Thursday, May 6, 2021

Are vaccines enough to protect us from COVID-19? Swiss cheese model explanation

Contributed by Dr. Ashok Tamhankar & Dr. Nishtha Khatri

Most of us are relying on vaccines for a complete protection against COVID-19. However, scientists say that jabs are not a sufficient enough measure to protect us from COVID-19. As per the Swiss cheese model, there is no single measure that can provide a 100 % protection. As shown in the diagram below, each layer represents a protection but every layer has certain holes or deficits which can allow the infection to enter. Hence, the protection will be maximal only if there are several layers of protection, i.e. social distancing, masking, hand sanitisation, contact tracing along with vaccination.