The Health Pulse: A healthy dose of vaccine reality

SAS Medical Director Steve Kearney joins Greg to discuss COVID-19 vaccines and what the early data is telling us about how the massive effort to vaccinate the world’s population is going. Data gives us insight around how vaccination is going for different populations and locales, the logistics involved in the effort, and importantly, how we can get vaccines to underserved populations. Health outcomes data plays a role in educating the public and encouraging vaccination. It can also be used to clear up misperceptions around the efficacy of approved vaccines. We simply don’t have the data yet to compare one vaccine head-to-head with another with so many variables at play. What about those underserved populations? The data shows us that vaccination in these communities may actually be progressing much more than the early, static data initially suspected. Understanding gaps in data, the data you have and what the data you have can and cannot tell you is paramount. And, real-time data is much more accurate than static data points when conditions are changing rapidly on the ground. Unfortunately, many governments did not have real-time data around the pandemic and vaccination efforts until recently. Greg and Steve end their conversation on a positive note by looking at what good news we’re learning from the data. For example, mass vaccination sites seem to be working. People are motivated to get vaccinated to stay well, protect others and get back to normal life.  All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.