The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced late last week that nearly 50 percent of all eligible U.S. adults have now received at least one dose of one of the COVID-19 vaccines. Some 80 percent of those over age 65 are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and about 30 percent of all Americans are now fully protected.
This is good news, but it isn’t yet the herd immunity that the public health experts say the U.S. needs to finally climb out of the pandemic hole. Especially when virulent variants of the virus are multiplying. In addition to the UK, the South African, and the Brazilian variant, there is now a California variant of the coronavirus.
Today is President Joe Biden’s deadline for all states to open vaccination appointments to all adults age 16 and up. Since many of the new cases of the variants are occurring in younger demographics, this is good news. But as the country reaches this date, daily cases of new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. have passed 70,000 and several states have backed off statewide public health orders.
Fed by anti-vaccine rhetoric, conservative talk show hosts, such as Tucker Carlson on Fox News, have continued that disinformation attacking the very vaccines that can get us to herd immunity while encouraging their audiences to ignore public health orders or do something as simple as wear facemasks. Flaming anti-vaccine rhetoric is also a Russian propaganda ploy.
One wonders if, when those refusing to get vaccinated get COVID, if they’re going to refuse to go to the hospital, and leave medical care to those who actually obeyed public health orders.
The 
CDC says that research has shown that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are 95 and 94 percent effective, respectively, while the Johnson & Johnson one-dose vaccine is 86 percent effective against COVID-19. What isn’t known yet is how long the vaccinations will last. We know that it is at least six months, and it could be nine months, or even longer. They do say that as time goes on, we’ll all likely need annual COVID shots just like we get annual flu vaccines
One thing is known for certain; for those who are vaccinated, even if they get what is being called a breakthrough infection of the virus, which is rare but statistically possible, it will be a less virulent, mild case of the virus. That, in and of itself, is reason enough to get vaccinated.
CCPH’s information on life after your COVID-19 vaccine. Courtesy of CCPH.
Unlike the message coming from many conservative media, COVID-19 is not over. According to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Tracking Center, this past weekend, the planet passed three million dead from COVID 19 and that count is rising.
As state after state (including Colorado) are relaxing public health orders, cases of the virus are rising. It is surging in countries like India, the largest democracy in the world (which had 214,000 cases diagnosed just on Saturday), and Brazil.
In Brazil the highly infectious and lethal variant of the virus, the P1 variant isn’t just rising in adults, it has impacted a large number of children. Brazil has a president who early on called the virus a hoax, and refused to issue public health orders to reduce the spread. In addition, the country has no contact tracing system, and health officials report unchecked transmission.
For those who are tired of public health orders and want their freedom back; COVID-19 cannot be wished away. The road back to some version of “normal” is through the vaccines. Those who claim otherwise are part of the disinformation campaign.
Recent Comments