Health authorities want to vaccinate as many people as possible in the U.S.—children and adults—in order to drive down infections and deaths and fully move past the pandemic.
Inoculation of half of adults indicates the country’s vaccination campaign has left behind the supply constraints and other problems that marred its start. It comes as Covid-19 cases and deaths drop, which infectious-disease specialists attribute partly to immunizations.
“I remain cautious and hopeful they will continue to trend downward as vaccinations scale up,” CDC director
Rochelle Walensky
said.
Dr. Walensky emphasized that unvaccinated people remained at risk and needed to continue to wear a mask and abide by social-distancing guidelines.
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Since the start of the pandemic, the virus has claimed more than 590,000 lives and infected more than 33 million people in the U.S. To fight Covid-19, health authorities have asked Americans to wear face masks and physically distance, while schools and businesses closed.
Public-health experts aren’t certain as to what level of immunity from vaccination or recent infection is needed to provide widespread community protection against Covid-19. Such herd immunity would provide protection to even those who don’t have a specific immune response against the virus.
Many infectious-disease specialists say it is uncertain whether the U.S. will reach herd immunity, and the virus will probably stick around to some degree in the long term.
Instead, health authorities are trying to vaccinate as many people as possible in order to cut off transmission chains and mute the virus’s deadliness.
Daily new vaccinations, however, have dropped in recent weeks. The people who were most eager or most able to get vaccinated have likely already received at least one dose, health authorities say.
To reach those who haven’t yet been vaccinated but are open to it, health authorities have started to shift their approach.
Now health authorities are partnering with trusted community leaders to educate people about the shots, trying to make the vaccines easily accessible and, in some cases, providing monetary incentives.
“People may say all of this is frivolous. I say anything that ends the pandemic, it’s time for us to pull out now,” said
Andy Slavitt,
a senior adviser to President Biden on Covid-19.
Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have fully vaccinated 50% or more of their adult population, Mr. Slavitt said. In nine states, at least 70% of the adult population has gotten at least one dose, he said.
Adolescents have also started getting vaccinated, after the Covid-19 vaccine from
Pfizer Inc.
and partner
BioNTech SE
was recently authorized for the 12- to 15-year-olds.
Moderna Inc.
said Tuesday it would ask health regulators to permit adolescent use of its vaccine because a study found it worked safely.
New coronavirus cases in the U.S. have dropped to their lowest levels in almost a year.
The current seven-day average of new confirmed infections is 22,877 cases a day, a decrease of about 25% from the prior seven days. In early January, the seven-day average of daily new cases peaked at more than 250,000.
Hospitalizations and deaths have also steadily declined, with the seven-day average of daily deaths at 501 deaths a day.
Covid-19 Vaccination Efforts
Write to Brianna Abbott at [email protected] and Sabrina Siddiqui at [email protected]
