As vaccinations for COVID-19 are being distributed to frontline workers, you may be asking yourself what this means for you. Even though the vaccine is currently only available to a limited group of people, the federal government is working hard to make the vaccine available to everyone. Their goal is not to have everyone vaccinated, but to achieve herd immunity. Herd immunity occurs when a specific percentage of the population has either taken the vaccine or had the disease. While they don’t know what that percentage is yet, experts are trying to figure it out.
What they do know is that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing you from getting COVID-19. The vaccine teaches the immune system how to recognize and fight off the virus. It takes a few weeks after receiving the vaccine for the body to build an immunity against the virus, so there is still a chance of contracting the virus even after you have been vaccinated until this immunity is built. It is highly recommended that even after being vaccinated you still practice the precautionary measures used before taking the vaccine.
As much as the CDC does know, there is still a lot that they don’t. They know taking the vaccine keeps the person from getting sick, but they don’t know how effective it is from stopping that person from spreading COVID-19 to others, even if the person is not sick. This area of the unknown is being evaluated by scientists, but they most likely won’t know for sure until more people are vaccinated.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/9/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-pfizer-vaccine