The COVID-19 Vaccine Will Limit Transmission — It’s Not A Magic Potion: The pandemic’s end is nowhere in sight, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

As the chaos of 2020 became more familiar with a new disaster being born every 30 days, there seemed to be no end to COVID-19 in sight and President Donald Trump’s suggestion to inject bleach was as close to a solution as we would get.

Now, roughly nine months after the first lockdown, a vaccine has been produced. But if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t get your hopes up — because normalcy is nowhere near being restored. 

The production of the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are groundbreaking, sure, but the end still isn’t near.

After conducting experiments on the different vaccines, it’s been concluded that each vaccine will require two doses, with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine requiring shots three and four weeks apart, respectively. AstraZeneca’s doses will be given a month apart, with the second dose being half of the initial dosage. The second you get the first vaccine doesn’t mean your basement parties are back on, you have to wait until the second dosage works into your bloodstream.

Because of this, the process is prolonged and results will be sparse. So hold onto your masks and hoarded hand-sanitizer collection — and please, hold off on the massive COVID-infested parties. 

Now more than ever, masking-up and socially distancing will be crucial in the stages of distributing the vaccine for it to actually be effective. A COVID vaccine isn’t going to save individual lives, it will save many lives once the mass population is immune — so precautions are crucial until that occurs.

At the earliest, life will be back to “normal” next fall according to NPR. The mindset of asking yourself the question, “If the vaccine was created today, what would I do” is tempting. But there’s been too many losses to get caught up in that fantasy now.

According to Public Health Expert in Infectious Disease Epidemiology Lisa Lee and public health ethics officials who previously worked at the CDC, the vaccine will be allocated in January, in contrast to the original distribution promise of December. 

It’s important to keep in mind that the vaccine isn’t a magic potion. The vaccine will be most effective in limiting the transmission of the virus. But we won’t be able to completely stop wearing masks and social distancing anytime soon, according to Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony S. Fauci. 

Continuing to wear masks and following public health measures isn’t a difficult thing to do. This should be expected. Following the health mitigations and the vaccine rolling out go hand in hand, it cannot be one or the other. 

The vaccine gets distributed to health officials and the elderly before it’ll come even close to kids and teenagers — so we’ve got months ahead of us. Until then, we need to do our part of staying safe for the sake of ourselves and others.

So, individuals must have the mindset that each of their actions impact the bigger picture and remember that they represent the population. Even if you’re not first priority for the vaccination, you can still do the part of decreasing the spread of the disease, without the vaccination. 

The stricter we are on ourselves now, the sooner this pandemic that has plagued our lives for the past year will be gone.