s.

The vaccine is also working among Guyanese in New York. In looking at the infection rate in Richmond Hill, in January it was some 16 per cent. As I travelled around Richmond Hill in February and March, I noticed long lines of Indo-Guyanese and Punjabis at various testing sites set up by the city administration based on lobbying of community leaders. They are also being vaccinated. The COVID infection rate has dropped to 10 per cent in April.
There have been reports of blood-clotting in individuals taking a vaccine in the U.S. and Europe. This does not apply to the vaccine being used in India or Guyana. The Guyana vaccine is relatively safe. At any rate, one’s life is at greater risk without a vaccination. The risk of death from vaccination is extremely low – less than one per million and Guyana does not even have a million people.
The number of infections in America, Guyana, and India after being vaccinated is not alarming or a serious cause of concern. But in addition to being vaccinated, people should follow other protocols such as masking; social distancing; hand-washing; eating healthy by consuming a lot of fruits and using herbal products such as neem, tulsi, karila, and the like – they seem to work) and exercising.

Yours truly,

Dr. Vishnu Bisram