With the COVID-19 vaccine second dose dates quickly approaching for health professionals and other members of the first priority group who were vaccinated in March, the Ministry of Health and Wellness is reiterating the importance of vaccine take-up by individuals who have received their first dose to ensure the vaccine’s efficacy.

Addressing Parliament on Wednesday (April 21), Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton said that, while he would not be going into the clinical explanations as to why receiving the second dose of the vaccination is a necessity, “it is important that once you have gotten one, you get the second”.

This, however, was not the first occasion during which Tufton relayed the importance of receiving the second vaccine dose.

During the most recently held COVID Conversations on Wednesday (April 14), Tufton said that “you lose significant protection over time, if you only take one dose”.

He added that, “you become as vulnerable as you are, or almost, in three, four, five months if the second dose is not applied. To achieve the full protection you need the second dose”.

On a similar note, Chief Medical Officer Dr Jacquiline Bisasor McKenzie, outlined that, “the vaccine consists of two doses. (As a result) you are only considered to be fully vaccinated 14 days or thereabouts after your second dose”.

The CMO also argued, that “the protection against COVID-19 increases after the first dose and it is best after receiving the second dose at approximately eight to 12 weeks after the first dose”.

On the matter of vaccine efficacy, Bisasor-McKenzie noted that, “after you’ve taken the first dose, the protection that you get, this 70-odd per cent efficacy rate, actually decreases over time and what some new studies are showing… is that after 90 to 120 days, you’re getting as low as 31 per cent efficacy rate. So there is a considerable decrease in the protection that is afforded if you do not get the second dose of the vaccine”.

Given this information, Tufton is appealing to persons who have received their first dose to be “brave and bold” and make that commitment to receiving the second dose.

Second dose vaccinations for individuals among the first batch to be inoculated in March are set to begin during the first week of May.