By Lynn Allison From Newsmax

Vince Lombardi, the great football coach, said: “There’s no such thing as perfection. But in striving for perfection, we can achieve excellence.” This pretty much sums up what experts say should be the aim and goal for the coronavirus vaccine. No vaccines are 100% effective, said Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme.

But vaccination against COVID-19, even if the product isn’t perfect, can reduce infection rates as well as the severity of the disease for many Americans.

Experts note that the flu vaccine only reduces the risk of infection by 40% to 60%. But according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, current estimates show that even if the coronavirus vaccine offers just 43% immunity, that will be enough to achieve what’s known as herd immunity. Dr. Deborah Fuller, professor of microbiology at the University of Washington, told ABC News:

“If that’s true, it’s really good news,” she said. “When you hit about 50% immunity in the population, that’s the pivot point where you will start to see a decline in the number of people getting infected.”

Experts told ABC News that a vaccine that is at least 50% effective will also help reduce the severity of the disease, decrease the likelihood of death, and also the number of cases with long-term health problems.

Fuller added that the measles virus is highly contagious and requires 93% to 95% of the population vaccinated to be effective. “For influenza, 70% vaccination rate is required, yet we fall short of that — which is why even in a typical flu season we still see 30-60,000 deaths each year,” she told ABC News.

According to the National Science Foundation, as far as we know, the measles virus is approximately 9 times more contagious than SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

When the vaccine for COVID-19 is developed, one of the biggest hurdles we will face is convincing Americans to get inoculated. According to The New York Times, mistrust of vaccines has been on the rise in the U.S. Our track record for vaccinations is not encouraging. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that only 40% to 45% of U.S. adults received the flu vaccine in the past decade, according to The Hill.

“The real war is people versus the virus, and masks and vaccines are our weapons,” said Fuller. “We need to find a way to band together as a community, as a population, to use these weapons to fight this virus. Or we risk letting this virus win.”

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