An IU Health official calls the success of COVID-19 vaccines in protecting people from the most serious effects of the virus as “nothing short of amazing.”
IU Health South Central Region Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dan Handel said Tuesday one number stands out to him.
“The most important statistic I’ve seen,” he said, “ … for all of the vaccines out there, the number of hospitalizations after getting the vaccine, the number of people dying of COVID after getting the vaccine, and the number of people dying from the vaccine, there’s one number for all of those – and it’s zero.”
Handel said the most telling story from the vaccines is that it prevents people from being hospitalized and it prevents deaths. And he said that the first vaccines developed have efficacy around 95 percent “is nothing short of amazing.”
Handel said south central region, which includes IU Health hospitals in Bloomington and Paoli, will have administered 30,000 shots later this week.
“We’ve now given more doses of the first vaccine than positive cases in Indiana,” Handel said. “That’s a good way to measure how we get ahead of it.”
Handel also said hospital-based vaccinations will likely go more and more to the Pfizer vaccine, which must be kept in specialized refrigeration at 70 degrees below zero. He said health departments and other vaccination sites will more likely use vaccines such as Moderna, which has proven just as effective but does not have to be kept in nearly as cold a temperature.
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