GREEN BAY (NBC26) — Although more people are starting to get the COVID-19 vaccine, history shows it could be years before coronavirus cases no longer originate in the United States.
The World Health Organization has declared only one disease affecting humans as officially eradicated: Small pox. Others, like polio and the measles, are now controlled partially with vaccines. It's a tool health officials said they hope will do the same for the coronavirus.
"In using a vaccine strategy to address a virus, it is both a combination of a good vaccine; it is a combination of high vaccine coverage so that we achieve herd immunity; it is also about continuing to study if the virus is changing or mutating, and if we need additional boosters or repeat vaccines to keep the virus at bay," said Julie Willems Van Dijk, deputy secretary for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, during a state call Thursday.
With a slow but steady rollout, it could be awhile before the country develops a true herd immunity to the virus.
That vaccine strategy can be examined through other viruses: Because of continued vaccine use, polio hasn't originated in the U.S. since 1979 - 24 years after the initial vaccine distribution.
The virus, however, still exists in other countries, which is why people continue to get the shot.
"We have been able to stamp out polio from most of the world, except for two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Balakuntalam Sridhar, district governor-elect for Rotary District 6220.
Rotary International has been working to eliminate polio for the past 30 years. Members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and many volunteer hours to protect millions of children around the globe from contracting the disease.
During the pandemic, Sridhar said volunteers have worked to educate people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria about COVID-19. He said Rotary has raised money to provide PPE to community members in those countries.
Sridhar said it's hard to know if Rotary will extend vaccination efforts to include COVID. It's a task Sridhar said would be challenging, as the coronavirus vaccine is administered with a syringe and the polio vaccine is given orally in the countries they serve.
"We have found cures for polio prevention and we have this experience of over 65 years of dealing with this," Sridhar said. "Covid, on the other hand, is still very new and we are still understanding how this disease actually manifests."
Dr. Stephanie Schauer, program manager with the DHS division of Public Health Immunization, said during the state call Thursday the COVID-19 vaccine is comparable to the measles vaccine, which is 95 to 98 percent effective.
"We know that during measles outbreaks it can circulate and find those individuals who are not protected," Schauer said.
She said the same thing can happen with the coronavirus, which is why it's important to get the burden down and maintain a high level of immunity as soon as possible.
"I think it remains to be seen about these variants, and whether we will need boosters to go ahead and ensure that we have good protection against infection as well as severe disease."
Health officials said the key will be to use the COVID-19 vaccine to develop herd immunity, like people have done with the viruses of past.
