Dr Ramakanta Panda encourages India to keep faith in the COVID vaccine

Mumbai: A lot of feedback has been pouring in after the vaccine was made available in India and the world. There is a Israeli report on hundreds getting infected. Given all the anti-vaccine sentiment, Dr Ramakanta Panda advises the citizens of India to keep faith in the process. “This is the best option we have to combat the COVID pandemic. The vaccine is very safe and people need not worry about it,” said Dr Ramakanta Panda, one of the healthcare workers, who has taken the vaccine on 23rd January.

“Even the *Flu* vaccine is only 60% effective, ” he added “Fever and body ache reaction is a healthy sign that the body is reacting and producing enough antibodies .The vaccine produces antibodies only after 7-8 days. That too after 1st injection, the vaccine gives only 50% immunity and the 2nd injection ( given 3 weeks later ) gives 90 to 95% immunity. So it is a month long process.
For the entire month, especially during 1st week- people have to continue taking precautions; otherwise, they will get infection and their body will be compromised. Despite all this, 5% of people still won’t get protection; this means that if you vaccinate a million people – 50,000 will not get protection. That’s a fair number.

There have been occasional reports of severe complications which could also be anecdotal cases , may not be related to the vaccine.