Japan ends distribution of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, discards 13M doses
I tried to reply to a comment criticising Covid vaccines for not being 100% effective but by the time I replied the comment was flagged and I couldn&#x27;t reply.<p>It&#x27;s a common misconception so I did want to leave my answer here... The text I was replying to was:
&quot;Vaccines are also supposed to prevent you from getting a disease. What do you call something that does not prevent you from getting a disease. Does not prevent you from spreading it. Does not guarantee you won&#x27;t die from it. And only lasts about 4 months?&quot;<p>Have you ever had a flu shot? What about years when the flu shot was a mismatch for the most widely circulating strain of influenza? Scientists need to make predictions on the correct strain and some years they failed in their predictions and the flu shot didn&#x27;t completely protect against the most common strain. This has been happening for years, before covid.<p>It&#x27;s the same with covid vaccines, the current mrna covid vaccines were not an exact match for the most common circulating strain right now (omicron). So, of course, those vaccines will not fully prevent you getting the disease. It will reduce the symptoms, reduce the risk of severe illness (but it&#x27;s a numbers game, less severe illness cannot mean absolutely no deaths at all) in the same way a flu shot doesn&#x27;t always completely protect you.