Pamela Cruz Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
Bay Area health officials expressed full support for the three vaccines currently available in the U.S. against COVID-19, issuing a letter emphasizing the safety of the immunizations and calling on the public to get their doses.
"As local health officials, we fully support the three vaccines currently available for COVID-19. All three vaccines are safe and have been shown to be highly effective in preventing symptomatic disease and hospitalizations," notes the letter, which was released March 15.
The document notes that clinical trials of all three vaccines showed that they were 100 percent effective in preventing deaths from COVID-19, and that there is growing evidence that such immunizations also help prevent asymptomatic disease.
This, they said, means that people who have been vaccinated are unlikely to transmit COVID-19 to others who are not immunized.
"There has been much debate about the advantages of one brand of vaccine over another, but it is difficult to compare their efficacy. The different brands of COVID-19 vaccines have not been studied in head-to-head comparisons," they explained.
They noted that each of the vaccines has been studied in slightly different groups of people and tested in different phases of the pandemic.
They also noted that community transmission rates and the presence or absence of COVID-19 variants differed between studies.
"What we can say with certainty is that all three vaccines provide levels of protection that are comparable to some of the best vaccines we have for other serious infectious diseases for which we routinely vaccinate people," they stressed.
Experts advised that while working toward community immunity, "the best vaccine is the one you can get as soon as possible. Different immunizations have different storage requirements, and with current limited vaccine supplies, the same brand may not be available at all vaccine sites on a consistent basis.
They called on the public to talk to their medical provider if they have questions about the vaccine, and more information about the vaccines is available on the state's COVID-19 website.
